Posted on 10/17/2001 12:06:45 PM PDT by ex-snook
The collapsing birthrate in the developed world
By John F. Kobler
A few years ago one of our Passionist retreat house directors told me he was thinking of using The Culture of Death as the theme for the forthcoming years retreat talks. However sympathetic I was to this important theme of John Paul II, I told him frankly he didnt have the horses! At that time I did not think the generality of preachers had a realistic grasp of the complexities of this problem nor a comprehension of the entrenched cultural opposition to the Churchs teachings on sexual morality. I am happy to say that the situation is now changing. A large segment of the secular culture is becoming aware of a serious demographic crisis, especially in the developed world. I would like to list some of the new data and insights reinforcing this changing outlook.
Peter F. Drucker, as you know, is the leading management theorist in the U. S. One of his latest books is Management Challenges for the 21st Century (NY: HarperBusiness, 1999). His second chapter (pp. 44-50) starts out: The most important single new certainty if only because there is no precedent for it in all of history is the collapsing birthrate in the developed world. Drucker lists the general figures for Western and Central Europe (e. g., the mostly Catholic countries of Portugal, Spain, Southern France, and Italy), and Japan. All of these nations are drifting toward collective suicide by the end of the 21st century. Italy is the nation at present most given to contraceptive practices!
In his book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996), Samuel P. Huntington offers some comparative population growth figures between Christianity and Islam (pp. 65-66) and concludes:
In the long run, however, Mohammed wins out. Christianity spreads primarily by conversion. Islam by conversion and reproduction. The percentage of Christians in the world peaked at about 30 percent in the 1980s, leveled off, is now declining, and will probably approximate about 25 percent of the world population by 2025. As a result of their extremely high rates of population growth (see chapter 5), the proportion of Muslims in the world will continue to increase dramatically, amounting to 20 percent of the worlds population about the turn of the century, surpassing the number of Christians some years later, and probably accounting for about 30 percent of the worlds population by 2025.
It is good to recall that Islam today is going through a great religious resurgence of a virulent anti-Western nature, and in some areas of a violent anti-Catholic nature. In chapter 12, The West, Civilizations, and Civilization, Huntington has some sobering and instructive observations on the need for Renewal of the West and the problems posed by multi-culturalism in the United States.
I am aware that the above sources are contested on occasion. Therefore, I recommend an even more authoritative source: Replacement Migration: Is it A Solution to Declining and Aging Populations?, published by the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Secretariat (ESA/P/WP.160, 21 March 2000, English only). This lengthy brochure (pp. viii, 143) studies the dwindling populations of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Europe, and the European Union. In a quite clinical and antiseptic way this study sums up the explosive challenges facing this collapsing birthrate (p. 95):
The new challenges being brought about by declining and aging populations will require objective, thorough and comprehensive reassessments of many established economic, social and political policies and programs. Such reassessments will need to incorporate a long-term perspective. Critical issues to be addressed in those reassessments would include:
In the light of the above demographic facts I believe that since 1968 Catholic theologians and moralists who have endorsed contraception have done a distinct disservice to the magisterium of the Church and the moral fibber of Catholics in general. More and more it is becoming evident that such theologians are isolating themselves from grassroots Catholic concerns and are largely talking to themselves in their university enclaves. A fine article by William Dean may be found in Criterion, a publication of The Divinity School of The University of Chicago, vol. 39:1 (Winter, 2000) 24-29, under the title, The Voluntary Decline of Public Theologians. Deans remarks aimed primarily at Protestant theologians apply in large part to the liberal elite of Catholic university theologians and moralists in the U. S.:
. . . the academic public intellectuals continued to comply with the university mindset and with their disciplinary colleagues around the country. What did it cost them when they glorified Mao Tse Tung or Che Guevera and allowed the university curriculum to be driven first by the counterculture and then by academic fashions? They did not need to depend on the public for their jobs or reputations, as the neoconservatives did. In fact, their jobs usually became safer and their reputations stronger when they shocked the public and belittled its patriotism. So, naturally, they felt little public pressure to reconsider their fundamental assumptions.
I know of only one Catholic demographer, Michel Schooyans, Professor of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, who has grappled with the theme of A World in Crisis, and pointed out the present-day context and implications of the collapsing birthrate in the Western world. I became interested in Schooyans works because the crisis of the modern world is the larger context within which I view the pastoral rethinking of Vatican II. I must admit that, while I may have appreciated the philosophical antecedents of these problems, their concrete expression in Communism and Nazism, and Third World poverty problems, Schooyans opened my mind to the Totalitarian Trend of our Liberal Culture. Schooyans vision of the modern world is shaped by a deep Catholic faith and a profound scholarship. His ideas would give depth to any preacher of renewal today.
Three of Schooyans books have been translated into English: i. e., The Totalitarian Trend of Liberalism, The Gospel Confronting World Disorder, and The Demographic Crash: From Fatalism to Hope (forthcoming). All three books have been translated by Fr. John H. Miller, C.S.C, S.T.D., editor of the Social Justice Review in St. Louis. The books may be obtained from the Central Bureau, CCVA, 3835 Westminster Place, St. Louis, MO 63108. One of the outstanding qualities of Schooyans books is his familiarity with the data provided by international organizations (e. g., the UN) and governmental sources (e. g., U. S.). He also displays a profound acquaintance with the social encyclicals of the Holy See.
I would like to conclude by drawing attention to two issues deriving from the widespread contraceptive practices in the world today. Schooyans points out that much of the radical feminist movement is a modern version of the Marxist theme of class warfare. Lastly, Lionel Tiger, the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, has a powerful book, The Decline of Males (NY: Golden Books, 1999). Tiger attributes the massive changes in society between men and women to effective contraception, the cause of todays gender wars.
I close in a lighter vein: due to the decline of males on campus a number of colleges have designated their male applicants as the new candidates for affirmative action!
Today, child labor laws make kids an economic burden. Mom has a job outside the home and gets squeezed if she has to take care of kids too. And you can't send the kids outside because the streets have become too dangerous.
I'm not advocating something here, I'm just pointing out what's going on.
Actually, homeschoolers have six times the number of large families (over 4 children) than the general population. And, though large families compromise less than 6% of families in the U.S., 25% of children ages 12-18 live in large families. (1998 Census Study)
IMOHO, one quarter of a universe is a pretty large dent.
Are the Falun Gong members being slaughtered in China? Are they being used as LIVE organ donors for the elite in China? YES.
And again, with the multi-billion dollar a year War on Drugs - 30+ years, the soon-to-be multi-billion dollar a year War on Terrorism - est. 10+ years, who is going to pay for the War on Those Who Murder Christians?
Religion has been the most powerful driving force in the creation of nations and the slaughter of the residents of this planet. Of course, mankind is not limited to using religion as an excuse.
I oppose all of the above plus Fertility clinics.
You oppose all (publicly and privately funded) FSCR, you have divested yourself of each company that does it (private or public), you never buy anything from the companies that do FSCR, you have established a living will for you and your family to refuse all drug treatments that were derived from FSCR? Even if your child's or spouse's life depended on it?
If so, you're only the 2nd FReeper who has made this effort. Or maybe you're the only FReeper ... I can't remember the sign-on of the other pro-lifer who stated that they were committed to this.
You stated that this was evident in my post #85. Please post the exact wording of my post that was anti-Catholic.
Personally, being raised Catholic and educated within the Catholic school system, I find it hard to believe that I could break that brainwashing so significantly as to appear to be anti-what-I-am.
YOU No, I don't think they were nuts.
Is that an agreement that there are things more important than 'me'?
No. I merely don't think its nuts for someone to sacrifice their future and their lives for something other than themselves. Were they all volunteers? Or were some drafted, i.e., no choice?
If I choose to regard something as more important than my life and my future, that is entirely up to me. If I choose to sacrifice ANYTHING, that is up to me. No one else. Not you. Not any silly religion. No dandified bishop. Nobody's little tin god. No government, nor representative of a government. Ayn Rand was right about this. No one else.
Those moms are more than great. No way a collapsing birthrate can be put on them. But there is the 'selfish-me' generation who feel children would impact their life style and opt out.
But government policies are not without blame eitherfor forcing this life on mothers. Good paying jobs for men without college have disappeared or been exported. The 'marriage penalty' tax is around for years. Our social security 'ponzi scheme' requires the young to pay for the old while aborting the young and making the raising of these future taxpayers a current economic burden. Now missing those children aborted over these many years, we rely on importing immigrants to fill the job ranks.
and now your follow-up No. I merely don't think its nuts for someone to sacrifice their future and their lives for something other than themselves. Were they all volunteers? Or were some drafted, i.e., no choice? "
You approve that others should sacrifice their lives at Normandy but it is not what you would ever do. It does not matter if those troops on D-Day were draftees or not, when sacrifice was called for they did not hide in a hole. I will not bother to ask you if those firemen who ran into the WTC were nuts also to do their duty 'imposed on them by a fearful society '. Your self-absorption is beyond hope at this time.
Yo, stupid! Notice the QUESTION MARK AT THE END OF THE WORDS!!!!!!!! IN ENGLISH, THAT MEANS IT IS A QUESTION.
When you complete your "Beginning English for Osama Butt Kissers", call me.
And I'll ask the question again, since no one here seems to have the cojones or the attention span to answer it. My original question stands:
Are we all saying that a free person in this country must subjugate their goals and dreams for their life, in order to fulfill a duty, one that is not their choice, but instead imposed upon them by a fearful society?
and now your follow-up No. I merely don't think its nuts for someone to sacrifice their future and their lives for something other than themselves. Were they all volunteers? Or were some drafted, i.e., no choice? "
You approve that others should sacrifice their lives at Normandy but it is not what you would ever do.
No. Apparently, you have the reading comprehension of an illiterate. Hezeus Marumba ... what are you, one of the Afghani women who were forbidden to learn how to read or write? Adjust your veil before the Taliban enforcer beats you, honey!
I don't approve of anyone sacrificing ANYTHING when it is not their own choice. PERIOD. Sacrifice is a personal choice. Not something that is forced by the STATE, the CHURCH, or brainless, illiterate swine like yourself.
It does not matter if those troops on D-Day were draftees or not,
Yes it does. Vietnam taught us all that lesson.
when sacrifice was called for they did not hide in a hole.
Ah ... the ambiguous "THEY". Well, thank you very much for the Lincoln Tunnel sized brush stroke through WWII history. But I've worked for historians while in college, and I learned from them that nothing -- I REPEAT -- NOTHING has ever been that simple, that generic, that trite. History is composed of individual actions of humans of all stripes.
Do I honor the men who did fight? Yes. My dad was too young for D-Day, but he did get special permission to enter the Navy at 16 or 17, and was in the last group of guys to get the European Occupation Medal. My cousin's name is on the Wall. He died in Vietnam.
I will not bother to ask you if those firemen who ran into the WTC were nuts also to do their duty 'imposed on them by a fearful society '.
Nope, they were not nuts. They were not drafted, they were not forced, they willingly CHOSE to become firemen; they willingly accepted the risk of losing their lives every single day on the job; they freely CHOSE to put aside their priorities, and place the well-being of others ahead of themselves.
Your self-absorption is beyond hope at this time.
And your Midol obviously ran out days ago.
No chance of recovery.
Wow! How did you come upon my post a dozen years old? I reread it and your answer is even more appropriate today. The saddest part for this country is that the brightest and most capable women and men are electing to opt out of children. Darwin did not count on the competition from lifestyle to negate the survival of the fittest.
Google is your friend. And America has turned into a nihilist society
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