Well over a thousand attended the First International Conference on Love, Life and the Family 19-21 September, 1997 in Guadalajara, Mexico. The successful event was organized by Vida Humana Internacional, the Miami-based HLI's Hispanic Division; the Archdiocese of Guadalajara and the Comité Nacional Provida de Mexico (Mexico's National Pro-life Committee).

His Eminence, Juan Cardinal Sandoval Iñiguez, a great defender of life, said: "The goal of this conference is to make society aware and to make decisions against the very serious problem of the ‘Culture' of death, a problem which must be exposed by Christians as disciples of Christ and as advocates for human life, a life which is called to eternal life".

Participants listened to experts who alerted them to the attacks Latin America is suffering at the hands of international organizations and powerful governments of "developed" countries. They were told that there is a battle going on between the "Culture" of Death and the Culture of Life. The "Culture" of Death promotes abortion, contraception and hedonistic sex "education" among other evils. The Culture of Life promotes respect for human life from the moment of conception until natural death, chastity, natural family planning (NFP)and a healthy family life -- the basis of both society and the Church.

The conference started with a Holy Mass at the beautiful Metropolitan Cathedral of Guadalajara. The Mass was presided by His Eminence Cardinal Sandoval, who is a very good friend of Father Marx. During the Mass a young man got up a displayed a banner which read: "Pro-life is pro-death, condoms save lives". The ignorance of this poor fellow is the result of the fundamental strategy of the devil: to destroy life by deceiving shrewdly (see John 8:44 and 2 Corinthians 11:14-15). But the young man was immediately ushered out and the Mass proceeded in peace and dignity, as a prelude of what was to come in the conference, where truth and love, by their own beauty and power, dispelled deception and hatred.

Right after the Mass there was a reception at the Hotel where we celebrated a Mexican "fiesta". Cuco Chávez, a pro-life Catholic singer, delighted participants with his beautiful songs.

During the following two days -- Saturday and Sunday -- participants crowded the plenary and simultaneous sessions, where the watched videos, listened to talks and obtained lots of Spanish pro-life literature that we brought along. They were informed about the evils of abortion, contraception, hedonistic sex "education", euthanasia and about those organizations and governments that promote the "Culture" of Death in Latin America: IPPF, the UN, the USA and others.

Cardinal Sandoval gave a terrific talk titled "Building the Culture of Life". He first exposed courageously the "Culture" of Death and then gave the main guidelines for building the Culture of Life. His main source was the Encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" by Pope John Paul II.

Father Marx also gave two excellent talks: one on euthanasia and another on the international anti-life sex mess. Magaly Llaguno, our coordinator for Latin America and the main organizer of this conference, gave an outstanding talk on one of the main roots of the contemporary attack against life and family: anti-life feminism. Another excellent speaker was Dr. Martha Garza, a gynecologist from San Antonio, Texas, who gave a beautiful testimony of her conversion to the pro-life stance. Dr. Garza gave up a lucrative medical practice, in which she used to recommend contraceptives and perform in vitro fertilizations, for the sake of life and authentic medicine. She now promotes NFP and protects women from abortion.

But the speakers did not limit themselves to exposing the anti-life\family evils. They also offered positive alternatives. As a response to hedonistic sex "education", Mr. Ivan Ortiz, from Miami, explained to the audience the teaching of the Church on the right and duty of parents to be the first and foremost educators of their children, specially where it concerns chastity and love. Alejandro Leal, a young biologist from Costa Rica and HLI coordinator in that country, was a sensation among the youth as he promoted sexual self-control (chastity) and honorable courtship as part of pre-marriage preparation. Drs. Francisco and María Martínez, local organizers of the conference, gave excellent presentations on the Billings method of NFP, as the true alternative to contraception, when the married couple have grave motives to space the births of their children. Dr. Carmen Gómez Lavín, a psychiatrist from Spain, alerted participants about the post-abortion syndrome and offered the hope of healing and

God's forgiveness, through prayer, therapy and the Sacrament of Confession. Mexican speakers Jorge Serrano, Rocío Gálvez, Osiris Reyes and María de los Angeles Treviño explained how to set up crisis pregnancy centers. Magaly presented the true pro-life/family feminism, which in fact was how the feminist movement started in the last century before it was deceived by the "Culture" of Death.

But the most moving and impressive talk was the one given by Dr. María Martínez, whose daughter, Mrs. Edith Martínez, had miscarried a couple of days before the conference. Dr. Martínez is a gynecologist and had to remove the tiny body of her own grandson, named José Francisco. During her talk she repeated again and again with tears in her eyes that it had been the most terrible experience of her life and that she could not understand how there are doctors who are willing to perform abortions. Magaly dedicated the conference to José Francisco, a little angel who prayed from Heaven for a successful conference, as in fact it turned out to be.

We also had a press conference in which the speakers denounced the promoters of the "Culture" of Death and in particular MEXFAM, IPPF Mexican affiliate, which is carrying out campaigns of hedonistic sex "education" and "family planning" (contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization) thus paving the way, even though they deny it, for surgical abortion. Also exposed was the false figure of 800,000 illegal abortions in Mexico, which pro-abortion feminist groups tell the public in order to push for "safe" and legal abortion. This is the same tactic that was once used in the U.S. to legalize abortion. It is now used all over Latin America as part of the strategy euphemistically called "safe motherhood".

Vida Humana Internacional also carried out five mini-conferences in four Catholic universities and in the major seminary. In this latter place, over 300 enthusiastic seminarians responded very positively to talks on contraception and "Humanae Vitae" and took lots of our literature. Guadalajara is the city with the largest number of seminarians in the world: about a thousand, thanks to Cardinal Sandoval's efforts.

During the conference we also taped several interviews with some of the speakers, including Cardinal Sandoval himself, for our program "Defiende la Vida" ("Defend Life"), which is transmitted every week to all Latin America through WEWN, the short wave radio station of Mother Angelica. We also taped all the talks to be transmitted in our other weekly program "Conferencias sobre la Vida y la Familia" ("Talks on Life and Family") also through WEWN. Don't miss these programs! Get their schedules and frequencies in our web site: http://www.vidahumana.org/. (By the way, our web site is so full of information and so successful that it has earned the praise of HLI-Central for receiving over 40% of the visits to all four different language sites HLI has, over 22,000 people in just 27 days! All this is due to the tireless work of Magaly and her daughter Eileen, our web master.

We thank God for another successful conference and we pray that its fruits may be abundant for years to come, both for the glory of God and for the good of Mexico and Latin America.