Contact: Larry Jacobs, 815-964-5819, 513-515-3685 cell, larry@worldcongress.org; Don Feder, 508-405-1337, both with the World Congress of Families

MEDIA ADVISORY, May 2 /Christian Newswire/ -- World Congress of Families International Secretary Allan Carlson today expressed sadness at the death of Archbishop Kazimierz Majdanski, who passed away on Sunday, April 29, and called the Archbishop “a hero of the family.”

Archbishop Majdanski died at age 91, exactly 62 years after he was freed from the Dachau concentration camp. As a young seminarian, Majdanski was one of thousands of Polish priests imprisoned by the Nazis. That experience, including being subjected to medical experiments, took a permanent toll on his health.

After his release and ordination, Archbishop Majdanski dedicated himself to the “civilization of life” including the family. In 1975, he established the Warsaw-based Institute for Studies on the Family, with help from his good friend Pope John Paul II, then Archbishop Wojtyla.

In a letter to Dr. Monika Wojcik and Fr. Jaroslaw Szymczak of the Institute, Carlson observed of Archbishop Majdanski: “He was an extraordinary man, whose personal story is a testimony to the power of Christian hope. Armed with only his faith, Archbishop Majdanski faced down both the Nazis and the communists. With prescient wisdom, he saw that the core struggle in our civilization was over the nature of the family, and he co-founded your Institute as a vehicle to affirm and defend the Natural Family. He will continue to serve as an inspiration and example to family advocates the world over.”

When the International Planning Committee for World Congress of Families IV (May 11-13) met in Warsaw last year, it visited the Institute and had an opportunity to converse with Archbishop Majdanski. “I will always remember his lively and intelligent eyes, his humor and his wisdom,” Carlson recalled. “World Congress of Families IV, which convenes in 10 days, will be dedicated to his memory.”

For more information on World Congress of Families IV (held in Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science, May 11-13), visit our website, www.worldcongress.org or our international website in six languages at www.worldcongress.pl.

To schedule an interview with Allan Carlson, contact Larry Jacobs at 1-800-461-3113 or 815-964-5819

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 seeks to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the ‘seedbed’ of civil society.  The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org).  To date, there have been three World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999) and Mexico City (2004).  WCF IV will be in Warsaw, Poland, May 11-13, 2007.