NOT A PARTICULARLY WWJD MOMENT

For over a year now, the nation’s bishops have been protesting the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate and warning that Catholic charitable organizations will be the most harmed and may even be shut down.

Thus, many Catholics are now scratching their heads over Cardinal Dolan’s paradoxical invitation to President Obama to the fundraiser of all fundraisers for Catholic charities: the Al Smith Dinner.

The Dinner is an annual event named for a popular New York governor who was also the first Catholic presidential candidate (1928). It is held each year in October at the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria and the Archbishop of New York is the honorary host.

Since 1960, the Dinner has also been a presidential campaign stop and the candidates are normally invited. However, there have been occasions when candidates were not invited and in some cases disinvited themselves.

In 1996, Cardinal O’Connor refused to invite President Clinton due to Clinton’s veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. Cardinal Egan, in 2004, declined to invite John Kerry because Kerry was flagrantly pro-abortion. And in 1984, sensing a showdown with the pugnaciously pro-life O’Connor, then-presidential candidate Walter Mondale had the good sense to disinvite himself. But on abortion, Clinton, Kerry, and Mondale are pikers compared to Obama. Thus, the head-scratching.

To understand the dustup over the Dinner, we must think past the current debate over “the mandate” and recall the 2007 promise Obama made to Planned Parenthood to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) as “the first thing I’d do as President.”

The FOCA would wipe away every restriction on abortion including the ban on partial-birth abortion and the Born Alive Act. And the only reason he hasn’t passed the legislation, legislation he co-authored, is because it has yet to land on his desk.

Let’s review. A partial-birth abortion is a procedure wherein a child is yanked out of her mother’s womb by the feet and then stabbed in the back of the head to make a hole for a vacuum tube which is then inserted to suck her brains out. The Born-Alive Act requires normal medical care for a child who survives a failed abortion.

The visuals of stabbing a baby in the back of the head, and a still-alive, writhing, gasping baby being thrown into a bio-hazard bag, were enough to make Congress pass both bills by huge majorities. But Barack Obama has promised to undo them.

Cardinal Dolan, in defense of his invitation to Obama to a night of comedy, caviar, and cocktails, has referred to our differences with Obama on these horrors simply as a “disagreement”. Of course, many are astounded and incensed.

What’s more, the Cardinal is asking us to “be nice” after more than a year of saber-rattling statements, sternly-worded petitions, and rallies for religious freedom in defiance of Barack Obama’s attack on the Church, in which so many ordinary Catholics had given of their “time, talent, and treasure”, simply because they believed that they finally had a Churchillian leader willing to stare down the abortion Lutwaffe.

Dolan further justified his invitation to Obama by claiming papal precedent. He reminds us in a blog post that the Pope often meets with world leaders with whom he disagrees, including President Obama.

As already noted, to call Obama’s radical commitment to a dead baby (if that’s what the mother wants) even if the baby manages to slip through alive, merely a “disagreement”, is simply a gross, very un-Cardinal-like, underestimation of the massive proportions of the conflict. But there are other differences.

The Pope is also a head-of-state, and usually meets world leaders in that capacity. Second, the Pope normally doesn’t invite secular leaders to the Vatican, they request an audience (as did Obama). Third, the audience is normally a private meeting and not a night of cocktails and yukking it up. And fourth, the Pope is cautious about scandal and carefully denies photo-ops as he did with Nancy Pelosi.

Dolan then goes on to compare his invitation to Obama with Christ’s dining with sinners. Putting aside his PR faux pas of publicly calling Obama a “sinner”, the comparison is seriously wanting. To compare the prestigious New York Dinner, its “glitz list” of luminaries, its menu of Waldorf delicacies, and its general revelry, with Christ dining with sinners, is, well, simply not a WWJD moment.

The President is expected to be warm, charming, funny, and noticeably deferential to the Cardinal. It will be a happy event, especially for Obama, since the polls show him leading among Catholics voters 51 to 42. As one columnist noted, Obama has figured out that “he can have his [Catholic] cake and eat it too -- and at the Al Smith dinner to boot.”

THE CRUDE FACTS ABOUT GUAM'S CRUDE DIVORCE RATE (CDR)

We don’t need studies to verify the maxim: “As marriage goes, so goes the family, and as the family goes, so goes the culture.” But there are plenty of studies which show exactly that. Broken families lie at the root of most of our societal ills simply because the family is the essential societal cell, and marriage is its nucleus. 

Guam has traditionally been a very pro-family culture, characterized by large numbers of children, commitment to the elderly, and mutual support. However, especially over the last 25 years or so, the family on Guam, like much of the western world, has been fragmenting on a frightening scale.

Everyone seems to be aware that “something bad is happening” to Guam’s families, but  few seem to understand the cause, its proportions, or what to do to turn it around. Obviously, blaming outside influence and asking for more money for more failed social programs is not the answer. 

This report is an attempt to shed some light on the issue in the hopes that we might stop this monster before it stops us. As we might suppose, divorce is at the root of most family fragmentation, and on Guam, as we shall see, divorce is a much bigger problem than what many might imagine.

Before we begin, I want to say that I have several friends who have suffered through divorce and I am entirely sympathetic to their struggles, and am certain they will appreciate the intent of this essay.

First, a look at the numbers. A 2008 United Nations report shows Russia, the nation with the world’s highest incidence of divorce, with a Crude Divorce Rate (number of divorces per 1000 population) of 5.0. (1)The report does not have current data for Guam, however, our divorce rate can be found in the 2010 Guam Statistical Yearbook which shows a Guam CDR of 4.7. (2)

However, the 4.7 number was based on a higher than actual projection of total population, which the 2010 census eventually reported as 159,358. (3) Given the 849 divorces reported in 2010, Guam’s actual CDR is 5.3, which puts Guam on top of the world in the number of divorces granted by our courts relative to the population.

This is, no doubt, a rather dubious distinction. Guam: the divorce capital of the world? The picture darkens further when we consider that Russia was for the better part of a century under atheistic communistic domination, and Guam, for the better part of half a millennium has been predominantly Catholic.

What has happened on Guam is a classic illustration of “Lex Magister” (the law teaches), or, as it has also been expressed: “the law shapes the culture.” It is also an illustration of the consequence of our careless choices in electing the people who make those laws which “shape the culture”.

About 25 years ago, our divorce laws were relaxed to provide a loophole in the residency requirement - effectively allowing “mail order” divorces. The divorce rate did not change noticeably at first because Guam had not yet allowed no-fault divorce. However, we took care of that in 1998 (4).

Again, the divorce rate did not change right away, and in fact, in 2002, had dropped to a low of 3.0. However, it was the calm before the storm. The combination of an intended loophole in the residency requirement and no-fault divorce was an opportunity just waiting to be exploited. And as one Guam attorney said “I picked up and ran with this.” (5)

And run he did, as did many other Guam attorneys. In 2003, Guam’s CDR almost doubled to 5.4. In 2004 it more than doubled to 11.8. And by 2005 it reached a staggering 14.1, a feat which motivated another attorney to testify proudly: “Guam is the only U.S. jurisdiction that provides for these types of consent to jurisdiction divorces.”

Guam Statistical Yearbook 2001 Table PO17, 2005 Table 11-97, 2008 Table 11-05, 2010 Table 12-09, published by Bureau of Statistics and Plans, Office of the Governor

By 2005, not only was Guam averaging a scandalous 9.25 divorces per working day, other U.S. jurisdictions had begun to question the validity of Guam divorces given that jurisdiction to grant divorces is based on domicile, and Guam’s courts required no proof of it.

In other words, not only had Guam debased itself morally with its shameful shingle “Get Your Divorce Here”, we had also discredited ourselves by projecting the image that Guam was a judicial banana republic, granting divorces - as one attorney said - that were “not worth the paper they were printed on.” (6)

In an attempt to salvage Guam from this moral, ethical, and legal mess, a bill was introduced in 2005 which “would have” eliminated non-resident divorces entirely by restoring enforcement of the 90-day residency requirement (though even that requirement is still liberal by most state and national standards). (7)

“Would have” is in quotes because, pro-divorce senators who wanted to keep Guam’s divorce mill humming with revenue (which is why the residency requirements were relaxed in the first place) replaced the bill’s 90-day residency requirement with a vacation length “stay” of a mere seven days. (8)

Though the seven-day requirement did eliminate the ethical and judicial scandal of mail-order divorces, it created an opportunity to prostitute Guam anew as a divorce destination, an opportunity many Guam law offices, once again, “picked up and ran with.”

The new law had the comical effect of immediately turning some law office websites into vacation blogs, such as GuamDivorces.com which gushes about all the wonderful things you can do on Guam while waiting for your marriage to be dissolved:

"Guam offers an amazing variety of leisure activities as well as historical and cultural attractions. In addition to its beaches, duty free shopping, and varied nightlife, Guam boasts seven world-class golf courses, some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling in the world, underwater parks and submarine tours, sunset dinner cruises, jet skiing, wind surfing, kayaking, parasailing, sky diving, and deep-sea fishing." (9)

Of course, Divorce Tourism would not be possible without those Guam lawmakers who saw nothing wrong with growing such an industry. During the debate, one senator commented: "I don't see the detriment to our island. I don't see that this causes any harm.” (10)

In attempting to rationalize the damning divorce numbers, some argue that because of our playing host to “mail-order divorces” and Divorce Tourism, the divorce statistics do not reflect the real state of things on Guam.

True, but prostituting ourselves to divorce dollars has come with a cost, a big one. How else to explain the massive number of fractured local families and the abuse and neglect of the 3294 children reported by CPS in just 2011 alone? (11)

Already in 2010, Guam’s child abuse rate was nearly twice that of Washington D.C., the worst place in the nation for children excluding the territories. And when compared to the national average of 10.22 maltreated children per 1000 child population , our figure of 72.80 for 2011 is scandalous to a monstrous degree. (12)

National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2011). Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6. Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, total child population: Table 14-03

So Senator(s), do you now see the “detriment to our island”?

Some will contest the connection between lax divorce laws and child abuse. However, there is simply no doubt about the societal impact of family breakdown, and our lawmakers have enabled the engine of that breakdown, i.e. divorce, to a radical, world-leading degree. And since the children are always the first to suffer, the rate of child abuse is a reliable measure of family fragmentation. (13)

Divorce is better for children?

It is indeed a curious thing to listen to endless talk about Guam’s social ills when most of the time the people doing the talking are the people who legislated the mess in the first place.

The testimony in support of the 1998 no-fault divorce bill contains the standard claims that divorce is better for the children of parents who no longer want to stay married. (14)

Not only is there absolutely no evidence for this position, there is massive evidence to the contrary: wherever states have implemented no-fault divorce, the family has imploded and child abuse has exploded (at least 67% of sexually abused children come from broken families). (15)

The burden of caring for the women and children from those broken families almost always falls to the government. And 40 years later, we are seeing states like California, which pioneered no-fault divorce, slipping headlong into bankruptcy.

Yet, Guam bought into this drivel in the name of compassion for unhappy spouses.

A note from the governor who signed Guam’s no-fault divorce bill into law states: “The aim of this legislation is not to encourage divorces or make it easier...The aim of this legislation is to reduce the hostility between married persons who are already embroiled in differences.” (16)

But now, with fourteen year hindsight, we can clearly see that not only did Guam’s divorce rate skyrocket to a world record high, so did “hostility between married persons” as evidenced by the still soaring rates of family violence. Except now it’s not the husband who beats the woman’s head in with a baseball bat, it’s her boyfriend, or her “ex”.

Perhaps the most ironic testimony in support of the legislation came from the then-Chief of Police, who wrote of his hopes that no-fault divorce would provide a “safeguard against violence occurring.”

The irony of course is that the CPS report alone would show that the opposite has occurred. In fact, as revealed in a 2011 report, as many as 28 victims of domestic violence and their children receive life-saving services daily from local domestic violence organizations. And of course, those are only the ones which were reported and responded to. (17)

What to do?

Sadly, there was no opposing testimony to the no-fault divorce legislation, no Marine Corps Drive “waves”, no signs on churches, no “just say no to divorce” t-shirt campaign, no announcements from the pulpit decrying the projected effects of the legislation even though by 1998 we had more than three decades of stateside evidence of the havoc wrought by no-fault divorce upon the family and the damage done to children.

Also, there has been no noticeable protest from Christians, Catholics or otherwise, over the promotion of Guam as a Divorce Destination, which as we have demonstrated, has produced the highest rates of divorce in the world, and has infected the local population of Guam with a divorce, if not an anti-marriage, culture of its own. (18)

It is not too late. It is never too late for a Church which has as its foundation the promise of Christ that “the gates of hell will not prevail.” But will we respond?

The quote from the senator who did not see how “this could be detrimental to Guam” is a classic illustration of why the government can’t fix this and why only the Church can. Without an understanding of the “Mystical Body of Christ” - of how the wound of sin in one part of the body affects the whole, the problem can neither be seen nor solved.

Marriage, and the promotion and protection of it, is the proper domain of the Church. Not only did Christ elevate the one man-one woman, life-long, life-giving relationship to  a Sacrament - a path to Heaven, but marriage itself prefigures the eternal wedding feast that IS Heaven. Thus, it is our duty to announce Heaven in and through our marriages, and in so doing, bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.

It is time for the Church to move beyond Pre-Cana classes and start doing some Post-Cana training, combat training, spiritual combat. It is time for the Church to go beyond its ministry to “the youth” and start doing something (consistently) for their parents. And for the laity, it is time to stop talking about family and start holding accountable those lawmakers whose policies dismantle it.

1. United Nations Statistics Division, Demographic Yearbook, Table 25, Divorces and crude divorce rates by urban/rural residence: 2004-2008 (here)

2. Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Table 12-09, Vital Statistics Summary, Guam: Calendar Years 2006 to 2010 (here)

3. 2010.census.gov., "U.S. Census Bureau Releases 2010 Census Population Counts for Guam" (here)

4. Public Law 23-134, An Act relative to establishing "irreconcilable differences" as a ground for the dissolution or marriages. (here)

5. Bill 138-28, Committee Report, November 5, 2008 (here)

6. ibid

7. ibid

8. Public Law 28-93, An act to require court findings as to the residency of any party to a divorce (here)

9. GuamDivorces.com, FAQ's (here)

10. "Guam no longer a divorce mill", by Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News, found reposted at international-divorce.com (here)

11. Guam DPHSS Division of Public Welfare, Bureau of Social Services Administration, Child Protective Services (here)

12. National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6 (here). Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, and total child population: Table 14-03 (here)

13. "Re-examining the impact of no-fault divorce", Emory Report, April 22, 1996, Volume 48, No. 30 (here)

14. Public Law 24-134 (here)

15. Wilson, Robin, "Children at Risk: the sexual exploitation of female children after divorce," Cornell Law Review, Jan 2001 v86 i2 p251 (here)

16. Public Law 24-134

17. Pacific News Center, "Survey Reveals Troubling Rate of Domestic Violence on Guam", March 3, 2011 (here)

18. Guam’s Crude Marriage Rate (marriages per 1000 population) has declined from 10.5 in 1991 to 7.8 in 2009. Data derived from Guam Statistical Yearbooks, 2001, 2008 and 2010.

CATHOLIC CHICKENS

Published in the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam, on August 12, 2012.

The conservative media is all abuzz with the hope that the Democratic Party just “did itself in.” With the news that the Democrats will adopt a pro same-sex marriage plank to add to its national platform, conservatives are sure that this will be the last straw for many members who are feeling increasingly uneasy about their party’s hard Left turn.

However, they aren’t factoring in an important wild card: Catholics. Catholics form the largest single voting bloc in the nation (one in four voters are Catholic). And even though Catholics went heavily for Obama in 2008, conservative analysts are sure that the spat over religious freedom has soured them on Obama this time around, and that the official same-sex marriage plank will seal the deal.

But they are mistaken. Such a projection assumes that Catholics actually care about Catholic teaching. They do not, at least not in the numbers necessary to make a difference in the 2012 election.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in February shows that 60 percent of Catholics support the contraceptive mandate even though their Church teaches that contraceptive acts are “intrinsically evil” (CCC 2370).

And a Pew poll found that Catholics support “gay marriage” 52% to 37%, which is a larger margin than the rest of the nation, despite Church teaching that homosexual acts - which same-sex marriage would effectively institutionalize - are “sins gravely contrary to chastity” (CCC 2357).

And lest we think these polls do not reflect the opinions of “practicing Catholics”, a Georgetown CARA poll shows that it is “practicing Catholics” - those who go to Mass weekly - who are MORE likely to vote Democrat, despite the Democratic National Platform supporting abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Obama’s attack on Catholic leadership, and now the Party’s official embrace of same-sex marriage.

In other words, it is the Catholics who DON’T go to Mass who oppose Obama, abortion, the destruction of human embryos, same-sex marriage, and the attack on religious freedom! Thus, one might ask “What is it about going to Mass that makes a Catholic more supportive of a party whose positions are officially hostile to Catholic moral teaching?”

It probably has nothing to do with going to Mass, but could have everything to do with the counsel “practicing Catholics” receive privately from some pastors and teachers.

For years, I was counseled, even in the confessional, that the use of contraception was a matter for my wife and I to decide, and was told outright, on one occasion, that birth control pills were “no different than aspirin”.

Thinking that four kids was all we could handle and desiring further guidance, I once approached a pastor on the matter. He gave me a book entitled “Catholicism” authored by Fr. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. I was impressed by the thick volume and felt assured by the title. But upon opening it, I was instinctively disturbed by what I read.

I had not yet read Humanae Vitae and my only qualms about using contraception were the remnants of parental rumblings over the matter. Yet, as St. Paul says, “All men have SOME light”, and however dim, mine was still on - at least “on” enough to be disturbed by McBrien’s views.

I decided to poke around and soon learned that not only had the book received an official disapproval from the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops for the author’s erroneous views on contraception, but that McBrien had also written elsewhere in support of homosexuality, pornography, and bestiality, calling these “new directions...an indication of responsibly progressive Catholic moral theology...”

The book had one good effect. It caused me to read Humanae Vitae, and I was shaken by the purity and logic of it compared to the disturbing impurity and illogic as well as the defiance which I perceived in McBrien’s book.

I approached the priest who gave me the book and asked him why he supported such dissent from Catholic teaching. His answer was a shocker. He said that “disobedience was necessary for progress.” I never sought his counsel again.

Sadly, though the USCCB may have disapproved of McBrien’s book. It never disapproved of McBrien, and he and his ilk have been allowed to run amok in Catholic academia for decades, producing - according to the polls - a whole generation of Catholics who believe that “disobedience is progress”.

But now, those same bishops are desperately in need of supportive obedience from that generation. They know that the contraceptive mandate is just the first step in the dismantling of the Church, the discrediting of its leadership, and the destruction of the traditional family.

However, as you can see from the polls, Catholics are siding with Obama and against their bishops. America’s Catholic “chickens”, have indeed come home to roost.

NO GUNS NEEDED

Printed in the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam, August 5, 2012


The mass murder in Colorado two weeks ago was not a Tragedy, as most in the media are calling it. It was an Atrocity. The destruction wrought by the Japanese tsunami is a Tragedy. The blowing away of twelve innocent people is an Atrocity, and we need to call it that.

I could write a whole column about such abuse of language, but not this week. However, the point is not unrelated. In a nation that has constitutionally institutionalized the mechanized destruction of 4000 unborn children daily and calls it “healthcare”, what have we to say about a guy who straps on a comic book outfit and wipes out 12 more?

As Mother Teresa said: “If abortion isn’t wrong, nothing is.” Let me say that again: “If abortion isn’t wrong...nothing is.” The only difference between what happened in that theater and what happened in a clinic down the street, was the volume of the screams.

What don’t we get? The Aurora slaughter and the butchering of the unborn are of the same evil root. If we can accept the killing of the most innocent and defenseless among us and call it a “right”, why are we surprised when the same murderous mentality extends beyond the womb?

On the road to Calvary, the brutalized Jesus addresses the Daughters of Jerusalem with this question: “...for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?” Meaning: “If they will do this to me, the very essence of good and innocence, think what they will do to you.”

Jesus’ words would come to pass forty years later with the destruction of Jerusalem in which over one million Jews were crucified and butchered; and of the wailing and suffering the historian Josephus says “nothing more deafening and frightening could be imagined.”

On January 22, 2013, it will be exactly “forty years later”...forty years since Roe v. Wade. Forty years of a national abortion holocaust that has left a mountain of carnage, 53 million dead babies high. The chambers and ovens of Dachau and Auschwitz have nothing on us.

Two days earlier, on January 20, we will have inaugurated a president. It will be one of two men. Either, one, who, despite a checkered past on the issue, is now firmly in the pro-life camp, or another, whose record leaves no question, and who, in his own words, believes the ability for a mother to kill her child is necessary to insure “that our daughters have [the opportunity] to fulfill their dreams.”

When the victorious Titus returned to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem, it is said that he refused to accept the traditional “wreath of victory”, saying that he was only an instrument of God’s wrath.

With 53 million of the most innocent of our fellow humans dead and their blood crying to heaven for vengeance, “God’s wrath” is a given. I don’t foresee any Romans outside the walls, but there is no need. Our destruction is already within the walls. In fact, it is already upon us.

Beginning in 2013, and exactly 40 years after Roe v. Wade, and unless something is done to stop it, the federal government will commence the termination of the burdensome - as per Section 6301(c) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

The section is ambiguously titled LIMITATIONS ON CERTAIN USES OF COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH and the rest of the section is just as ambiguous. But the key words are these: “the difference in the effectiveness of alternative treatments in extending an individual’s life due to the individual’s age, disability, or terminal illness.”

In other words, there is no need for “death panels”. This section gives one single unelected bureaucrat, the Secretary of Health & Human Services, the authority to ultimately determine whether or not you are worth saving.  

Of course, this is the exact opposite of what the President said in June of 2009 when he said “I don’t want bureaucracies making those [end of life ] decisions.” Surprise!

And this is just one of 1,968 new powers bequeathed to the “Secretary” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act! “Patient Protection!” Did you catch that?

Oh, so you thought that this was just about coverage for pre-existing conditions and getting even with those “evil” insurance companies? Well, how else did you think Obamacare was going to be “affordable”?

In John 21, Jesus warns: “..when you are old, you shall reach out your hands, and others... shall lead you to where you do not want.”

Forty years ago we constitutionally authorized the killing of our young. Forty years later, the young are now authorized to kill us. And no guns needed. By the way, the President and the Secretary are exempt from Section 6301(c).

HAPPY NFP AWARENESS WEEK

Published in the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam on 7/29/12


Oh, so you didn’t know it was Natural Family Planning Awareness Week? Well, if you had plans for it, you’ll need to wait till next year. It ends today (July 22-29).  


NFP, for those who may not be aware, is a non-contraceptive system of birth regulation considered moral by the Church if employed for “serious reason” (HV, 10).

NFP, which relies on the systematic observation of bodily indicators to identify a woman’s fertile period, has its advocates and detractors. And while I personally find the whole discussion of birth regulation fascinating and could spend several columns on it, I’d like to cut to the chase in this column and speak directly to the thing that, for most married couples, makes the regulation of births an issue in the first place: money.

For most of us married folk, when it comes to “making babies”, the big issue is not moral, theological or doctrinal, it’s financial. We don’t check the Catechism before we engage in a potentially procreative marital act, we check the bank account. We ask whether or not we can afford another child, and more often than not, the answer is “no”.

We say, sure, grandma had 12 kids and mom had 6, but times are different, it’s more expensive these days. It’s harder to earn a living. It’s not like it used to be, etc., etc., etc. And for the most part, pastoral mentors agree and give couples wide latitude to limit the size of their families (albeit via moral means).

But given that the Church allows only one method of birth regulation - and allows it for only “serious reason”, and given that most of us blame “the cost of living” as the reason to not have another child, we must ask ourselves if the cost of living is a “serious (enough) reason” for a sacramentally married couple to intentionally delay or avoid pregnancy.  In other words: Is it really more expensive today than it was a generation or two ago?

The answer is yes and no. Let’s start with the “no”. According to InflationData.com, the Consumer Price Index in 1960 was 29.6. At the end of 2011, it was 224.9. That means it is approximately 10 times more expensive to live today than it was in 1960.

However, wages, over the same period, have also seen a ten-fold increase. According  to the Social Security Administration, average wages in 1960 were $4007.12 and 41,673.83 in 2010

So, statistically speaking, it is NOT more expensive to live today than it was 50 years ago. It’s about the same. So why is it that we feel we cannot possibly afford another child? Here’s the “yes” part of the answer:

Today we spend 10 times more on our sports addictions than we did in 1960, 37 times more on travel, 43 times more on games, 54 times more on hair care and cosmetics, 60 times more on pets, and...wait for it...178 times more on our “phone” bill - which of course is not our “phone” bill, but the cost of assuaging our incessant need to be permanently connected to the rest of the world through an ever expanding array of gadgets that we just have to have.

True,  the cost of housing is 72 times more than it was in 1960, which, when compared to only a ten-fold increase in wages, represents a significant financial burden.  However, some of that is our own doing. While family size has nearly halved since 1960, the average square footage per home over the same period has more than doubled. In other words, increasingly smaller families are demanding increasingly larger  homes.

And of course there is healthcare, which today costs 30 times more than it did 50 years ago. However, the real “elephant in the room” is the cost of education, specifically “higher education”.

Today we spend 146 times more per family on education than we did in 1960. And since 1985, college costs have exploded, increasing a staggering 498.49%. By comparison, healthcare costs have grown at less than half that rate.

True, many more of our children are going to college these days, but the question which concerns us is whether or not the desire to send our children to college qualifies as the “serious reason” necessary to justify the moral use of NFP.

Of course, the same question could apply to everything from “Do you really need that data plan?” to “Do you really need that big of a house?”

However, the cost of education is so disproportionate to every other expense that there is little question that the specter of its cost probably has more to do with our increasing reluctance to “accept children willingly and lovingly from God” (as we promised), than any other factor. (More later.)

If Gay Marriage Is Okay, What Are the Limits?

This letter to the editor appeared in the Pacific Daily News on July 17, 2011

Wrong Interpretation of the First Commandment

This letter was printed in the Pacific Daily News, 12/28/11 in response to another letter attacking the procession or Our Lady of Kamalin - the patron saint of Guam.

Here is a related video:

COUNTDOWN TO C-DAY

I really had planned to move on to another issue this week. But with the clock ticking down to “Contraceptive Mandate Day”, the day the Catholic Church in America will either become an institutional outlaw or forced to serve Satan, it behooves us to pay attention.

At the stroke of midnight on August 1, all Catholic institutions not covered by a very narrow religious exemption will become subject to the Obama Administration's mandate to include contraceptive and sterilization coverage in their employee healthcare coverage.

The Catholic Church holds that all intentional contraceptive acts are "intrinsically evil". Thus to comply with the mandate will put the Church in America in the “service of Satan”, and to not comply will make the Church an outlaw.

While the USCCB has taken a national stance against the mandate, it does not dictate the policies of each diocese. Each diocese will still have to decide to comply or not comply, and that includes the Archdiocese of Agana.

As per the current reading of the mandate, if we do nothing, on August 1 the Archdiocese of Agana will automatically begin funding contraceptive and sterilization services through the health care premiums it or its subsidiary entities (schools, charitable organizations, etc.) pays to cover those employees who work for Archdiocesan employers not covered by the exemption (mostly schools).  

Let’s review the exemption. According to the mandate, a religious entity is exempt only if it (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under the Internal Revenue Code.

According to the USCCB, academic institutions and most  of its charitable organizations will NOT qualify for the exemption since they exist to serve everyone regardless of creed. What can we do?

Under the initial terms of the mandate, Church-affiliated employers could have simply refused to pay the additional premium for the contraceptive coverage. It would be illegal to do so, but it was still something we could proactively do.

However, after the USCCB outcry over the mandate, Obama granted an “accommodation” which rendered Church employers even more powerless. Obama’s accommodation mandated that insurance companies bear the cost of the mandate instead of the employer.

The accommodation was an insult, for who could be stupid enough not to know that insurance companies would simply pass along the cost of the mandate to its subscribers.

At least under the initial terms of the mandate the Church could have continued to provide health coverage for its employees without contraceptive coverage even if there were legal consequences. However, Obama’s accommodation disemboweled the Church and subjected it to insurance companies and whatever they want to charge.

The Church now has only one option if it does not wish to be a material participant in something it has labeled “intrinsic evil”: cancel all health coverage for non-exempt employees. Thus, as of August 1, hundreds of Catholic school teachers are on track to be without health insurance. Thank you President Obama.

But there is something else. And I think it could work...at least for a few months. And, if Obama can be ousted in November, a few months is all we need.

Before I continue, I want to recognize that what I just said about ousting Obama is probably quite jarring for some. It may seem “too political” for this paper, even for an opinion piece, which this is.

However, as Catholics, we must understand that this is not about politics. This is about our being forced by this President to materially participate in the most serious form of evil - “intrinsic evil”, meaning “always and everywhere WRONG - NO EXCEPTIONS.

I have no authority to officially recommend this to the Archdiocese, but I believe we should claim the exemption for all our Catholic institutions by simply claiming that every one of them exists to inculcate Catholic religious values and “primarily” employs and serves persons who share those values. (The key word is “primarily”.)

The Feds would probably come after us. But it would take time, and we only need a few months - assuming Obama is ousted and the balance of power changes in the Senate..

To “come after us” the Feds would have to investigate who is “Catholic enough” and who is not. This would be the effective equivalent of an Inquisition. And though the likes of Sibelius and Pelosi would no doubt salivate at the prospect of playing Torquemada in reverse, such an action would be too politically dangerous for Obama.

The spectacle of it, the sheer smell of Nazism , (if the bishops play it that way) would shock awake the sleeping majority that is even now rousing from its 2008 hypnosis of “hope and change, hope and change, hope and change...”