The “Fruits” of Contraception

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 11-30-17 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Salvation]

The “Fruits” of Contraception

Msgr. Charles Pope • November 30, 2017 •

In our culture’s current self-examination on sexual harassment and sexual abuse, we would also do well to ponder how the “contraceptive mentality” has contributed to the many sexually related problems of the day. This view insists that there is no necessary connection between sex and having children; it separates what God has joined. This has led to a whirlwind of confusion about the nature and purpose of sexual intimacy as well as about marriage and family. Many treat sex lightly and frivolously; they falsely think that sex can be without consequences. As we have seen played out in the recent news, many men no longer see women as wives, mothers, and persons to be respected, but as sexual objects to be exploited.

Two generations have passed since the publication of the boldly pastoral and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, which upheld the ancient ban on the use of artificial contraception. Perhaps no teaching of the Church causes more scoffing (even from Catholics) than our teaching against artificial contraception: Unrealistic! Out of touch! Uncompassionate! Silly! You’ve got to be kidding!

The Lord Jesus had an answer to those who ridiculed Him in a similar way:

“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But time will prove where wisdom lies” (Matt 11:16-18).

Indeed, times does prove where wisdom lies. Some fifty years after acceptance of contraception set in, how are we doing? Perhaps it is best to review some of the “promises” that advocates of contraception made and then review the prophecies of Pope Paul VI. Then let’s review the record and note the “fruits” of contraception.

The Promises of the Contraception Advocates:

• Happier marriages and a lower divorce rates, because couples will be able to have all the sex they wanted without the “fear” of pregnancy.
• Lower abortion rates because there will be far fewer “unwanted” children.
• Greater dignity for women because they will no longer be “bound” by their reproductive system.
• A more recent promise: reduction in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and AIDS.

The concerns and predictions of Pope Paul VI (in Humanae Vitae):

1. Consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity (HV # 17)
2. A general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. (HV # 17)
3. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. (HV # 17)
4. Who will prevent public authorities from…impos[ing] their use on everyone. (HV # 17)

So who had the wisdom to see? Was it the world or the Church? Let’s consider some of the data:

1. The divorce rate did not decline; it skyrocketed. Divorce rates soared through the 1970s and beyond until nearly 50 percent of marriages were failing. In recent years the divorce rate has dropped slightly, but this may be due more to the fact that far fewer people get married in the first place, preferring instead to cohabitate and engage in a kind of serial monogamy, drifting from one relationship to the next. The overall divorce rate currently hovers in the low 40 percent range. Advocates of contraception today claim that divorce is a complicated matter, which is certainly true, but they cannot have it both ways: at first claiming that contraception will be a “simple” fix to make marriages happier and then, when they are proved so horrifyingly wrong, claiming that divorce is “complicated.” Pope Paul VI, on the other hand, predicted rough sailing for marriage with the advent of contraception; it looks as if he was right.
2. Abortion rates did not decline; they skyrocketed as well. Within a few years, the pressure to make abortion more available led to its “legalization” in 1973. It has been well argued that far from decreasing the abortion rate, contraception actually increased it. Because contraception routinely fails, abortion has become the contraception of last resort. Further, just as the Pope predicted, sexual immorality has become widespread; this also has led to higher rates of abortion. It is hard to compare promiscuity rates between periods because people don’t tend to tell the truth when asked about such things. But one would have to be very myopic not to notice the huge increase in open promiscuity, cohabitation, pornography, and the like. All of this bad behavior, made more possible by contraceptives, also fuels abortion rates. Chalk up another one for the Pope’s and the Church’s foresight.
3. Women’s dignity is a difficult thing to measure, and different people have different yardsticks by which to measure it. Women do have greater career choices today, but is that the true source of a person’s dignity? Dignity certainly involves more than one’s economic and utilitarian capacity. Sadly, motherhood has taken a back seat in popular culture. And, as the Pope predicted, women have been hypersexualized as well. Their dignity as wives and mothers has been set aside in favor of the sexual pleasure they offer to men. Many modern men, no longer bound by marriage for sexual satisfaction, use women and discard them on a regular basis. Men “get what they want” and it seems that many women are willing to supply it rather freely. In this scenario, men win. Women are often left with STDs. They are often left with children they must support and raise alone. And as they get older and “less attractive” to men, they are often alone. I am not sure that this is dignity. Have women really benefited under this new morality, which contraception helped to usher in? I think the Pope wins this point as well.
4. As for preventing/reducing STDs and AIDS: again, big failure. STDs were not prevented, nor did they decrease. Infection rates skyrocketed through the 1970s and 1980s. AIDS, which appeared on the scene in the 1980s continues to show terribly high rates. Where is the promised deliverance? It seems that contraceptives do not prevent anything. Rather, they encourage the spread of these diseases by encouraging the bad behavior that causes them. Here, too, it looks as if the Church was right and the world was wrong.
5. Add to this list of effects the high rate of teenage pregnancy, the devastation experienced by single parent families, and even increasing poverty. The link to poverty may seem a stretch, but the bottom line is that single motherhood is the chief cause of poverty in this country. Contraception encourages promiscuity. Promiscuity often leads to pregnancy at a young age. Youthful pregnancy often leads to single motherhood (absent fathers). Single motherhood often leads to welfare dependence and poverty. In our inner cities today, over 80 percent of homes are headed by single mothers. It is the single best predictor of poverty.
6. Declining birth rates, fueled by contraception, are devastating cultures. Europe as we have known it is simply going out of existence. (I have written on that before here: Contraception is Cultural Suicide!). Europe’s future is as a Muslim continent; Muslims typically have much larger families. Likewise, here in the United State, the birth rate in white and African-American communities is below replacement level. Thankfully, our immigrants are largely Christian and share our American vision. For the Church, the declining birthrates are resulting in the closing of parishes and schools, and a reduction in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. We cannot sustain what we have on a population that is no longer replacing itself. Immigration has insulated the Church from this to some extent, but the decline in Mass attendance has eclipsed the growth from immigration and we are starting to shut down a lot of our operations.

Conclusion: Time will prove where wisdom lies. What have we learned over these decades of contraception? First, we have learned that it is a huge failure in meeting its promises; it has backfired, making things worse rather than better. Marriage, families, and children have all taken a huge hit. Bad behavior has been encouraged and all the bad consequences that flow from it are flourishing. Most people seem largely uninterested in this data. Hearts have become numb and minds have gone to sleep. I hope that you will consider this information thoughtfully and share it with others. Time has proven where wisdom lies. It is time to admit the obvious.

[Salvation]

Video

[Salvation]

Even though I forgot to mark it — This is a Catholic Caucus thread.

[robroys woman]

Does menopause count? No wonder us old people are so danged sexually active. Like kids in a candy shop!

[Salvation]

Would you please add [Catholic Caucus] to the end of the title line?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3609615/posts?page=1

[Salvation]

Monsignor Pope Ping!

[loveliberty2]

Although some Democrats may have thrown out the idea that the Party might not exclude pro-life candiates, here will be no real effort to "back pro-life candidates," because, as Weaver notes: "Ideas have consequences." The fact is that the "idea" of socialism lies at the core of the Democrat Party's cultish and oppressive Progressive ideology; and, for socialism to work, then, population must be restrained. Previous generations understood this fact. See below:

Please note especially the first paragraph highlighted and quoted from the Liberty Fund Library-- -- "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay, "The Impracticability of Socialism":

Pay special attention to the writer's emphasis that the "scheme of Socialism" requires what he calls "the power of restraining the increase in population"--long the essential and primary focus of the Democrat Party in the U. S.:

"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.

I.44

"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?

I.45 "I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.

I.46 "Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove."

EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

[NKP_Vet]

Contraception was a “gift” from Protestants to America.

[Truthoverpower]

This is all very good and true I have for a long time said all forms of contraception are completely evil
Sex outside of a committed relationship with love and affection and caring is horribly detrimental to the soul

[kosciusko51]

Contraception was a “gift” from Protestants to America.

And there goes the Caucus Designation.

[sparklite2]

[SpirituTuo]

There is truth to the previous statement. The Lambeth Conference, held in 1930, by the Anglican communion, specifically spoke to, and allowed contraception:

Marriage and Sex: Resolutions 9-20

Resolution 15 allowed “in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles.” The vote for this Resolution was 193 for it, 67 against it, and 47 not voting. This was the only Resolution for which a record of the numbers voting was required.[23]

The London Times of June 30, 1930, predicted that the Lambeth Conference would change the “social and moral life” of humanity. This was done by the Conference’s Resolution 15 in which in contradiction to earlier Resolutions (1908 Resolution 41 and 1920 Resolution 66) allowed the use of contraception in marriage.[24]

William Carey, Bishop of Bloemfontein, withdrew from the Conference in protest and even sent a petition to the King on the subject.[25]

The Lambeth Conference 1930: Encyclical Letter From The Bishops with Resolutions and Reports (London: Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1930)

[ealgeone]

Contraception was a “gift” from Protestants to America.

As if Roman Catholics weren't, AND aren't, practicing contraception.

Need to get off that high horse NKP.

[ealgeone]

Declining birth rates, fueled by contraception, are devastating cultures. Europe as we have known it is simply going out of existence. (I have written on that before here: Contraception is Cultural Suicide!). Europe’s future is as a Muslim continent; Muslims typically have much larger families.

I think this is somewhat of a stretch. We have created a culture in the West that kids are a problem, they're expensive, loud, break things, etc.

We've place the emphasis on life on us and not the family.

Likewise, here in the United State, the birth rate in white and African-American communities is below replacement level. Thankfully, our immigrants are largely Christian and share our American vision.

I'm not sure what news source the Msgr is watching, but our "immigrants" (does he mean legal and illegal??) are largely Christian and share our American vision??

I guess all those Mexican flags I see and the disdain for American ideals aren't on his news site(s).

[Mrs. Don-o]

Actually, everything connected to natural, normal, honest human sexuality is sacred. Because sex is sacred.

And why is sex sacred?

Because Human Life is sacred. And sex is where life comes from.

[mrobisr]

While your comments are true God also created the act of sex, the pleasure nerves of our sexual organs, blessed Adam and Eve’s union, and told them to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). It’s a representation of the Holy Spirit of God coming to live in us. Upon accepting Christ’s finish work on the cross (Romans 10:9-13) God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the believer all become one just as husband and wife become one.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You said it all so beautifully, mrobisr... Thank you for these thoughtful insights.

[Popman]

——Contraception was a “gift” from Protestants to America.——

Oh’ please stop the nonsense....

So predominantly Roman Catholic countries don’t use contraception. ?

Seriously?

[NKP_Vet]

By the 1960′s and 1970′s, virtually all Protestant churches—in America as in Europe—embraced contraception and (somewhat less frequently) abortion as compatible with Christian ethics. Pope Paul VI’s courageous opposition to these acts in the 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, won broad condemnation from Protestant leaders as an attempt to impose “Catholic views” on the world. Even leaders of “conservative” denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention would welcome as “a blow for Christian liberty” the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized abortion as a free choice during the first six months (and in practice for all nine months) of a pregnancy. Not a single significant Protestant voice raised opposition in the 1960′s and early 1970′s to the massive entry of the U.S. government into the promotion and distribution of contraceptives, nationally and worldwide.

[ealgeone]

I remember the debate within the SBC between the conservatives and the liberals. The SBC Seminaries had been run by liberals in the 60s and most of the 70s.

So it doesn't surprise me the SBC held that view.

The conservatives took over, IIRC in 1979 under Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines and Charles Stanley among others. and began purging the seminaries of liberal professors.

It sounds similar to what is happening with the RCC with the current pope.

Most recently the SBC and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have split due to the latter's more "moderate (liberal) views on women as clergy and deacons. IIRC, the CBF is also very homosexual friendly.

All of this shows what happens when we take our eye off Scripture and begin to water down its meaning to fit man's purposes.

[NKP_Vet]

I agree with you. Here’s facts about the beginnings of the annual March for Life.

The March was the idea of the Knights of Columbus when a group of Knights went to the home of Catholic Pro-Life advocate
Nellie Gray with the idea of a March to protest the decision to make abortion legal in America. Because of her connections they wanted her to lead the movement which she did. Within a few years pro-life evangelicals joined the movement and other Protestant groups and for this I am eternally grateful. It is a national disgrace that child murder is still legal 45 years later.