Contact: Don Feder, 508-405-1337, don@worldcongress.org; The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, 815-964-5819, media@worldcongress.org

SYDNEY, Australia, May 22, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- World Congress of Families VII (Sydney, May 15-18, 2013) concluded on Saturday. The first Congress in the Asia-Pacific region, the first in the Southern Hemisphere and the first in an English-speaking country was judged an overwhelming success.

World Congress of Families VII was also the first Congress with an economic theme -- "Happy Families, Healthy Economy: A New Vision for National Prosperity and Social Progress."

A distinguished roster of speakers -- including economists, social scientists, demographers, parliamentarians, businessmen and leaders of the international pro-family movement -- came from Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, the United States, Nigeria, the Philippines, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Mexico, France, Bolivia, India, the United Kingdom, Fiji and the Vatican.

Plenary and concurrent sessions covered such timely topics as: The Causes And Cost of Family Breakdown – What Families Are Best for the Economy? -- Will the Human Family Survive: Can We Prosper with Small Families? -- Philosophical Roots of the Cultural Revolution -- Secular Humanism and Family Values -- Demographic Winter -- Masculinity and Femininity -- The Impact on Children of Legalizing "Same-Sex Marriage" -- Economic and Social Costs of Abortion -- Healing Post-Abortion Trauma -- Work of the Home: A True Profession -- AIDS Prevention through Strengthening Families -- Marriage as An Instrument of Human Development -- Promoting Families In the Mainstream and Online Media -- Consumerism and The Soul -- Defending Faith In An Age of Christophobia -- The Pornography Industry -- and Reaching the Next Generation with a Pro-Family Message.

World Congress of Families VII also included a parliamentary forum, a business forum, youth session, leadership training, the screening of a number of documentaries, and a cultural program.

World Congress of Families Executive Director Larry Jacobs thanked the Organizing Committee, headed by Mrs. Mary Louise Fowler, "for all of your hard work and sacrifice to make WCF VII Sydney 2013 a success."

Jacobs added: "Many of the delegates commented that the quality and the spirit of the speakers and program was one of the best at any Congress. Indeed, the high percentage of representation from pro-family leaders worldwide made networking very easy, effective and extremely fruitful.  Many new pro-family and pro-life projects and initiatives have already sprung up and countless more are happening without our involvement or awareness."

At its closing session on May 18, the delegates to WCF VII unanimously adopted The Sydney Declaration, which reads in part:

"The productive economy requires strong natural families to sustain its existence over time. Experience shows that only natural family households can reliably shape the virtues which make fruitful economic exchanges possible.... In a related manner, natural families are the most reliable source for what economists call new 'human capital' -- children born into stable, loving homes with the best prospects for growing into healthy, intelligent, creative, and morally-grounded young adults, who are -- in turn -- the most likely to become productive and engaged citizens and the least likely to become dependents on the state."

Jacobs concluded: "Ultimately, we should never be satisfied with just a good event but will be judged in part by how we proceed with the new commitments, friendships, information, direction and momentum that was created.  As we look ahead to World Congress of Families VIII in Moscow, in 2014, to regional events spanning the globe and to working with our 40 Partners and allied organizations in over 80 countries, we must, and we will, apply the lessons learned in Sydney to preserving marriage, protecting human life at every stage, securing parental rights, and strengthening the connection between the family and modern economies."

Past Congresses have been held in Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw (2007), Amsterdam (2009) and Madrid (2012). World Congress of Families VIII is scheduled from September 10-12 in Moscow, the Kremlin, in 2014.

The World Congress of Families Second Caribbean Conference -- Building a Culture of Life & Civilization of Love -- will take place at in Trinidad, June 14-15.  Click here for more information: wcfcaribbean2013.org.

For more information on World Congress of Families, please visit www.worldcongress.org. To schedule an interview with Larry Jacobs, contact Don Feder at 1-508-405-1337.

The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society (www.profam.org) is located in Rockford, Illinois and is an independent, non-profit research and education center that provides sound scholarship and effective strategies to affirm and defend the natural family, thus renewing a stable and free society.  The Howard Center is the publisher of the journal, "The Family In America" and is also the organizer of the World Congress of Families (WCF) project which is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and inter-faith people of goodwill from more than 80 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 Dr. Allan Carlson, President of The Howard Center.  To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families -- Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw, Poland (2007) and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009).  World Congress of Families VI was held in Madrid, Spain in May 25-27, 2012.  World Congress of Families VII will be held in Sydney, Australia, May 15-18, 2013, www.wcfsydney2013.org.au.