A RESPONSE TO BISHOP LYNCH'S ATTACK ON THE POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Bishop Robert Lynch attacks the Population Research Institute. Read his blog post here:

http://bishopsblog.dosp.org/?p=5837#comment-12951

My response follows:

It is curious that a post alleging a lack of evidence would impugn its target with a post lacking evidence. We are only told that PRI and others slander the CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) and the CRS (Catholic Relief Services), we are not given documented examples. But we don't really need to go there. CRS admits that it funds CARE - an organization which actively promotes contraception - but such funding is "carefully restricted to morally acceptable purposes." (CNA, 7/30/13). Isn't that a bit like giving money to Planned Parenthood but only for breast exams?  

But beyond that, isn't this really about the majority of Catholics, including bishops and priests, once again winking at Humanae Vitae? I've been personally counseled most of my married life to believe that the use of contraception was really a private choice. My wife and I only needed to pray about it. Why should we not think that Catholic institutions like CRS have not embodied, and in fact, instituted said "winking" into its practices? 

"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"

A few years ago, what turned out to be a seven-week old human fetus was found floating through a local waste treatment plant. Such discoveries make news, but not so the bodies of the nearly seven dead children per week that pile up in dumpsters behind Tamuning’s abortuaries - or wherever it is they throw them.

According to Guam Medical Records, we abort one child every 1.2 days, or one abortion for every ten live births. Our killing spree equates to a rate of 1.85 abortions per thousand population and ranks Guam No. 17 in the world for most abortions. This is an atrocity beyond compare particularly when one considers that more than 50% of these aborted children are Chamorro.

There is also reason to believe that the abortion rate is actually much higher than reported and may be as high as 1000 annually or almost 3 babies per day. A 1990 article about abortion on Guam reported an estimate of 600 to 1000 abortions per year, and fragments of data compiled by Guam Medical Records prior to the imposition of a penalty for failing to report in 2008 suggests that this is true. (For more info see Esperansa.org)

Amazingly, government officials still think the answer to abortion is earlier sex education and increased access to contraception. It’s “amazing” because we have forty years of data showing that the abortion rate has exponentially exploded in the wake of such policies. It’s a simple formula: more contraception equals more abortion. The FDA’s own data on contraception tells us why.

As the chart shows, all contraceptive methods have a failure rate. The availability of contraception eliminates the fear of pregnancy and encourages greater sexual activity. Increased sexual activity results in an increased number of contraceptive failures, which lead to more abortions since abortion is the solution to failed birth-control.

The male condom is the most promoted and most available method of birth control. However, the FDA’s own data tells us that its use will result in pregnancy 18 out of 100 times. Yet we are told that using a condom is “safe sex”. How safe is an airplane that is guaranteed to crash 1.8 out of every 10 times it takes off? Yet we are teaching our children how to put these on in grade school.

But getting pregnant may be the least of your worries. If a condom cannot stop sperm 18% of the time, then what in the world are we doing promoting it as a means of stemming sexually transmitted diseases, most of which are spread by bacteria and  viruses many times smaller than sperm? The FDA’s own data admits this, saying only that the male condom is the “best protection” against STD’s compared to other contraceptive methods which provide none.

Last year, Guam’s Department of Public Health reported the largest increase in sexually transmitted diseases in the last 5 years including 900 new cases of Chlamydia, a disease with which nearly 10% of Guam’s population, age 15 to 24, is infected. Yet, this same Department sponsors Prutehi Hao , a program which promotes condom use as if it is a new found cure for cancer.

Imagine a policy which mandates greater access to guns as an answer to gun crime. Stupid, right? Yet just last week, our Congresswoman announced an Obamacare grant  to Guam DOE to “educate adolescents and young adults on both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.” While the requisite nod towards abstinence education is noteworthy, we can be sure it will get short shrift and condom use will be touted as “responsible”.

A few columns back I quoted Archbishop Sheen’s ominous observation: “God will forgive. Man may forgive. Nature NEVER forgives.” This stark, inevitable truth is never more mercilessly true than when it comes to the abuse of sex. Sex was designed by God for a reason. Whenever it is used contrary to that reason, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE...literally: a pile of corpses 50 million unborn children high, a pandemic of sexually transmitted disease, tragic rates of infertility, a black plague of female-related cancers, people crippled by rotting genitals, death of the most horrific sort, and for Guam - the self-genocide of the Chamorro.

And what’s our government’s answer? More money for more of the same, and obeisance to a soviet-style mandate coercing us to pay for all this death, disease, and destruction under the guise of “preventative care” - a euphemism as deceitful and demonic as the Nazi’s “Arbeit macht Frei” (“Work makes you free”): words emblazoned in iron at the entrance to Auschwitz. There is much to fear.

NATURE NEVER FORGIVES

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen used to say “God will forgive. Man may forgive. But Nature... (pause)...never forgives.”

The alcoholic who stops drinking but not before his liver is damaged knows this; so too does the smoker who quits smoking but has already cut years off his life; the man who changes his diet but not before heart disease, gout, and diabetes have left him crippled; and the fornicator who repents but whose body remains riddled with disease.

As we move through life and age takes its toll, it is remarkable to reflect on how the rules of our faith, the virtues we were told to inculcate, the morals we were commanded to observe, not only are oriented towards eternity, but also towards a better here and now.

The Seven Deadly Sins, gluttony, sloth, wrath, greed, envy, pride, and lust, not only wreak havoc on the soul but the body as well, just as the Cardinal Virtues, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, not only point us towards heaven, but are also meant to spare us an earthly hell of ill health.

Sadly, many of us, either lacking knowledge of this truth or the will to embrace it, are forced to learn this catechism of sin and virtue in the school of disease and death. True, death comes for us all, but we don’t have to rush to meet it. Mother Church wills, rather, that we “might have life and have it to the full”; thus, its prohibitions on things contrary to nature.

The above mentioned bad-habits are well-known and no one is surprised that Uncle John, who smoked for decades, now cannot move about without a 40 pound tank of oxygen in tow. But we ARE surprised when a woman in mid-life is taken down by cancer. Or perhaps not (surprised), since breast cancer and other female-related cancers are occurring with exponential frequency.

Since 1970, the incidence of breast cancer has increased worldwide by 80%.  And in Europe it has outpaced lung cancer as the top killer even though it mostly affects only women. In the U.S., though it still ranks second to lung cancer, the incidence of breast cancer has grown a terrifying 660% since 1973.

Cancer researches know the cause for the epidemic, but carefully hide it from full view. An example of how it is hidden is exemplified in this post by the health editor of a British paper, who, in commenting on the “global epidemic” of breast cancer, says:

“‘Westernisation’ of traditional lifestyles is to blame. A richer diet, smaller families, delayed childbearing and reduced breast-feeding have driven the increase in the West, together with rising obesity and increased alcohol consumption, specialists say. Now these trends are being seen everywhere – with a growing burden of malignant disease in their wake.”

We already know about the risks of a richer diet, obesity and alcohol consumption. What’s new, and rather foreign to this discussion, is the insertion of “smaller families, delayed childbearing and (even) reduced breast-feeding” as drivers of female cancers. Of course, what the author is referring to (but won’t actually say) is The Pill.

In 2005, the U.N.’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, based on recommendations from the World Health Organization, reclassified Hormonal Menopause Therapy (HMT) from “possibly carcinogenic” to “carcinogenic”, in fact a Group One Carcinogen, right up there with asbestos and radium.

The hormones used in HMT, progesterone and estrogen, are the same hormones used in birth control pills, and buried in the report is a reference to the increased risk of cancer by a “common type of birth control pill”.  The report admits that The Pill was already known to cause liver cancer, and goes on to conclude that it also “slightly increases the risk of breast and cervical cancer.”

The near doubling of the worldwide rate of breast cancer over the last four decades and it’s six-fold increase in the U.S. and Europe can hardly be considered “slight”, but the U.N., finding itself at odds with its own population control policy which is heavily vested in the global distribution of hormonal contraceptives, is predictably reluctant to tell us the whole truth.

Our Church, however, has never been reluctant to tell us the whole truth. The Catechism calls intentional contraceptive acts “intrinsically evil”. Yet, for over a generation, many Catholics have ignored, ridiculed, impugned, and openly disobeyed this teaching, and - as if to put an exclamation point on their disdain for the Church’s prohibition on contraception - support the president’s “contraceptive mandate” by a large majority.

However, to paraphrase Archbishop Sheen, while we might thumb our noses at God and the magisterial teaching of the Church, in the end, disease and death will get our attention, for “Nature...(pause)...never forgives.”

SOLVING FOR X

“We've got to persuade people to understand that getting married is important, having children is important.” The words of a conservative Catholic cleric? Some right-wing, pro-life radical? Nope. Those are the words of Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister and Founder of Singapore.

Appearing recently on Singapore TV, the 88 year-old Yew was not giving a lecture in defense of the family, he was decrying the death of the nation he himself had founded. Singapore may have one of the world’s highest standards of living, but it also has the world’s lowest fertility-rate and its population is dramatically imploding.

The fertility-rate is the number of children a woman will have over her lifetime. The minimum necessary for a society to replace itself is 2.1: one for her, one for her mate, and 0.1 to account for infant mortality. Singapore is at 0.75 and the rate has been declining since the 70’s after Yew himself instituted a policy called “Stop at Two” which paid women to get sterilized.  

Because Singapore is a small nation, it didn’t take long for the fertility reduction policy to manifest its effects. At first, it had the desired effect: a reduction in the number of child dependents freed up labor for Singapore’s economic machine. In fact, the economic turnabout was so quick that Singapore became known as the “Asian miracle”.

With few dependents and lots of capital, Singapore’s standard of living soared. But by 1980, Singapore was forced to begin importing migrant labor to keep its economic engine going. There simply were not enough young Singaporese. Yew’s fertility reduction policy had worked well, too well.

In 1980, Yew dropped his “Stop at Two” policy and replaced it with “Three or More”, which, instead of paying women to get sterilized, paid them to have babies. But, as Yew’s recent plea seems to evince, it hasn’t worked. As one commentator put it: the Singaporese seemed to have “acquired a taste for small families and shopping.”

Near tears, Yew further implored his people: "If we go on like that, this place will fold up, because there'll be no original citizens left to form the majority...Do we want to replace ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants...?"

Though the desire to maintain political control through an ethnic majority seems to be at the root of Yew’s comments, the larger issue at some point for the aging Singaporese is simply going to be the need to have someone around to help them get to and from the toilet.

Singapore isn’t alone. A 2007 U.N report noted that the fertility rate is plunging in almost every country in the world (except for a few in sub-Saharan Africa), and warned of the effects of a “graying world” on the world’s health care systems. According to the report, the crisis point for each nation is when the over-65 population surpasses the under-5 population.

One demographer calls it “Solving for X”, X being the point at which the lines representing the two population sectors cross on a graph, foretelling a point, perhaps a generation hence, when there will simply be “too many old people.” Perhaps, this is why many countries whose populations have already reached “X”, particularly in Europe, have begun liberating their euthanasia laws.

“Solving for X” is at the root of the debate over America’s “safety-net” entitlements: Medicare and Social Security. These programs depend on taxing the incomes of the current working generation to pay for the care of retirees. In 1940, when Social Security was instituted, there were 42 workers per retiree. Today there are 2.8.

Recently, Paul Ryan created a stir over his plan to fix Medicare, which is endangered by the collapse of this worker to retiree ratio. His detractors have claimed that Ryan want to “throw Granny over the cliff”. However, the math is clear, Granny is already headed for the cliff, and you, right behind her.

Ironically, our “safety-net” crisis has been wrought by the very generation that will probably suffer most from its collapse. Like the people of Singapore, our own society has “acquired a taste for small families and shopping, not to mention the 50-80 million missing people due to the 2.7 unborn children we have aborted every minute of every day since January 27, 1973 (Roe v Wade).

Amazingly, in the midst of this crisis, President Obama has instituted an anti-fertility policy (HHS Mandate) which will hasten the collapse of the worker to retiree ratio, assuring the destruction of the social-safety net programs he pretends to champion, and setting us on a course for the economic and national melt-down which inevitably follows population implosion. Perhaps he should speak with Mr. Yew.

RUMBLE IN RIO

In a recent column, we took a stab at a possible cause for the shocking increase in the number of Catholics who believe abortion to be morally acceptable. In summary, I suggested, that while the Church officially condemns abortion, Her teaching is undermined by Church ministers who continue to publicly accommodate, excuse, and even honor pro-abortion Catholic politicians, and in so doing, lead rank and file Catholics astray.

As sad and scandalous as this may be, the increasing moral acceptance of abortion among Catholics may have a more insidious cause: Environmentalism. I say “insidious” because it comes disguised as a great good: care of the earth. But let us define “Environmentalism”.

The key is in the “ism” which denotes an ideology beyond mere environmental concern.

A quick internet search of “Environmentalism” will turn up references to the use of environmental issues to effect a political agenda which includes the imposition of an ideology which often advances abortion and other brutal population control measures in the name of saving the planet.

It is no coincidence that almost all of Environmentalism’s major figures are radical abortion advocates. Al Gore, its most recognized prophet, has urged “fertility management” and “population stabilization” as the central solution to global warming, and is advocating “international people rationing” through the United Nations Population Fund. Of course, no one has to guess at what those terms really mean.

Bill Gates, a recent convert to climate-change alarmism, is pushing (and funding) de-population through “new vaccines”. The World Wildlife Fund is notoriously advancing a pro-abortion agenda worldwide. And the Sierra Club is responsible for commissioning the infamous 1968 book “Population Bomb”, which, despite its failed and discredited Malthusian predictions, nevertheless provided the “scare” necessary to advance the aggressive distribution of contraceptives and the elevation of abortion to a constitutional right.

Evidence connecting Environmentalism with the institutionalized destruction of the unborn abounds, and the purveyors of the Culture of Death have become increasingly adept at translating images of polar bears stranded on melting ice flows into a mounting pile of dead babies.

In fact, the global warming issue has provided the anti-human movement with its most effective platform yet, which is why its alarmist promoters are indefatigable about connecting the words “man-made” to “global warming”. In short, if the earth is warming, and people are the cause, then there are too many people, and their numbers must be reduced. Thus the “healing” of the planet and sympathy for polar bears soothes the conscience as we sterilize ourselves and increasingly accept murder in the womb.

One might wonder why all the scientific and social contortions in order to advance the moral acceptability of abortion. Actually, it’s easy to understand. The act of destroying a defenseless child whose screams are drowned in amniotic fluid while her little body is chopped to pieces is so heinous that its advancement demands a disguise, and stranded polar bears are simply easier to show.

Gore’s proposed catastrophic scenario of millions perishing due to global warming has been especially effective in influencing those who might otherwise reject abortion as evil to quietly accept abortion as a “necessary evil”, and even a moral duty in the service of reducing one’s “carbon footprint”.

However, Gore’s gig might be up. His voracious de-population Malthusian machine seems to have slammed into a wall at the recent Rio “Earth Summit”, at which, the tiny Vatican, with the aid of an unlikely alliance, stripped language from the final conference document which would have allowed environmental solutions to be linked to “reproductive rights” (i.e. population control: sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion).

The unlikely alliance included the likes of Russia, whose government is relatively religiously indifferent, and the Leftist-governed, Nicaragua. In fact, it was Nicaragua, not the Vatican who called out the U.S.-Hillary Clinton-led pro-abortion delegation for its lying language and demanded that they cease to “shadow box around the term ‘reproductive rights’” which, Nicaragua said, “every country knows is code at the UN for abortion.” WOW!!!

Feminists and environmentalists were staggered, calling the outcome of the Rio conference “very bad” and “a major turn for the worse.”

Had it been just the Vatican and a handful of “Catholic” countries, the protest against “reproductive rights” could be labeled as “the undue influence of the Catholic Church”, which to the pro-aborts would have simply meant that they have more work to do.

But the fact that nations normally not aligned with the Vatican, took the lead in trouncing the purveyors of the Culture of Death, has sent the pro-aborts reeling. In short, the rumble in Rio marks a major turning point for the Gospel of Life. Now...if only Catholics will catch on.