During World War II, Poland suffered terrible destruction and loss of life at the hands of her invaders. Now, once more, Poland is in the frontline of another world war - a culture war - in which her conspicuously pro-family stance has provoked the wrath of the European Union. Babette Francis, who was recently in Warsaw to speak at the fourth World Congress of Families, reports. |
| Warsaw. |
Before the opening in Warsaw of the recent fourth World Congress of Families, speakers who had flown in from around the world went on a history tour of the city.We saw monuments commemorating tragic events that engulfed Poland during and after World War II. One was a memorial to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in which Jews were either killed by the Nazis or transported in cattle-trucks to extermination camps.
Another was a memorial to the thousands of Polish officers captured by Soviet forces at the beginning of the war and slaughtered in early 1940 in Katyn Forest in western Russia and elsewhere.
These two monuments reminded us that Poland, during the war, was caught between two barbaric regimes - which would eventually turn on each other - but in the meantime inflicted enormous suffering on the Polish people.
Battle for soul of EuropePoland is again in the front line of another world war - a moral battle for the soul of Europe and the world. Its two enemies are the population control/abortion industry and the homosexual movement.
The agency of oppression, the European Union, is demanding that Poland obey regulations by the European Parliament in Brussels to provide abortion, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage.
A European Parliament resolution in April condemned Poland for being "hateful" and "repulsive" for refusing to permit the promotion of homosexuality in schools The resolution threatened that "homophobic" countries such as Poland would be taken to court.
Warsaw was the location this year for the fourth World Congress of Families (May 11-13), originally founded by American author and researcher, Dr Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society.
The congress was attended by a gathering of 3,300 delegates from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe (including Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia), Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Ironically, this pro-family event was held in a massive exhibition centre, originally named the
Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. A postwar "gift" from the Soviet Union to the people of Poland, it is the tallest building in Poland and is known as "a Stalin wedding-cake".
Once, during World War II, Soviet dictator Stalin mockingly asked: "How many divisions has the Pope?" One could say that, six decades later, they were present in force at the World Congress of Families IV. The aura of the famous late Polish pontiff, Pope John Paul II, dominated the Warsaw gathering and he was quoted by many speakers.
Speakers included Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant US secretary of state for population, refugees and immigration; Inese Slesere, member of the Latvian parliament; Christine de Vollmer, president of the Latin American Alliance for the Family; Katarzyna Mazela, vice-president of the Forum of Polish Women; Pat Fagan, research fellow at the Washington DC-based Heritage Foundation; Bill Saunders of the Family Research Council; and Father Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International.
In what could be described as its "sexual harassment" of Poland, the EU is also targetting Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, with homosexual propaganda which mandates that countries include "sexual orientation" in its anti-discrimination laws as a condition of membership and benefits in the EU. Malta is another country attacked for its pro-life laws.
However, Poland - the land of Pope John Paul II, author of
Evangelius Vitae - is the big prize. If abortion and homosexual activists can topple Poland, they think others will fall into line.
LiberationHow soon Europe forgets it was John Paul II, with his support for Poland's Solidarity movement, who achieved the non-violent liberation of his homeland from Soviet occupation.
There were other major world-players responsible for this outcome as well, such as US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; but John Paul II was the original inspiration. The Poles are proud that this liberation of their country - and of Eastern Europe - was achieved with minimal loss of life.
Roman Giertych, Poland's minister of education and deputy prime minister, and Marek Jurek, speaker of the Polish parliament, told the congress delegates that their country would not be intimidated and had no intention of acceding to the demands of the EU to provide abortion, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage, or support attacks on the traditional family.
Polish officials said Poland intended to assume a leadership role to end the demographic winter in Europe caused by a birth-rate below replacement level, and familial breakdown caused by sexual permissiveness.
Defying the EU's homosexual activism, Giertych said legislation seeking to protect children in schools from homosexual propaganda would be put forward as planned. It was "something I have to do," he said.
Pro-family credoAt its closing session, delegates endorsed the congress's Warsaw Declaration - a pro-family credo for the 21st century - whose opening words proclaim: "The natural family, creation of God, is the fundamental human community, based on the life-long marriage between a man and a woman, in which new individuals are conceived, born and raised."
On my way back to the airport, I noticed fresh flowers on the Katyn forest memorial, and in the Polish Airlines magazine I read about General Wladyslaw Sikorski, premier of Poland's government-in-exile during World War II and commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces.
On July 4, 1943, he was killed in a mysterious air crash off Gibraltar - the result, many nowadays suspect, of Soviet sabotage.
Poland is now reclaiming its history.
- Babette Francis, national coordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., was a speaker at the World Congress of Families IV.
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