Fr. William Grimm who runs UCANews, a Catholic news organization, is calling a Vatican push to increase childbirths “stupid” and “immoral.”
You know, ’cause it’s not like we were told to be fruitful and multiply or anything. Strangely, he’s in Japan which is suffering a drastic birth dearth currently which is already having calamitous effects on the economy.
For the most part, the questions are innocuous. But one stands out for its breathtaking irresponsibility: “How can an increase in births be promoted?”
Are they serious? There are already seven billion people on the planet and we continue to increase. Resources are being depleted. Other species of animals as well as plants are being driven to extinction by the pressure of human numbers.
Global warming results from the burning of fossil fuels to provide power for living, transportation and manufacture. The increased demand for power means increasing reliance upon dangerous nuclear power. Air, water and soil are being degraded. Food shortages occur in precisely those areas with the greatest population pressure. People are driven to live in urban slums in a search of a livelihood.
Children are born, but die before getting a chance to live in much more than a biological sense. Malnutrition and the diseases of poverty cripple others. Social, health and educational services are inadequate to ensure a truly human life. Crowding increases crime, unrest, oppression, war and a general uglification of the human environment.
For the Church to call for an increase in births is not just stupid, it is immoral. Catholic social teaching stresses the importance of the common good. What common good is advanced by merely increasing our numbers?
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the Catholic Church does not oppose family planning. Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae forbids particular “artificial” methods of regulating births and has given rise to a Catholic cottage industry of “natural family planning.”
But, whatever dispute there may be over methods – and for the most part there is no dispute because Catholics have opted to ignore the teaching – the fact is that the Church can encourage intelligent and responsible limitation of family size even without retreating from Pope Paul’s teaching.
Instead of asking how we can increase births, the Catholic Church should be a world leader in calling for responsible family planning that will ensure that all people who are born have a chance to live beyond age five and have access to the food, healthcare and education that will enable them to live with the dignity of the children of God.
Just to make sure you put the pieces together. That’s right. More people leads to a “general uglification of the human environment.” Nice, huh?
HT Pewsitter
December 10, 2013 at 2:46 pm
The Church actually prefers total continence for as long as it takes for the situation to be resolved (so, the duration of the marriage or the situation…) but allows NFP.
This is just nuts. Material poverty is a horrible thing. But if it is a part of our life should not we come outside of ourselves to assist our brethren? How can we do that without having more children, one of the greatest non-sacramental signs of God's love?
December 10, 2013 at 2:53 pm
And without babies, men commit suicide when his girlfriend wants MORE shoes for Christmas.
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1542366
December 10, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Okay, this is basic…. What happens when people get older (especially in the welfare State that we are in now)? That's right, the load is put on the younger generation to care for the older (by force). What happens when there are no one left to pay for helping the older ones?
December 10, 2013 at 3:49 pm
I am not surprised. This priest is simply taking the next step down the road. The response to the 'mysterious' numbers of single people was something along the lines of, 'well, we don't know why this is happening but maybe these are a bunch of people called to be single for the Lord.'
First and foremost, young people need to see a way forward. College is a problem, for it is largely a fraud, and women are going to it precisely during their most fertile years. But they, and their prospective spouses need to see a way forward, to actually live like the God of the Living would want them to.
One hopes this Vatican push to increase childbirth comes with more than mere exhortation.
December 10, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Babies are good, images and icons of God. Greed, envy, gluttony, selfishness, the true causes of resource shortages, are bad. Of course the answer is less babies!!!!
December 10, 2013 at 7:36 pm
This priest is lying. The birth rate in the Western world has declined so drastically that there are not going to be enough people to support the aging population. Meanwhile, the Muslims do not use birth control or abortion but believe in overwhelming the populations of the Western world with their numbers, and when they do, they can impose Sharia law, as they are doing in Europe, and make Christians live in fear for their lives, as they do now in the Middle East.
December 10, 2013 at 7:48 pm
See Demographic Winter for truh on demographics. This man is irrational, and his "religion" isn't Carholicism.
December 10, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Jesuit?
December 11, 2013 at 2:35 am
@ Renee: it was a shoeicide, not a suicide.
December 11, 2013 at 11:11 am
There's one pair of lines that are a laugh-riot. "The increased demand for power means increasing reliance upon dangerous nuclear power. … Food shortages occur in precisely those areas with the greatest population pressure."
Nuclear power isn't dangerous, assuming that you actually maintain it properly and are not otherwise stupid about it (and aren't trying to make bomb material while you generate electricity). It may still be a little dangerous if your country is an island on the Ring of Fire, admittedly.
And food shortages happen in precisely those places without the greatest population pressure. Two of the most densely-populated places on Earth are Hong Kong and Tokyo—and in both places, a major health concern is increasing obesity, just like in America. Meanwhile, the biggest food shortages are in places like North Korea—which has the population density of Italy—and Somalia, which has the population density of Norway. Population is not, in and of itself, correlated with food shortages, forget causing them!