WASHINGTON, April 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At a recent meeting of the International Selection Committee, Madrid was unanimously recommended as the site of World Congress of Families VI – May 25-27, 2012.  The recommendation was subsequently accepted by the WCF Management Committee.

The Selection Committee met in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), and was hosted by SWBTS President Paige Patterson and his wife, Dorothy, also a member of the Committee.

WCF VI was awarded to a local organizing committee headed by Ignacio Arsuaga, president of the Spanish pro-family group HazteOir.Org ("Speak Out!"), a World Congress of Families Partner.

The 2012 Congress will take place at the Palacio de Congresos de Madrid on the main thoroughfare of the Spanish capital.

Themes of the Madrid Congress will include: Family and Marriage, Life and Bioethics, Demography, and Education and Religious Freedom. The slogan of WCF VI is "Family and Marriage: The Future of Society."

WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs commented: "We're delighted that World Congress of Families VI will be held in Madrid in little more than a year to encourage, unite, and strengthen the Spanish pro-family and pro-life movement. The government of Jose Luis Zapatero is notoriously anti-family and has instituted homosexual marriage and a so-called Gender Identity Law, while expanding legal abortion.  It's time for pro-family forces to go on the offensive in Spain and reverse the ethical wrongdoings and radical social engineering legalized by Zapatero."

Spain also feels the chill of Demographic Winter. The nation has a birthrate of only 1.47 children per woman, with 2.13 needed just to replace current population.

At the same time, Jacobs noted, "Spain has a vibrant, well-organized pro-life/pro-family movement. On March 26, more than 200,000 demonstrators filled the streets of 70 Spanish cities to celebrate International Day for Life."

Jacobs continued, "With new national elections scheduled for March of 2012 – roughly two-months before WCF VI -- we're confident the Congress will have a positive impact on the debate over the future of the Spanish family."

Ignacio Arsuaga responded: "We are very excited about organizing the next World Congress of Families in Madrid (WCF VI).   Spain is a country where the left-secularists have attacked the family very harshly in recent times.  We are eager to interact with and learn from the most effective pro-family leaders, scholars and religious figures who have fought the culture war in their own countries." Click here for the website of HazteOir.org.

Previous World Congresses of Families have been held in Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw (2007) and Amsterdam (2009).

This year, World Congress of Families will co-convene the following regional events: The Third Riga Family Forum (May 13, in Latvia), Marriage and Family Conference (May 18-22, Sydney, Australia ), The Future of The Family In Coalition Britain (June 29), The Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind (June 29-30) and International Law Conference On Women and Children (July 14-15, Lagos, Nigeria). Click here for the March/April issue on World Congress of Families News, with stories on all of these conferences.

Click here or visit www.worldcongress.org for more information on World Congress of Families. To schedule an interview with Larry Jacobs, contact WCF Communications Director Don Feder at 508-405-1337 or dfeder@rcn.com.

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).  World Congress of Families V was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 (www.worldcongress.org).

SOURCE World Congress of Families