A declaration adopted by delegates of the recent sixth World Congress of Families has warned of the damage being done to the family by changes in law, individualism and the sexual revolution.

The Madrid Declaration states that recent legal and public policy changes in Europe especially have “corrupted the meaning and dignity of marriage, devalued parenting, encouraged easy divorce and births outside of marriage, confused sexual identities, promoted promiscuity, created conditions that increased child abuse, isolated the elderly, and fostered depopulation”.

Several European countries including the UK have moved to legalise gay marriage and adoption in recent decades.

The declaration was adopted by more than 3,000 delegates from around the world who attended the congress in Madrid at the end of May.

It goes on to state that the natural family is the “optimal” family system and, while acknowledging different living situations, that all other forms of family are “incomplete” or “fabrications of the state”.

“We affirm that the natural family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of society,” it states.

“The natural family is a fixed aspect of the created order. The natural family cannot change into some new shape; nor can it be re-defined by eager social engineers.”

Abortion, euthanasia and the manipulation of human embryos are denounced as “attacks on human life”.

“Each newly conceived person holds rights to live, to grow, to be born, and to share a home with its natural parents bound by marriage,” the declaration reads.

Organisers of the World Congress of Families include the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and Focus on the Family.