WCF XI Budapest Family Summit Launches Worldwide Pro-Family Revolution

More than two thousand people, many of them young people, gathered in Budapest’s Heroes Square to celebrate the WCF XI Congress and their support for the natural family. Watch their amazing synchronized dance performance here.

At the magnificent Heroes’ Square in Budapest, you can gaze on the impressive statues ofbrave individuals who over the last millennium have preserved and protected the nation ofHungary. But those of us attending the World Congress of Families XI: The Budapest Family Summit were moved by some of Hungary’s living heroes, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Minister Zoltán Balog, and Minister Katalin Novák who, speaking in their native Hungarian—a language unique in all the world—proclaimed universal truths about marriage and family.

Addressing the theme of the Congress, Building Family-Friendly Nations, Making Families Strong Again, Hungary declared, “The family is the basic, natural, living unit of the nation, upon which every community and the nation itself is founded. The wellbeing of the family is the key to the nation’s future quality of life. The family is the national, European, and global common ground which we have to protect with utmost care.” And Hungary is providing that protection, beginning with its unequivocal commitment in its recently adopted constitution: “We hold that the family and the nation constitute the principal framework of our coexistence, and that our fundamental cohesive values are fidelity, faith, and love…. Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman established by voluntary decision, and the family as the basis of the nation’s survival.

Another of Hungary’s living heroes is its luminary soccer star Zoltan Gera, whose heroic performances on the field are outshined only by his heroic role as a devoted husband and father. By the merest coincidence following the Congress, I happened to be eating in the same restaurant as Zoltan and his wife and their two small children. Although I am not an autograph seeker, I decided to ask if he might be willing to provide his signature for my sports-minded sons back home. Zoltan graciously arose and engaged me in conversation, providing his autograph and asking me about myself. When I mentioned I was with the World Congress of Families, he said that his wife and children had just danced in the festival held in conjunction with the Congress. He then smiled and added that he doesn’t dance. I suspect that many Hungarians might disagree as they have watched his incredible overhead-kick goals and back-flip celebrations. What impressed me in speaking with him was the tender care he gave his family as his children played contentedly at the table with him and his wife.

Hungary’s heroes are lighting the way for the rest of the world as they protect and strengthen the family, the foundation of their nation and all nations everywhere. Addressing the Congress in its closing moments, IOF President Brian Brown called on all to rise up and be the heroes the world needs. “When you go back to your countries, when you go back to your communities, remember what you have heard here, and take action. Realize the possibilities. Don’t think about what can’t be done; think about what can be done. Start something new. This is a beginning. I have no doubt that by all of us coming here, seeing what we’ve seen and hearing what we’ve heard, we are going to go out and make the world a better place. Make sure you are part of that.”

Nicole King, editor of IOF‘s The Natural Family, an international journal ofresearch and policy, was interviewed by Issues, Etc., a Christ-centered talk radio program, where she debunked the idea promoted by New York Times Magazine that so-called “open marriages” make for happier marriages. (See related article below.)

Listen to the interview here →

In an exceptionally long and detailed narrative, Susan Dominus argues for the benefits of so-called “open marriage” (what used to be called “adultery”) in the New York Times Magazine. The feature followed the stories of several “nonmonogamous” couples (apparently the couples prefer that term to the more complicated-sounding “polyamorous”) in their journeys to “opening up” their marriages. What most of the relationships have in common is that somehow, sex outside of the marriage makes the marriage stronger, as long as “transparency” and rules are in place to keep anything going “too far.” But research that reveals that, no matter what you call adultery, it still kills marriages.

Read more → at The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy