This year being the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, there has over the past few weeks been a glut of coverage by the secular media of Catholic teaching on contraception, some of it hostile, some of it seemingly impartial, all of it facile.
Woman’s Hour yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4 was presented by Jenni Murray, and included a feature on contraception and the teaching of the Church. Reference was made to a recent survey (conducted by that well-known organ of dissent The Tablet) which revealed that the majority of Mass-going Catholics in England and Wales are using, or have used, some form of contraceptive device or practice.
This is no surprise to any of us; such statistics have been around at least since the ’sixties. We might also reasonably conclude that the ‘Catholics’ quizzed in this survey were doubtless from the Novus Ordo-attending Tablet-reading demographic, and so no doctrine of faith or morals would be likely to inhibit their pursuit of the thoroughly secularised life.
In any case, the results of the survey prompted Jenni Murray to ask this question: “If the majority of Roman Catholics are simply defying papal orders, should they be changed?” [emphasis mine].
They still don’t get it, do they? Truth is not formed by public opinion. An error is still an error, however sincerely and fervently one may believe in it. Likewise a proposition is not made true simply by the fact that it pleases the majority to give it their assent, nor made false by their rejection of it. Melancholicus could not say it better than St. Augustine: “Wrong is still wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is still right, even if no-one is doing it.”
Melancholicus snorted with contempt at Ms. Murray’s dismissal of the Church’s teaching as papal orders, as though it were no more than the diktat of a tyrant, a mere policy that could, and ought to, be changed when a more congenial and enlightened fellow occupies the See of Peter, rather than an objective truth the Pope is bound to uphold for all time.
Reference was also made to Mrs. Cherie Blair, wife of the former prime minister and known contraceptrix, in which Mrs. Blair was described—somewhat ironically—as a “good Catholic girl”. Melancholicus thinks that Mrs. Blair is now a bit long in the tooth to be reasonably described as a “girl”, and as far as “good Catholic” goes... why does the BBC feel the need to use this adjective in reference to Catholics? There are not a few bad Catholics knocking about these days, among which may be numbered Mrs. Blair herself. Is there not a hint of derision here, with this trite phrase revealing Jenni Murray as mocking and sarcastic? We must not be surprised. To adopt such an attitude to Christianity and the Church is de rigueur among the media mavens of today, in marked contrast to the craven deference they accord other religions, particularly Islam—witness the cloyingly obsequious approach by this same Jenni Murray to the Islamic religion on Woman’s Hour on Tuesday 1 April.
Let the reader compare. Is there not a contemptible double standard in evidence here?
Showing posts with label contraception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contraception. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Humanae Vitae at 40
Forty years ago on this day Pope Paul VI issued what really ought to have been a pretty unremarkable encyclical letter, all things considered: Humanae Vitae, on the transmission of human life and on sexual ethics within marriage.
Unremarkable because Humanae Vitae contained nothing new. Its teaching ought not to have been a surprise to anyone endowed with a Catholic sense of things. Pius XI had already condemned contraception and the contraceptive mentality in Casti Connubi (1931), as a response to the Anglican bishops’ approval of contraception at the Lambeth conference of the previous year. What could be more natural, therefore, than that Pope Paul should uphold the constant teaching of the Catholic Church on married life and human sexuality? This is what he did, and his reiteration of the Church’s constant teaching was greeted by howls of protest and dissent, not only by the secular world but even by priests, religious, theologians and even bishops.
1968 has been described by some as the year in which the Church fell apart. Anne Roche Muggeridge in her book The Desolate City, refers to Humanae Vitae as the triggering incident which allowed the revolution within the Church to emerge full-blown into the open, and openly to defy the authority of the Pope, the Holy See, Canon Law, and indeed the entire doctrinal and liturgical tradition of the Church across two thousand years.
Forty years later the revolutionaries are still in a state of defiance and open revolt—a state which some of them still describe, even today, as “loyal dissent”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. But today they are less confident, less sure of themselves, less convinced that the future belongs to them and to their fellow secularizers within the Church. For forty years on, as one might expect, they have aged considerably; they have not achieved the overthrow of Catholicism, for which they strove; and most ominously of all for their hopes of success, they have inspired none to follow in their footsteps and take up the cudgels in defence of peace, love and rock ’n’ roll once they have retired or passed on. They look—and sound—like relics of the groovy ’sixties and ’seventies, outdated tie-dyed hippies still tripping on the spirit of Vatican II (or should that be the spirit of Woodstock?). They are so completely contemptible that no one today—not even those thoughtless youth most in agreement with their heresies—wants anything to do with them at all.
Of course the most infuriating thing about the dissidents’ revolt against Humanae Vitae is that—as in every other area in which they have challenged Church teaching—the dissidents are quite simply wrong. They have backed the wrong horse—one that will not even pass the post, never mind win the race. Contraception is NOT a good thing. While it might at times be convenient for individuals, it is ruinous for society. There is not one country in the entire European Union—apart perhaps from Malta—which is producing sufficient children to replenish its population. This means that population is falling across the EU. The birth rate must be at least 2.2 children per woman if a given population is to be sustained. This is what is known as the “replacement level”. No EU state—and certainly not Ireland, which has embraced the contraceptive culture with gusto—has a birth rate anywhere near replacement level. Some states—Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece, for instance—have birth rates so alarmingly low that these countries will assuredly experience dire economic and social problems in a generation or two.
A low birth-rate spells disaster for society. It always means more older people and fewer young. As the population ages, and begins to retire from the labour force, there will be fewer younger people available to meet the demand for workers and to keep the economy moving. Fewer workers means the state has a much reduced tax revenue—but not reduced costs, since there are now disproportionately large numbers of older people requiring pensions and expensive medical care. At a certain point, in order to avert the unsavoury prospect of an unsustainably large proportion of society being dependent on the support of an insufficient few, the state will begin to take certain measures. Old or chronically ill people requiring constant and costly care, will be required to be “put to sleep”. Able-bodied elderly people will not be permitted to retire at 65, but be required to remain at work for several years more. And the deficit in the working population will be further relieved by importing young immigrants from the third world, not a few of which will profess the religion of Islam. These latter, of course, will have more than 2.2 children per woman, not having embraced the contraceptive culture that has already sounded the death-knell of the west. Over time, the proportion of Muslims in the population will steadily increase—as it is in France, Britain and the Netherlands—with further chaos and destabilisation the only result of such a process.
We are already seeing and living through the endgame of the contraceptive mentality in so many different countries in the west; but will anyone sit up and take notice? Or are we now too firmly attached to playing God with our marriages, and with our children?
When one practices contraception, especially if one is aware of the Church’s teaching on the matter, one does not please God; one pleases oneself. To persevere with one’s own will against the holy will of God is always—in whatever matter—to invite catastrophe. Those who in the ’seventies, ’eighties, ’nineties and today took it upon themselves to have but a single child—or even no child at all—are precisely the same generation that will most feel the pain when the looming demographic crisis finally hits home. They themselves will be euthanised for purely pragmatic reasons by the same offspring they raised to be godless and secular, under the same laws permitting abortion and euthanasia for which they will have striven so hard to keep on the statute books. As all historical precedent has shown, wherever contraception is approved and practiced, the legalisation of abortion is sure to follow. For abortion is in the final analysis simply an extension of contraception, one that seeks to remove a conception rather than merely prevent it in the first place. For if one can in so cavalier a fashion interfere with human life at its very beginnings, why not also at its end?
Pope Paul was prescient. Humanae Vitae is the true teaching of the Catholic Church and may not be gainsaid without consequences, either in this world or the next. Defy it at your peril.
You have been warned.
Unremarkable because Humanae Vitae contained nothing new. Its teaching ought not to have been a surprise to anyone endowed with a Catholic sense of things. Pius XI had already condemned contraception and the contraceptive mentality in Casti Connubi (1931), as a response to the Anglican bishops’ approval of contraception at the Lambeth conference of the previous year. What could be more natural, therefore, than that Pope Paul should uphold the constant teaching of the Catholic Church on married life and human sexuality? This is what he did, and his reiteration of the Church’s constant teaching was greeted by howls of protest and dissent, not only by the secular world but even by priests, religious, theologians and even bishops.
1968 has been described by some as the year in which the Church fell apart. Anne Roche Muggeridge in her book The Desolate City, refers to Humanae Vitae as the triggering incident which allowed the revolution within the Church to emerge full-blown into the open, and openly to defy the authority of the Pope, the Holy See, Canon Law, and indeed the entire doctrinal and liturgical tradition of the Church across two thousand years.
Forty years later the revolutionaries are still in a state of defiance and open revolt—a state which some of them still describe, even today, as “loyal dissent”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. But today they are less confident, less sure of themselves, less convinced that the future belongs to them and to their fellow secularizers within the Church. For forty years on, as one might expect, they have aged considerably; they have not achieved the overthrow of Catholicism, for which they strove; and most ominously of all for their hopes of success, they have inspired none to follow in their footsteps and take up the cudgels in defence of peace, love and rock ’n’ roll once they have retired or passed on. They look—and sound—like relics of the groovy ’sixties and ’seventies, outdated tie-dyed hippies still tripping on the spirit of Vatican II (or should that be the spirit of Woodstock?). They are so completely contemptible that no one today—not even those thoughtless youth most in agreement with their heresies—wants anything to do with them at all.
Of course the most infuriating thing about the dissidents’ revolt against Humanae Vitae is that—as in every other area in which they have challenged Church teaching—the dissidents are quite simply wrong. They have backed the wrong horse—one that will not even pass the post, never mind win the race. Contraception is NOT a good thing. While it might at times be convenient for individuals, it is ruinous for society. There is not one country in the entire European Union—apart perhaps from Malta—which is producing sufficient children to replenish its population. This means that population is falling across the EU. The birth rate must be at least 2.2 children per woman if a given population is to be sustained. This is what is known as the “replacement level”. No EU state—and certainly not Ireland, which has embraced the contraceptive culture with gusto—has a birth rate anywhere near replacement level. Some states—Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece, for instance—have birth rates so alarmingly low that these countries will assuredly experience dire economic and social problems in a generation or two.
A low birth-rate spells disaster for society. It always means more older people and fewer young. As the population ages, and begins to retire from the labour force, there will be fewer younger people available to meet the demand for workers and to keep the economy moving. Fewer workers means the state has a much reduced tax revenue—but not reduced costs, since there are now disproportionately large numbers of older people requiring pensions and expensive medical care. At a certain point, in order to avert the unsavoury prospect of an unsustainably large proportion of society being dependent on the support of an insufficient few, the state will begin to take certain measures. Old or chronically ill people requiring constant and costly care, will be required to be “put to sleep”. Able-bodied elderly people will not be permitted to retire at 65, but be required to remain at work for several years more. And the deficit in the working population will be further relieved by importing young immigrants from the third world, not a few of which will profess the religion of Islam. These latter, of course, will have more than 2.2 children per woman, not having embraced the contraceptive culture that has already sounded the death-knell of the west. Over time, the proportion of Muslims in the population will steadily increase—as it is in France, Britain and the Netherlands—with further chaos and destabilisation the only result of such a process.
We are already seeing and living through the endgame of the contraceptive mentality in so many different countries in the west; but will anyone sit up and take notice? Or are we now too firmly attached to playing God with our marriages, and with our children?
When one practices contraception, especially if one is aware of the Church’s teaching on the matter, one does not please God; one pleases oneself. To persevere with one’s own will against the holy will of God is always—in whatever matter—to invite catastrophe. Those who in the ’seventies, ’eighties, ’nineties and today took it upon themselves to have but a single child—or even no child at all—are precisely the same generation that will most feel the pain when the looming demographic crisis finally hits home. They themselves will be euthanised for purely pragmatic reasons by the same offspring they raised to be godless and secular, under the same laws permitting abortion and euthanasia for which they will have striven so hard to keep on the statute books. As all historical precedent has shown, wherever contraception is approved and practiced, the legalisation of abortion is sure to follow. For abortion is in the final analysis simply an extension of contraception, one that seeks to remove a conception rather than merely prevent it in the first place. For if one can in so cavalier a fashion interfere with human life at its very beginnings, why not also at its end?
Pope Paul was prescient. Humanae Vitae is the true teaching of the Catholic Church and may not be gainsaid without consequences, either in this world or the next. Defy it at your peril.
You have been warned.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
This is really, really rich
Melancholicus is wryly amused, and more than just a little irritated, by the obtusity of those—and they are many—who attribute the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa to the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding artificial contraception.
This story, courtesy of Catholic World News, displays to the world the foolishness and unreason of such leftist bureaucratic functionaries as Alberto Stella. This man represents—need we be surprised?—the UN.
This story, courtesy of Catholic World News, displays to the world the foolishness and unreason of such leftist bureaucratic functionaries as Alberto Stella. This man represents—need we be surprised?—the UN.
UN official blames Church for spread of AIDS
Tegucigalpa, Oct. 24, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A UN official has blamed the Catholic Church for the spread of the HIV virus in Latin America.
Alberto Stella, who coordinates UN efforts to fight AIDS in central America, complained that condom use has been “demonized” by Catholic leaders in the region. He made the remarkable claim, “I guarantee the epidemic would be resolved in the region” if condoms were always used.
Stella told the Reuters news service that sexual abstinence programs are “not working” as a means of curtailing the spread of AIDS. He reported that teenagers are becoming sexually active, eschewing the use of condoms, and therefore contracting the infection.
UN statistics show 1.7 million people in Latin American infected with the HIV virus, with over 400,000 new infections reported last year.
If Melancholicus understands Dr Stella correctly, persons in Africa engaging in immoral sexual liaisons eschew the use of condoms since these are forbidden by the Catholic Church, and apparently for no other reason. Hence, according to his reasoning, when they contract HIV and other unpleasant infections, only the Church can be to blame for this terrible state of affairs.
Would Dr Stella care to explain to the public why these unfortunates are apparently so eager to obey the moral teachings of the Church when it comes to the use of contraceptive devices, but apparently so unwilling to submit to the teachings of the same Church when it comes to pre-marital/extra-marital sex?
Pacé Dr Stella’s outraged blusterings, Melancholicus can with confidence “guarantee the epidemic would be resolved in the region” if the teachings of the Church were always followed.
And as one of the commentators on the CWN website so perspicaciously observed, “it’s funny how teenagers are “becoming sexually active” in all the 3rd world countries the UN meddles with”.
*UPDATE: after a more careful reading of the original news story, Melancholicus has realised (not without a twinge of embarrassment) that Stella's discourse treated Latin America and not Africa. However, he will neither withdraw nor modify his remarks since the principle in each case is exactly the same.
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