Blame Humanae Vitae

I am starting to sound like a broken record. The whole problem with the world and the Church is Humanae Vitae, the letter written by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968 in which he re-asserted the Catholic Church’s prohibition of artificial birth control, despite the contrary advice of A PANEL OF EXPERTS!!

In Humanae Vitae Paul VI made four prophecies:

1.   Wide spread use of artificial birth control would lead to conjugal infidelity in general lowering of morality.

2.   Man would lose respect for woman and no longer care for her physical and psychological equilibrium and will come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

3.   Contraception would place a dangerous weapon in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies.

4.   Artificial contraception would lead man to think that he had unlimited dominion over his own body.

Ya’ think?!?  Nobody is faithful anymore and everybody gets divorced. We see an explosion of pornography, human trafficking, sex slavery, most of which is aimed at men’s enjoyment of women as things. There is widespread murder of unborn women in the largest countries of the world. Sex selective abortion has resulted in whole areas that are practically devoid of little girls because counties have aggressively pushed abortion and birth control, and in the drive to have a male heir, people forced to kill all but one of their children invariably kill the girl in the womb and not the boy. 

And as for the last prophecy, unlimited dominion over one’s own body - we don’t even know what bathroom to use in the Kmart because this afternoon I might decide I am a woman. Little children are encouraged to choose their own gender, no matter what physical equipment they happen to have. We reached the pinnacle of the absurdity when Bruce Jenner was named “Woman of the year by Glamour Magazine.” 

There are a couple more consequences he could have mentioned: the demographic, economic and religious collapse of the developed world. We are facing a few crises in the world and in the Church. There are a few countries that are already in permanent economic recession, like Japan where they sell more adult diapers than children’s diapers.  Germany and much of the rest of Europe are being overwhelmed by a tide of anti-western immigrants in a muddled attempt to revive the childless economies and the aging workforce. Rather than relieving the problem, the tide of immigrants has created a sense of insecurity along with a la growing population of unemployed dependents. The economic consequences of artificial birth control and abortion are staggering. To put it simply, if you’ve got no children, you’ve got no economy. 

On to religious collapse! People worry about the lack of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. Selfless priests and selfless nuns have always been at the heart of the church. The John Paul’s, the Padre Pio's, the Mother Teresa’s and Francis Cabrini’s have made the church a blessing for the world. Where are the new priests and nuns that the world so needs?  Simple. They were never born because my generation was too self-absorbed to have large families. No children, no clergy. Some people might rejoice at that, but in the long run, no clergy, no Church. And if you rejoice at the death of a sacramental hierarchical Church, I would advise you to go away and do all of us who like sacramental Christianity a favor. There are lots of swell churches that have no sacraments or hierarchy, or churches that have sacraments after a fashion, but no hierarchy. Go join one. It’s a free country, so far.

By far the biggest thunder cloud on the horizon is the economic one, both in the Church and in the world.

Next week: How much religion can you afford?