Pendragons Princess

Well I dug out another goody from my files, this time, from the National Catholic Reporter, dated August 29, 1997, eleven years ago. Some excerpts from this very long commentary by Jesuit priest Robert F. Drinan:

Organizations that see to slow or control the growth of world population have never received much attention from Catholics. Resistance, even hostility, have long marked the attitude of Catholics toward groups like Zero Population Growth.

The unspoken premise behind the Catholic view has been that as a human being it is better to be than not to be, and that God in his loving providence creates every person for good if imponderable reasons.

Meanwhile, population growth continues at a startling rate. In 1966 Earth’s total population was 3.4 billion. In 1996 it was 5.7 billion. That’s an increase of 2.3 billion in just 30 years.

In September 1994 the world focused on population at the UN’s nine day International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. The Catholic press reported at some length on that event but mostly about the views on abortion raised by Catholic delegates. There was little attention in the Catholic community given to the awesome problems that are inevitable if the human family continues to grow by 70 million each year.

Education of women is one of the most important [ways to decrease population growth]. Women who can read can obtain accurate information about maternal and child health. They can discover that breast-feeding can often be a natural contraceptive.

[William G.] Hollingsworth urges [women to have] access to contraceptive information. Even though it is well known that lack of contraceptive information is one of the causes of some 52 million abortions each year worldwide, many Catholics have traditional or moral misgivings about artificial contraceptives.

The lack of [overpopulation] interest [by Catholics] is surprising, given decades of official Catholic teaching urging parents to be responsible about the number of children they bring into the world.

The issues are morally complex. There are no simple answers. But it is clear that in the year 2010 there will be at least one billion more persons in the world than in 1997. People of faith and the entire human family must undertake heroic efforts to prepare an existence for these children that is worthy of human beings.

………………………………………………………………………………………

Drinan’s figures are accurate: in 1997, the world’s population was 6 billion. In 2008, right now we are at 6.7 billion: that’s an addition of 7 billion people in only eleven year’s time. So, yes, if birth trends continue this way, we will definitely be at 7 billion, if not slightly more (7.2 billion at the most) by 2010 – two years away from today.

The Roman Catholic church has always been opposed to artificial contraception – the rhythm method is recommended but even that is not a guaranteed form of birth control. According to the commentary, birth growth has dropped slightly in third world countries as of 1997 but not a whole lot. Catholic teaching aside, it would be more accurate to say this church favors the “imponderable reasons” for one thing only: to increase the numbers of the Roman Catholic Church. Once more people are born into poverty, the church can send its workers to aid and convert the poor, much in the way Mother Theresa did.

Like Hollingsworth said, education for women is the primary key for birth control – access to information, birth control methods, and much more. Poverty has for too long been the mascot of the Roman Catholic Church – encourage a problem, then send a ‘hero’ from the church to help alleviate the problem. Sexual attitudes by this church has probably caused more personal struggles and issues than anything else. What comes of the married couple who are finished having 2 ½ kids and cannot have sex anymore because their church forbids it if contraception is used? Can love and intimacy disappear? It usually does, thus exacerbating the relationship between the married Catholic couple. After all, sex used for pleasure is regarded as Original Sin, something that is only to be used for procreating and nothing else. Then if a baby is somehow conceived while it’s being pleasurable, it’s guilt trip time – not for the parents, but for the child they made. How sad is that? The parents would be better off using contraception and not telling anyone in their church about it. The problem here is the amount of control the Roman Catholic church exerts over its members as well as non-members. It is not unusual for someone to say that if he or she cannot do or have something per his or her religious teachings, then no one else can, either. Admittedly, it is childishness at its finest but then again members of such a church are indeed considered to be “Children of the Church.” There is no independent thinking allowed in this area known as birth control. Those who are open about using birth control usually wind up doing penance. Perhaps it is better to not tell anyone birth control is being used, if one is a Roman Catholic. No one else needs to know. It’s better to have a clear conscience and use birth control rather than instill the tragic results of guilt feelings into the potential offspring, who didn’t ask to be born.