"Humans require more than material needs and they desire the good, the beautiful and the true." He called it is a genuine human ecology. It cannot be based on unbridled indulgence, the satiating of every appetite.

The Cardinal berated homosexuality saying sex is an ontological issue and cannot be changed with the differentiation in Genesis that is rooted in God's creation. "God created man in his own image and Jesus realized that in the reality of two persons, a man and a woman which he said "is fundamental to the good order of creation."

The Catholic prelate said this is neither Catholic nor Christian; it is part of the patrimony that belongs to the whole of humanity so it is inclusive. "This does not mean a cacophony of different voices but a single polyphonic harmony assign to the whole of human family. It is not just good, but beautiful," he continued.

Dr. Rick Warren, founder of the Peace Plan, said the family and marriage are under attack. "Listen to Pope Francis who says the family is threatened within and without. "We need a political alternative - celebrate strong families. I am a proponent of what is right. We are all agreed that you can't have strong nation without strong communities without strong families as the building block of society. Children grew up healthier in a two parent family and multiple studies prove that.

"Half of all children grow up without a father. We are meeting a generation of fatherless children. That is a fatherless consequence on a social order in a society that champions women."

Warren added the poor, poverty, and the dissolution of marriages hurts the poor. "Single mothers are never a viable economic unit. We need to celebrate marriage, lasting marriages and families."

Warren noted that Christianity has never been on the right side of history. "They crucified the apostles. It is not important to be on the right side when I do good."

The author of The Purpose Driven Life said that at an academic level, a media level, and a parish level, we are being out marketed. "We need tastefully made movies that show sex in marriage between husband and wife as real." He said he holds wedding vow renewals twice a year at his Saddleback church in California. They also teach marriage and parenting skills.

Dr. Jacqueline C. Rivers, director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, went further and publicly condemned the Episcopal Church's ordination of an openly homosexual man in the person of Gene Robinson. "It was the African churches that stood up to him and the Episcopal Church. It was the African churches that pushed back." She said it was the right thing for Anglicans in Africa to take in former Episcopal dioceses in the U.S. "They continue to strengthen parishes and dioceses here." She said African nations are under tremendous pressure from the West to conform to homosexuality. "Those nations don't want to be harangued about LGBTQ concerns."

She said the black church is on side of poor, but she said both men and women are retreating from marriage. It is innocent children who suffer the most.

She condemned the "radical breakdown" of the black family. Women are having babies out of wedlock before aged 25. "Three out of every four black children is borne to an unwed mother - 71.5 percent. It is higher among the poor. Only thirty percent higher up the income ladder have lower rates of out of wedlock.

"The Sixties unleashed the sexual revolution led by white upper middle class people, but then they got married, settled down and had families, but they set up a time bomb for poor black families. Not upper class whites.

"Blacks and Hispanics have the highest illegitimacy, perform less well, and have poorer grades. Both men and women who are married live longer. Men who are married earn more."

Citing black writer Cornel West, she said one million black males are missing from the population and opined that it is in Africa where the family is stoutly defended.

Mormon Elder D. Todd Christofferson said he and his church share a deep conviction on the sanctity and stability of the family. "Unselfishness becomes complete ritzy. The hopes, dreams of children are all the same."

At the final keynote talk on the World Meeting of Families, there was a call for all faiths to band together to promote joyful family.

The evangelically-driven Warren and Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley said Christian families can band together, even across faith borders, to bring the gospel message and joy to their families to a world that needs light and leaven.

"We serve God by serving others," said Warren. "Joy-filled families serve together. ... We are all called to serve, to make a contribution."

O'Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, repeated the Pope's message that "the family has never been so threatened."

The two speakers' often-humorous consecutive dissections of what creates a joyful family drew sustained applause from thousands gathered for the final day of the conference's formal program. This triennial World Meeting was hailed as the largest family conference ever, attracting 18,000 attendees.

Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life, presented a long and disturbing list of things threatening families. Among them, he said, are that God is marginalized, Christians are demonized, the elderly dehumanized, the poor tranquilized, divorce is rationalized, sin is normalized, manners uncivilized, and "unfortunately, Christians -- you and I -- are demoralized," he said, adding they should organize. "We need to re-energize our families."

Though both men joked individually, the message shared by Warren and O'Malley was serious: People of faith need to share that faith with others. And they need to work together, including with those of different religious traditions.

"As the Pope makes clear, our call is to be missionary disciples who pass faith to a new generation. That is one of the family's roles," Cardinal O'Malley said.

"Our task is to change the crowd into a community," he said. "That's what evangelizing is about. ... We are on this earth with the mission to take care of each other, to build a civilization of love. And if we don't do that, the patient will die."

The training ground for the work is joyful family life, the two men said.

"If you want a joy-filled family, base it on God's love and use it as a school to grow in grace ... to grow in Christ," Warren said, adding that people who spread the gospel are often "the only Bible some people will ever read."

Warren said that love is God's very nature and individuals were all "created as an object of that love."

It would be impossible to make God stop loving you, he told the crowd. "He loves you more than you love you."

Warren warned people against busy-ness and told them focusing on the Lord provides peace, even in chaos. There's no biblical account of Jesus running anywhere, he said, not even when his friend Lazarus died. "It takes him three days to get there ... five miles away."

The evangelical pastor spoke movingly of the days leading up to his father's death from cancer. As the disease ate away at his brain, he was restless and spoke his dreams aloud. His dad was also a pastor who built many churches and dreamed he needed "to reach one more for Jesus," a commitment his son takes seriously. Warren has been to 160-plus countries to offer the gospel message. He also told of the moment in China when a dying professor with whom he had lunch offered a simple prayer of faith and later appeared at a famous church to publicly proclaim his faith.

Friday's speech was not the first time Warren has been invited to speak at events involving the Pope and sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. Last year, Pope Francis invited him and other faith leaders to present the closing speech at a Vatican conference on marriage.

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