World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs stated: “The World Congress of Families is delighted to join with other organizations in celebrating National Marriage Week USA, February 7-14, 2011.”
The organizers of National Marriage Week (http://www.nationalmarriageweekusa.org) call for strengthening the institution of marriage and celebrating the joy and fulfillment that marriage brings.
Jacob’s noted that the WCF Amsterdam Declaration, adopted at the conclusion of World Congress of Families V (2009), proclaims: “In solidarity with earlier WCF Declarations, we define the natural family to rest on the lifelong marriage of a man and a woman, for the purposes of welcoming and nurturing new human life, providing love, companionship and mutual support, building a home rich in functions, and strengthening the bonds of the generations.”
The Amsterdam Declaration calls for “sound laws and policies that will: support the natural institution of marriage; discourage divorce, especially when children are involved; protect the primary rights of parents to guide their children’s moral and practical education; protect the physical, mental, social and spiritual development of children; and guard vulnerable human life, especially at the beginning and end of the life cycles.” Click here for the full Amsterdam Declaration.
World Congress of Families International Secretary Dr. Allan Carlson is the author of “Conjugal America: On the Public Purposes of Marriage,” from Transaction Publishers. In it, Carlson re-examines the basic bond of marriage to procreation. For more information on “Conjugal Marriage,” click here.
Jacobs remarked: “It’s not surprising that the worldwide decline of marriage has coincided with a precipitous drop in fertility – 50% worldwide since the late 1960s. Demographers believe this birth-dearth will lead to depopulation sometime in this century. According to a Pew Research Survey, in 1960, two-thirds of those in their twenties were married, compared to only 26% in 2008”
“By highlighting the importance of marriage to our culture, National Marriage Week USA is providing an invaluable service,” Jacobs added.
In 2011, World Congress of Families will hold regional conference events in Riga (Latvia), London, Moscow – a first-ever Demographic Summit – and Lagos (Nigeria). Spain, India, Australia and Russia have submitted bids for World Congress VI (2012) or VII (2013).
For more information on World Congress of Families, visit www.worldcongress.org. To schedule an interview with Larry Jacobs or Allan Carlson, contact Don Feder at 508-405-1337.
The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society (www.profam.org) located in Rockford, Illinois is an independent, non-profit research and education center that strives to be the leading source of fresh ideas and new strategies for affirmation and defense of the natural family, both nationally and globally. The Howard Center is also the organizer of the World Congress of Families project which unites people of goodwill who recognize that the family is the fundamental unit of society and coordinates the efforts of pro-family groups from more than 60 countries worldwide.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60 countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the ‘seedbed’ of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois. To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007). The World Congress of Families V was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 (www.worldcongress.org).