Juan Dabdoub, founder of the Mexican Family Council. / Credit: David Ramos/EWTN News
ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 14, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Juan Dabdoub Giacoman, a legendary and tireless defender of life and family in Mexico, passed away at the age of 71 on Sept. 11 in Mexico City after a long battle with cancer.
"A Catholic at heart and by conviction," as he described himself on his social media, Dabdoub was born on Nov. 30, 1953, in Monterrey in Nuevo León state in Mexico and specialized in marketing and business management.
Self-described as a "rebel by nature and an idealist by conviction," Dabdoub dedicated his recent decades to activism in support of life and family, and founded the Mexican Council of the Family (ConFamilia), which promoted an amendment to the Mexican Constitution to officially recognize marriage as between one man and one woman.
The proposal was supported by more than 200,000 signatures, nearly twice the number required by law, but was ignored by the country's Senate despite the legal requirement to consider the initiative. Under Mexican law, a citizen initiative is a means for citizens to directly file a specific bill or have a particular issue taken up by the Congress.
Dabdoub was also part of the founding group of the National Front for the Family, which organized a historic day of demonstrations across Mexico on Sept. 10, 2016, in rejection of the attempt by the federal executive branch, then led by President Enrique Peña Nieto, to promote same-sex marriage nationwide.
A few days later, in Mexico City alone, more than 400,000 people gathered, an event led by Dabdoub, along with other pro-family leaders.
In 2023 he denounced that textbooks distributed by the Mexican government contained "ideologized education": "They provide sex education that the state is not supposed to provide. They provide it in a bad way and pervertedly," he told ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner, at the time.
In his fight to defend life and family, as well as against gender ideology, he organized speaking tours throughout the country alongside figures such as Agustín Laje and Nicolás Márquez, authors of the Spanish-language book "Black Book of the New Left," also available in English.
He was a speaker at various international and national events on family issues, a panelist on various television programs, and a guest columnist for various media outlets such as Grupo Reforma's newspaper El Norte. He was also the author of numerous articles and essays on the defense of life and the family.
He participated in the U.N. Population Conference in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, and in the World Congresses of Families in Geneva (1999) and Mexico City (2004).
Dabdoub studied at the Pan-American Institute of Senior Business Management (IPADE by its Spanish acronym) in Monterrey; he earned a master's degree in marketing from Thunderbird in Glendale, Arizona, and a postgraduate degree in international trade from the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.
He was a professor of strategic planning at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, a professor of marketing at the University of Monterrey, and a professor at the Middle Management Training Institute, a subsidiary of IPADE.
He was the founding president of Familia Mundial (World Family) and also worked at companies such as Kimberly-Clark Mexico, the Gamesa-Nabisco Group, and the Alfa Industrial Group.
In recent years, Dabdoub remained steadfast in his pro-life and pro-family activism, even as he battled a devastating bout of cancer. After an initial victory, he experienced a relapse in recent months.
He is survived by his four children, Juan Pablo, Patricio, Alejandro, and Nicole; and by a granddaughter.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
