http://catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0132.htm

EDWARD P. SRI

The battle for purity is ultimately fought deep in the recesses of the human heart.

Our hearts were made to love, but since the Fall, they have been tainted by a desire to use others. This effect of original sin is seen perhaps most dramatically in our encounters with the opposite sex, wherein our hearts often are drawn to the other person more for the emotional or sensual pleasure we may derive from them than for any true commitment to what is best for them and their true value as a person. In this reflection, we will see that chastity is so much bigger than simply saying “no” to certain sexual actions we may commit in the body. In the end, chastity is a matter of the heart.

Chastity: Yes and No

The word chaste literally means “clean,” and Christians have used this word to describe the particular virtue that moderates our sexual desire. But this is not because sexual desire itself is somehow unclean or dirty. In fact, John Paul II — then Karol Wojtyla — warns against a negative view of chastity that turns this virtue into a mere suppression of sensual desire (“Just don’t have sex before your married!”). In this negative light, chastity becomes merely “one long ‘no.’” And this kind of suppression can have serious consequences for the human person: “Chastity is very often understood as a ‘blind’ inhibition of sensuality and of physical impulses such that the values of the ‘body’ and of sex are pushed down into the subconscious, where they await an opportunity to explode. This is an obviously erroneous conception of the virtue of chastity, which, if it is practiced only in this way, does indeed create the danger of such ‘explosions’” (p. 170).

We must see chastity as a positive virtue that enables us to love, and protects love from being tainted by the selfish tendency to use the other person for our own pleasure. Wojtyla says chastity is emphatically not “one long ‘no.’” Rather, it is first and foremost a yes — a yes in our hearts to the other person, not just to his or her sexual values. It is a ‘yes’ that requires certain ‘no’s’ in order to protect love from falling into utilitarianism. “The essence of chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation, and in raising to the personal level all reactions to the value of ‘the body and sex’” (p. 171). This positive, wider context of love for the person is key for understanding the ‘no’s’ of the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

Pure Love

As we have seen throughout these reflections, our encounters with persons of the opposite sex are often dominated by emotional and sensual attractions. We are drawn more quickly and more powerfully to the other person’s sexual values (their masculinity/femininity and their body) than we are to their true value as a person (their virtues, their holiness, their being a son or daughter of God). Because of original sin, we don’t automatically experience authentic, self-giving love for a person of the opposite sex, but “a feeling muddied by a longing to enjoy” (p. 161).

Chastity, however, moderates these desires for pleasure, so that we can see clearly the value of the person and respond to our beloved with a love that is centered on his or her good, not on seeking enjoyment for ourselves. Hence, the virtue is called “chastity,” for it gives love a clear, pure love of the other person. Wojtyla explains, “The word chaste (‘clean’) implies liberation from everything that ‘makes dirty.’ Love must be so to speak pellucid: through all the sensations, all the actions which originate in it we must always be able to discern an attitude to a person of the opposite sex which derives from sincere affirmation of the worth of that person” (p. 146).

The Two Battlefronts

Wojtyla maps out two fronts in the battle for purity. First, we must fight against what he calls “emotional egoism,” which is the tendency to use another person for our own emotional pleasure. This kind of utilitarianism is not easy to detect, for emotional egoism can easily disguise itself as love (“I have such strong feelings when I’m with him. This must be love”). And even when emotional egoism is brought out into the open (e.g., “she’s just a flirt” or “he was playing with her feelings”), it does not seem as severe of an offense against love as when someone uses another person as an object for sensual pleasure.

Nevertheless, emotion, though an aspect of love, can become “a threat to love,” Wojtyla says. Whenever someone puts emotion for its own sake at the center of one’s attention in a relationship, a selfish utilitarian attitude is lurking in the background. And Wojtyla notes that this is still a drastic distortion of love. “When an emotion becomes an end in itself, merely for the sake of the pleasure it gives, the person who causes the emotion or to whom it is directed is once again a mere ‘object’ providing an opportunity to satisfy the emotional needs of one’s own ‘ego’” (p. 158).

The second front in the battle for purity is what Wojtyla calls “sensual egoism,” which is the tendency to use another person for sensual pleasure. Certainly, various sinful sexual acts constitute this kind of egoism. But Wojtyla stresses that one can fall into sensual egoism without making any bodily contact with another person. For example, a man can view a woman primarily in terms of the value of her body, and use her body as an object of enjoyment in his own mind when he sees her, or in his memory and imagination long after he has seen her (see p. 108). The Ten Commandments reflect this point. We have on one hand the Sixth Commandment, “Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery,” which addresses external physical actions in the realm of sex, and on the other hand the Ninth Commandment, “Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” which addresses internal actions commonly known as lustful thoughts.

But where the boundary lies between simply noticing someone’s sexual values and being attracted to them in a sinful way is not always easy to discern. What is the difference between an innocent interest in another person’s physical appearance and a lustful thought? Here Wojtyla offers some very helpful insights.

He seems to identify three general stages in the battle against sensual egoism. First, one may experience a spontaneous sensual reaction. At this stage, one happens to notice the sexual values of another person’s body and reacts to those values spontaneously. For example, a handsome man walks into a cocktail party and catches the eye of a woman he has never met, while the man notices the woman’s attractive features and finds himself drawn to her throughout the evening. The sexual values of the opposite sex often present themselves spontaneously like this. We notice them and find ourselves interested in them. This is not lust; nor is it sinful. It simply means we are human and have human sensual desire. As Wojtyla explains, sensuality “merely orients the whole psyche towards the sexual values, awakening an interest in or indeed an ‘absorption’ in them” (p. 148). As we have seen previously, such sensual desire is given by God to draw persons together in love. Indeed, it can serve as “raw material” for authentic love if the sensual attraction to the other person’s body leads to a deeper level of commitment to the person himself or herself — not just his or her sexual values.

Lustful Thoughts?

However, Wojtyla warns us of how easy it is to move from the first stage of simple interest in the sexual values of another person to the second stage of hankering after them in one’s heart as a potential object of sensual pleasure. Wojtyla calls this second stage sensual concupiscence. At this point, something within the person begins to stir: a desire for the sexual values of the other person’s body as an object to enjoy. Now the sexual values are not simply an object of interest, but an actual object of sensual desire in our hearts. Something in us “begins to strive towards, to hanker after, that value” and we “desire to possess the value” (p. 148).

Still, Wojtyla says that even this second stage of sensual attraction is not necessarily sinful. It is the effect of concupiscence (the inclination toward sin). Because of our fallen human nature, it is not easy for us to quickly direct that inner stirring of sensual desire to selfless love for the other person. Our desire for sensual pleasure can be felt so powerfully that we experience a desire to use the other person in order to gain that pleasure. But here is the key: Wojtyla says even this stirring of sensual desire is not in itself sinful as long as the will resists that desire to use the person — as long as the will does not consent to it. Indeed, we may experience sensual desire mounting intensely within us without our will actually consenting to it and even with our will directly opposing it (see p. 162).

That is why Wojtyla wisely reminds us that we cannot expect to win the battle for purity in our hearts immediately, simply by saying “no” hard enough. He says, “An act of the will against a sensual impulse does not generally produce any immediate result. . . . No-one can demand of himself either that he should experience no sensual reactions at all, or that they should immediately yield just because the will does not consent, or even because it declares itself definitely ‘against’ (p. 162).

This is very helpful advice for anyone desiring, but struggling, to be chaste. One might try with all his might to remain pure, but still experience simple, spontaneous sensual reactions and even the inner stirrings of concupiscent desires. Yet one must remember that as long as the will does not consent to those utilitarian desires, he or she has not fallen into sin. As Wojtyla explains, “There is a difference between ‘not wanting’ and ‘not feeling,’ ‘not experiencing’” (p. 162). I

n other words, one may feel the inner stirring of concupiscent desire in his heart, but this is not the same as his will consenting to follow those desires and treat the other person as a potential object of enjoyment. “A sensual reaction, or the ‘stirring of ’ carnal desire which results from it, and which occurs irrespectively and independently of the will, cannot in themselves be sins,” Wojtyla explains. “No, we must give proper weight to the fact that in any normal man the lust of the body has its own dynamic, of which his sensual reactions are a manifestation. . . . The sexual values connected with the body of the person become not only an object of interest but — quite easily — the object of sensual desire. The source of this desire is the power of concupiscence . . . and so not the will” (p. 161).

Crossing the Threshold of Sin

Nevertheless, these concupiscent sensual desires continually try to get the will to consent to them, thereby leading the person to cross the line of sin. Indeed, if the will does not resist this stirring of the sensual appetite, a person falls into the third stage, which Wojtyla calls carnal desire. Here, the will gives up resisting, throws in the towel, and consents to pursuing the pleasurable feelings occurring within him. He deliberately commits his will to the promptings of his body, even though those promptings direct him to treat the woman’s body as an object of enjoyment either in his actions or in his thoughts, memory, or imagination. “As soon as the will consents it begins actively to want what is spontaneously ‘happening’ in the senses and the sensual appetites. From then onwards, this is not something merely ‘happening’ to a man, but something which he himself begins actively doing” (p. 162).

Now the threshold of sin has been crossed. Before this point, the man had maintained an important level of purity in his heart because he was resisting those utilitarian concupiscent desires. But now that his will consents to those desires, something dramatic changes: The man himself changes as he wills in his heart to go along with those utilitarian desires. He is no longer simply experiencing a desire to use the woman’s body; he actually is using her body as an outlet for his carnal desire. He is no longer simply a man struggling against lustful thoughts; he has become a lustful man who has consented to those thoughts in which he is using the woman’s body for his own pleasure in his imagination.

And his consent to lustful thoughts or lustful actions greatly hinders true self-giving love from developing fully in his heart. Since the lustful man views the woman primarily as an object for pleasure, he is not able to show her selfless, loving kindness. He is not able to be committed to what is best for her, sacrificing his own desires for her good, since he is more preoccupied by his own sensual gratification. “The relation to the person is therefore a utilitarian, a ‘consumer’ approach,” and thus the person is treated as “an object of enjoyment” (p. 151).

Chastity is the virtue that frees a man from this sad state of being controlled by his sensual impulses. As a fallen human being, even the chaste man may still experience concupiscent sensual desires, but he is not enslaved by them and can quickly rise above them. Therefore, he is easily and promptly able to see in the woman so much more than her sexual values. Deep in his heart, he is able to see her as a person, not primarily as an opportunity for pleasure. And thus he is able to love her selflessly for who she really is, not simply for the sensual enjoyment he may potentially derive from her. In this way, purity of heart makes a man truly free to love.

FROM : http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/chinas_abortion_surge_blamed_on_young_single_women/

Carolyn Moynihan | 31 Jul 2009

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A report in the official Chinese newspaper China Daily reveals some shocking figures on abortion in that country: 13 million surgical abortions a year performed in hospitals, 10 million abortion pills sold every year, and unknown number of abortions done in unregistered rural hospitals. “Family planning” statistics are usually considered state secrets, so why this sudden revelation?

Apparently, nobody knows, but the original report — picked up by media around the world — highlighted the information that nearly two thirds of the hospital abortions were done on single women aged between 20 and 29. A government official quoted in the report said nearly half of those having abortions reported using no contraception when they conceived. A sex therapist blamed it all on a lack of sex education (and doesn’t that sound familiar?).

Is this an attempt to distract the rest of the world from the abortions that are still being forced on Chinese women, in one way or another, because of the one-child policy? Is it meant to make us think that China is just like the rest of the world when it comes to young people, sex and contraception, and overlook the tens of millions of girls aborted because of the strict birth control rules imposed on Chinese couples? There are now 32 million more Chinese boys than girls under 20, an imbalance that is expected to widen over the next 20 years.

A China expert at University College London — who thinks the 13 million figure is a little low — says there is little doubt that abortion figures have risen in China as attitudes to sex have liberalised.

Hesketh said her impression is that young Chinese adults know their contraception options but are simply choosing not to use them because they know that morning after pills and surgical abortions are available if they get pregnant.

The procedures are “completely non-taboo, almost a form of contraception really,” she said.

….

Whereas women in other countries might go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy, Hesketh said, the one-child policy has also made Chinese women “very choosy about when they want to have a baby.”

“They want to control it, want to have the baby when it’s convenient, like when they have enough money or have a big enough home, and if it’s an inconvenient time, they won’t go through with it,” she said.

Just for the record, although China’s abortion toll is huge, so is its population. According to Alan Guttmacher Institute figures for 2003, it’s abortion rate of 24 per 1000 women of childbearing age is less than half that of Russia (53.7) and less than the overall rate for developed countries (26) and developing countries (29).

The Beatitudes: Generosity and Happiness

FROM : http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0955.htm

FATHER JOHN HARDON, S.J.

We might remind ourselves that there are two sides to the Gospel ethic.

On the one hand, there are many obstacles that we have to remove, temptations we must overcome. On the other hand, despite having constantly to war against our native impulses, the evil spirit and the machinations of the world, we are also bidden to give ourselves to God.

Both elements of our spiritual life are essential. We have native tendencies in us — the passions — that tend to tyrannize us. What we talk about as the Seven Capital Sins, I like to call our seven basic tendencies as fallen human beings. We also know that to ignore the fact that we must war against ourselves and against the seductions of evil all around us would be folly. On the other hand, we are also to practice virtue. Our focus here is on that aspect — what we sometimes call the positive side of the Gospel ethic.

This second side of our Christian responsibility is synthesized in the Beatitudes, which our Savior gave us. There are certain classic passages in Christ’s teaching that remain the cornerstones of our lives. Such, for example, is the Lord’s Prayer; such is Christ’s discourse in the sixth chapter of John when He promised the Eucharist; such is His long homily at the Last Supper before He died; such are the Beatitudes.

There are two versions of the Beatitudes in the Gospels; one of four and the other of eight. Over the centuries, Christian wisdom has speculated on how the four are really the eight, and how the eight can be synthesized into four. We shall concentrate on the eight Beatitudes by first looking briefly at their significance in themselves, and how what we call the Beatitudes are in many ways the Magna Carta of Christian perfection. So much so that the Second Vatican Council, which spoke more than all the other councils put together on the religious life, describes religious life as a “lifetime commitment to practicing the Beatitudes.”

Why are they significant? Because they are uniquely Christian principles of human conduct. Winston Churchill, on one occasion (you know he was capable of summarizing a lot in a few words), observed sagely how the British Empire could not survive for one week if it were based on the Beatitudes. Right he was! Secular society is not expected to, nor does it, operate on the Beatitudes.

The norms set down in the Beatitudes go far beyond the dialogue in which Christ confirmed the Decalogue. The Beatitudes are its fulfillment. The Ten Commandments given on Mt. Sinai summarize pre-Christian morality. The Beatitudes assume the Decalogue and they go beyond it. One reason the Beatitudes are able, humanly speaking, to make such heavy demands on human nature is because God, when He became man, gave man the grace to go beyond the Decalogue.

The Beatitudes are a perfect synthesis of Christ’s own life; they are, if you wish, a summary of Christ’s own practice of virtue. When we say that perfection consists in following Christ and ask what that means, we can answer that it means practicing the Beatitudes, which Christ first practiced and then preached.

The Beatitudes exemplify the paradoxical character of Christianity. We speak of Christian mysteries, and so they are. They are not fully comprehensible to the human mind. We are told, “He that loses his life will find it” and “Those who are great, but become small, will inherit the kingdom.” We are told that God has chosen the “little things,” the “foolish things,” to confound the strong and the wise. These are all paradoxes. But what is a paradox? It is an apparent contradiction. I like to identify mystery with paradox, and say that our faith is full of paradoxes.

In the Beatitudes, the paradox is happiness, which Christ promises if a person does certain things that naturally — or humanly speaking — are the very opposite of what we would expect to bring happiness. In short, He tells us to do things that we don’t naturally enjoy and then tells us we are going to have joy. “Come, come,” we say, “Lord, now what do you mean?” “What?” He tells us, “You have heard the word supernatural haven’t you?” “Yes, of course, Lord.” “Well, that is what I mean. The super part of supernatural is that which I give unexpectedly by your giving up certain things. You sacrifice pleasure and I will give you joy.”

There are many translations of the Beatitudes. One begins with, “How happy . . .” Why? Because it implies how unexpectedly happy “are the poor in spirit.” One difficulty in speaking on the foundations of our faith is that, in the nature of things, we have heard such things so often, we have read so much about them, we have prayed about these things so many times, we are tempted to think they are like relearning a multiplication table. No! Every time we direct our faith-inspired minds to these mysteries we learn more about them.

How happy are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

This Beatitude assumes that someone either already has certain possessions or gifts and is nevertheless poor in spirit, or that he does not have certain things but is detached from what he doesn’t have. Do you know we can be attached to things we don’t have? Talk about being strange creatures! Are we ever odd! In either case, poverty of spirit is “detachment of spirit.”

I am not sure which class of people finds it harder to practice this Beatitude. I suppose, though, that it is those who have more, de facto, and are nevertheless bidden by Christ to be poor in spirit; they had better be, otherwise they won’t be happy. They must be detached from what they have.

We are not to parade our gifts. Oh, is that ever hard! As my fourth grade teacher told me — (God bless her) she is still living and tells me she is praying for me. I tell her, “Sister Georgine, keep praying!” She took me aside one day after class and she said, “John, don’t be a showoff.”

Like what? Like a good mind. Having taught some very intelligent men over the years, I tell them, especially those who have troubles with their cerebration, “Look, maybe you have never thought of it this way. Do you know the heaviest cross you have?” They are not sure. “It is your very good mind. You have such a sharp intellect, it is causing you all kinds of pain. You see problems where other people don’t even notice any reason for a problem.”

We must be detached even from such things as intelligence — skills of any kind. These include social abilities like affability or ability in speech. Some, as I have discovered, have good minds but they just go into a tangle when they face an audience. They get tongue-tied. In my younger days, before my ordination, I taught speech. What a pathetic sight to see a first-class mind looking at its shoes in addressing an audience. But some can talk, write, pray. We all must pray, but some of us do it easier than others.

We are required, then, to be detached in spirit so that we use the gifts we have as God wants us to use them, and to enjoy them only insofar as the Lord wants us to enjoy them, but never to take complacency in any creature. And, of course, we tend to take complacency in the creature that we most enjoy.

We are, therefore, not to dwell on what we have. Not to think ourselves better than somebody else because we have more than someone else has. Why? Because whatever we have is a gift. We are not to parade our gifts. Oh, is that ever hard! As my fourth grade teacher told me — (God bless her) she is still living and tells me she is praying for me. I tell her, “Sister Georgine, keep praying!” She took me aside one day after class and she said, “John, don’t be a showoff.”

First then, “poor in spirit” means not taking complacency (and this is not easy), so that we don’t dwell on what we’ve got or what we have done; it is often the last citadel that virtue will conquer.

Happy are the gentle, they shall have the earth for their heritage.

As you read this, you are probably tempted to say, “Lord, thanks, but I am not particularly interested in the earth for my heritage.” Before we address that, let us consider what “gentleness” means. The word is not easily defined because gentleness is not much respected in today’s world. It is the aggressive personality who gets all he can out of life. He is the hero of our literature.

Gentleness is strength restrained by love.

Gentleness is strength restrained by love. Only strong people can be gentle. Others can seem to be, but they are not. I don’t know much about art criticism, but I have read some volumes in the field. One world-famous art critic said that if you want to depict strength of power or energy, always picture it poised. And he compared two images. In on picture, a huge many-ton boulder lies at the bottom of a canyon. In the other picture, the boulder is just on the edge at the top of the canyon, and you are almost afraid it is going to fall even as you look at the picture. The second image is strength, power held back.

Gentleness, therefore, is not weakness; it is just the opposite. It means that someone has hurt me but I don’t hurt back. How many times in public I have been told things when everything in me cries out to tear a person to shreds. Especially when you recognize a mediocre mind. But you don’t, not because you can’t, but because love keeps you from doing that which nature urges you to do.

Now to the promise of having the earth for our heritage, or whatever expressions other translators use. According to the Fathers of the Church, who comment very much on the Beatitudes, this means the ability, through God’s grace, to prevail over others. Gentleness conquers, gentleness wins, gentleness overcomes, gentleness prevails over the hardest hearts, over the most humanly impossible situations (and, as you know, all the impossible situations are human situations). To prevail over human wills; there is no more difficult conquest on earth. The secret is restraint, gentleness.

Happy are those who mourn; they shall be comforted.

Now as you know, there is trouble with our English language. Did you know that English is not a Catholic language? And by now it is getting to be a very secularized language. Because, while the labels remain quite constant, the meaning of what’s behind the label is determined by the persons who use the language. If the culture that uses the language is a believing culture, the words or the labels will have the corresponding meaning. As the culture becomes less and less believing, or believing in things that are not Christian, the labels may remain the same but the meaning changes. As you discover in conversation with intelligent secularists, although we use the same words, we are not saying the same things.

Of all the paradoxes, “Happy those who mourn, they shall be comforted” is, humanly speaking, the nearest to a contradiction that we can conceive. It is like saying, “Happy are those who are unhappy.” Clearly, we have to distinguish, and even in distinguishing, we are stuck with the same lexicon. We have to keep using these same words. We must cut off, trim here and add there, and say we don’t quite mean this but something a little different.

It may help to distinguish between sorrow and sadness. Christ does not mean “happy those who are sad.” Sadness is mourning, but it is either mourning over things that don’t deserve to be mourned over, or it is going beyond the extent to which they were supposed to be mourned. It is either mourning over the wrong object or excessive mourning.

As the culture becomes less and less believing, or believing in things that are not Christian, the labels may remain the same but the meaning changes. As you discover in conversation with intelligent secularists, although we use the same words, we are not saying the same things.

Sorrow, on the other hand, is grief over what deserves to be mourned (and mourned in the right way). The Gospels give us a fine description of what is to be mourned in the two episodes where we are told that Our Lord wept. He wept over Jerusalem and at Lazarus’ tomb. Why did Christ weep over Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem was sinning! What, then, is a correct object for mourning? Sin. Christ Himself, the Son of God, not only mourned over Jerusalem, but what happened in Gethsemane? He was in positive agony. We say, with some justification, this was in anticipating His sufferings, but mainly it was due to sin — our sin.

At Lazarus’ tomb, Christ sorrowed over Lazarus’ death. We, too, sorrow over the loss of people we love. God does some uncanny things. He puts lovable people into our lives. And, leave it up to God, you know what He always does? He takes them away.

What are we promised? Not comfort in some cheap sense. But comfort that brings strength or fortitude to bear patiently with the sorrows God puts into our lives. It is, therefore, not wrong to mourn. Is that news? I hope it isn’t. There are times we should give in to our sorrow. But we should also know when to turn away from it.

Happy are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, for they shall be satisfied.

As you know, you can re-read the Gospels by just accenting the different words. You can practically write ten Gospels for each one of the four. I like this accent: they shall be satisfied.

We have all sorts of desires. “Hunger and thirst” is simply symbolic language for desires. You name the desires and we’ve got them. And it is just as well that most people don’t know what we desire — we would lose a lot of friends. Being honest with ourselves, we know that not all of our desires — these hungers and thirsts — are for what is right. Consequently, truth in the following of Christ consists in desiring and then choosing what is right. And what is the beauty of that? Ah, how sweet this is: we will get rid of all our frustrations. Honest! Do you know why? Because all of our desires will be satisfied. Isn’t that wonderful?

We are torn. Whereas the only question that should ever be on our minds is not how appealing a thing is, or how sweet, or fragrant, or melodious, to use symbolic terms, but how right it is. Having right desires, we can relax; they will all be satisfied.

Frustration is unfulfilled desires. Frequently, the trouble is not with having desires — that is what life this side of Heaven is — desires, as Heaven is their fulfillment. The trouble is in what we desire. Heaven is the fulfillment of desires, provided we desire what is right. And that is not easy because there a lot of things that clamor for satisfaction, and so seductively present themselves as appealing. “Won’t you choose me?” Then a smile, then a little tinkle of a bell, then a fragrance. We are torn. Whereas the only question that should ever be on our minds is not how appealing a thing is, or how sweet, or fragrant, or melodious, to use symbolic terms, but how right it is. Having right desires, we can relax; they will all be satisfied.

What is the “right” for which we are to hunger and thirst? The word has many possible translations; let me suggest a few. That is “right” which leads me to my destiny. That is “right” which leads me to where I am going directly. “Right,” in the sense of direct, straight. It is “right” because it is correct.

The assurance we have, then, is of satisfaction (a sense of achievement). Oh, how we all need that. Here in this life, what is the secret? To desire what is right. And the promise, remember, this is all in this world yet. Do you hear it? It is not just that eschatological future, but here and now. Provided we choose the right things, then, when we desire we shall be satisfied.

Happy are the merciful; they shall have mercy shown to them.

Some words drop out of common usage when people cease to believe in what they stand for. Mercy is not a popular word outside of Christianity. What is it? Mercy is love that overcomes resistance. I love in spite of the fact that I am not loved. I love those things which cause me difficulty and trouble. I love even those who not only don’t love me, but who may oppose me, who may hate me. This is what God’s mercy is towards us. It is His love overcoming resistance. And you know who offers resistance to God’s love — we do. Yet in spite of us, God loves us. That is mercy.

How happy are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

There are many meanings to the expression “pure of heart” or “purity of heart.” But the one that we cannot omit is the internal chastity of mind, symbolized by the biblical word “heart.” Whenever the Scriptures want to interiorize a virtue, they speak of having it in one’s heart.

We usually think of chastity in the external order, because quite obviously it deals with the senses and the control of the venereal pleasures natural to us. “Purity of heart” is internal chastity of mind or what I like to call it, “chastity of the imagination.” This is more than chastity of body, or chastity of the senses. It means that kind of custody over the internal movements of my spirit in which I sacrifice the very laudable, and beautiful and sacred satisfaction which God permits only to those who are married and only within the marital embrace. Furthermore, “purity of heart” is required of all Christ’s followers. It is not only priests or religious, who vow to celibacy, who are called to practice chastity of heart; married people outside of their own marital relations are too. Not easy!

For millions of youth in our society, chastity before marriage is extremely difficult. This is clear from the lives in shambles of the by-now millions of young men and women who have tasted, as they thought, the “pleasures of sex,” and found themselves betrayed by a tyrant.

Those of us who are vowed to chastity must cultivate the virtue of chastity, which is deeply interior, in order to give the kind of witness — oh, how the world needs the witness — of consecrated chastity today.

The promise is they shall see God. Chastity confers clarity of vision. It enables a person to see God in a way that those who do not practice chastity, or even those who have not vowed themselves to a life of chastity, are privileged to enjoy. And no one cheats here! That perspicacious capacity which partakes of mysticism — to be able to see God even in this life, His beauty and His goodness, even in the most impossible situations of life — is reserved for those who have learned the secret of purity of heart.

How happy are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God.

There is so much disorder in the world that God wants peacemakers. Peacemaking means reconciliation: first with God, the highest kind of peacemaking; with themselves, and within themselves. What is the promise? A special affection from God, even as a mother or father has for a child. In the apostolate, we are to labor to reconcile sinners with God: people we love, people we want only the best for, who are estranged from God, or who are estranged among themselves.

Finally as a kind of capstone, there is the most unexpected kind of happiness.

Happy are those who suffer persecution for justice sake, they shall possess the kingdom of God.

Christ knew He couldn’t let this Beatitude stand alone. He had to explain it. “Happy,” He tells us, “are you when men reproach you, persecute you, and speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you for my sake.” “Lord, do you mean it?” Yes, He does.

“Rejoice!” He already said “happy”! Now He says, “rejoice.” And then He adds (He really wanted to get this one across) “and be very glad, your reward in Heaven is very great.” They persecuted the prophets and, as He intimated, that is what they were doing to Him. “If you want to be like Me,” He says, “rejoice!” I cannot tell you how much this Beatitude has meant to me. Sometimes it is the only thing that keeps me sane.

“Purity of heart” is internal chastity of mind or what I like to call it, “chastity of the imagination.” This is more than chastity of body, or chastity of the senses. It means that kind of custody over the internal movements of my spirit . . .

What is persecution all about? It is about the things we used to read about. We used to shake our heads, saying how terrible those times used to be. How hard it was in those early centuries of persecution, as we call them. How difficult it must have been for the people, say, in the sixteenth-century at the time of the so-called Reformation.

Well, we used to read history. We never dreamt this would happen. It did. We in this generation are being called upon to make history. And the only ones who will make history — meaning those whose names will be remembered — not only in the Book of God, but the annals of men in the Church of the future, are those who in these day have learned to stand up for the Truth. But in doing so, you must expect to be opposed. If you are not persecuted, if you are not opposed, if you are not spoken falsely about, if people don’t say all manner of evil against you for Christ’s sake; suspect today your loyalty to the Master.

This is one of those not too frequent ages in history called an “age of persecution.” Did you know that, statistically, there have been more martyrs who have died for the name of Christ since 1900 than in all the centuries of Christianity put together? That is right! My first prayer book was in Russian print. Most of my blood-relatives were behind the Iron Curtain. Some have died for their faith.

Let us pray and sacrifice so that God might strengthen our fellow Christians, fellow members of the same Mystical Body who are suffering for Jesus. Let us pray that God will send them the grace so that they might persevere, as He said, to the end.

And let us pray for ourselves that we too, individually and corporately — the Church, our bishops, our priests, religious, and the laity — might have the strength not only to be called faithful, but to be faithful. Because we are being persecuted, in our country, not with fire and sword, but with what is often even more successful: seduction, blandishment and the sad example of those who still call themselves Christians, but who have betrayed the Name of Christ.

Let’s ask our Savior who gave us the Beatitudes to help us live them. They are the promise of joy on earth, as an anticipation of joy in Heaven, for those who have lived out what they have learned, what Christ told them they must do to be like Him.

Father John A. Hardon. “The Beatitudes: Generosity and Happiness.” Inter Mirifica (2001).

Reprinted with permission from Inter Mirifica.

THE AUTHOR

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (1914-2000) was a tireless apostle of the Catholic faith. The author of over twenty-five books including Spiritual Life in the Modern World, Catholic Prayer Book, The Catholic Catechism, Modern Catholic Dictionary, Pocket Catholic Dictionary, Pocket Catholi Catechism, Q & A Catholic Catechism, Treasury of Catholic Wisdom, Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan and many other Catholic books and hundreds of articles, Father Hardon was a close associate and advisor of Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity. Order Father Hardon’s home study courses here.

Copyright © 2009 Inter Mirifica

The Lord hears the cry of the poor

DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

FROM:     http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/social_justice/sj0216.htm

This month the Holy Father prays that international attention towards the poorer countries may give rise to more concrete help, in particular to relieve them of the crushing burden of foreign debt.

The poorest countries in the world spend billions of dollars each year merely servicing their debt, yet they have paid it many times over through the years of debt service. This is a grave injustice that continues because the hearts of certain people in key banking positions remain unconverted, and an intellectual conversion only occurs on condition that the heart grants it permission to change.

It is easy to despair in the face of such a huge injustice. This world is very large, and our efforts to bring about change are far more feeble than we tend to realize. But there is the virtue of hope, and the object of that hope is not our own efforts, but the promises of God.

I know of a school principal who one day made an announcement to all the drug dealers in the school that their days were numbered, that she was coming after them and that the school would soon be wiped clean of drug suppliers. She had no idea how she was going to accomplish this, but she stepped forward in fortitude and a faith that hopes in the Lord, and made that announcement. In order to succeed, however, she’d have to rely on the providence of God, and she knew it.

Almost immediately, the administration team found themselves at the right place at the right time, on a number of occasions. By the end of the semester, the main drug dealers had been discovered and expelled. The administration team knows that it was all providence, and it began when they chose not to despair, but to take the first little steps in a spirit of hope; for when that happened, the Lord joined their feeble efforts and of course His steps are much larger and His efforts accomplish so much more than we expect. However, He waits for us to make the first move.

But drug dealers in a school are a local problem; foreign debt is much larger. Nevertheless, there is something we can do. St. Therese of Lisieux, whom Pius the X called the greatest saint of modern times, actually taught that doing ordinary acts with extraordinary love of God has far reaching effects around the globe. She writes: “By our little acts of charity practiced in the shade we convert souls far away, we help missionaries, we win for them abundant alms; and by that means build actual dwellings spiritual and material for our Eucharistic Lord.”

Benedictine abbot Francois-Louis Blosius said that a soul which abandons herself to God’s action without reserve allowing Him to operate as He wishes in her, does more for His glory and for souls in an hour than others in years.

In other words, we have the power to change hearts. In the writings of many of the great saints and contemplatives, there is a clear understanding that we do more for the world through a passive giving up of ourselves to God’s action than we can through our own actions. Blessed Dom Marmion wrote: “Your passive giving up of yourself to God’s action is the most pleasing thing you can do for Him, and most useful for the Church. …The more one approaches God, the simpler his prayer becomes, till it ends in one long sigh after God, …While given up to God’s action in prayer, you are doing more for God’s glory and souls, than all human activity could do. God has no need of our activity. If He wants it, He will point it out to us.”

Benedictine abbot Francois-Louis Blosius said that a soul which abandons herself to God’s action without reserve allowing Him to operate as He wishes in her, does more for His glory and for souls in an hour than others in years.

We need to pray and reflect on this insight, because it expresses the entire law of Christ’s redemption. God hears the cry of the poor, and if we believe this, we need only empty ourselves and pray that God increase charity within us so that we may carry out ordinary acts with great love of God, without the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing. Let us offer these little acts in union with the Holy Father’s intention for this month.

Douglas McManaman. “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart (June, 2009)

Reprinted with permission of Douglas McManaman.

THE AUTHOR

Doug McManaman is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He maintains the following web site for his students: A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page, in support of his students. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Deacon McManaman is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2009 Douglas McManaman

The Pope on ‘Love in Truth’

FATHER ROBERT SIRICO

From : http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0239.htm

In his much anticipated third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI does not focus on specific systems of economics — he is not attempting to shore up anyone’s political agenda.

He is rather concerned with morality and the theological foundation of culture. The context is of course a global economic crisis — a crisis that’s taken place in a moral vacuum, where the love of truth has been abandoned in favor of a crude materialism. The pope urges that this crisis become “an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future.”

Yet his encyclical contains no talk of seeking a third way between markets and socialism. Words like greed and capitalism make no appearance here, despite press headlines following the publication of the encyclical earlier this week. People seeking a blueprint for the political restructuring of the world economy won’t find it here. But if they look to this document as a means for the moral reconstruction of the world’s cultures and societies, which in turn influence economic events, they will find much to reflect upon.

Caritas in Veritate is an eloquent restatement of old truths casually dismissed in modern times. The pope is pointing to a path neglected in all the talk of economic stimulus, namely a global embrace of truth-filled charity.

Benedict rightly attributes the crisis itself to “badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing.” But he resists the current fashion of blaming all existing world problems on the market economy. “The Church,” he writes, “has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as something opposed to society.” Further: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations.”

The market is rather shaped by culture. “Economy and finance . . . can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful ones. But it is man’s darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se. Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.”

The pope does not reject globalization: “Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development.” He says that “the world-wide diffusions of prosperity should not . . . be held up by projects that are protectionist.” More, not less, trade is needed: “the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets.”

The encyclical doesn’t attack capitalism or offer models for nations to adopt. “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer,” the pope firmly states, “and does not claim ‘to interfere in any way in the politics of States.’ She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance . . .” Benedict is profoundly aware that economic science has much to contribute to human betterment. The Church’s role is not to dictate the path of research but to focus its goals. “Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources. . . . Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.”

Simply put, to this pope’s mind, there is no just or moral system without just and moral people.

He constantly returns to two practical applications of the principle of truth in charity. First, this principle takes us beyond earthly demands of justice, defined by rights and duties, and introduces essential moral priorities of generosity, mercy and communion — priorities which provide salvific and theological value. Second, truth in charity is always focused on the common good, defined as an extension of the good of individuals who live in society and have broad social responsibilities. As for issues of population, he can’t be clearer: “To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view.”

Several commentators have worried about his frequent calls for wealth redistribution. Benedict does see a role for the state here, but much of the needed redistribution is the result of every voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange. To understand such passages fully and accurately, we do well to put our political biases on the shelf.

This encyclical is a theological version of his predecessor’s more philosophical effort to anchor the free economy’s ethical foundation. Much of it stands squarely with a long tradition of writings of a certain “classical liberal” tradition, one centered on the moral foundation of economics, from St. Thomas Aquinas and his disciples, Frederic Bastiat in the 19th century, Wilhelm Roepke, and even the secular F.A. Hayek in the 20th century. It also clearly resonates with some European Christian democratic thought.

Caritas in Veritate is a reminder that we cannot understand ourselves as a human community if we do not understand ourselves as something more than the sum or our material parts; if we do not understand our capacity for sin; and if we do not understand the principle of communion rooted in the gratuitousness of God’s grace. Simply put, to this pope’s mind, there is no just or moral system without just and moral people.

Father Robert A. Sirico, “The Pope on ‘Love in Truth’.” The Wall Street Journal (July 10, 2009).

Reprinted with permission of the author and The Wall Street Journal © 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

THE AUTHOR

Father Sirico is president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich. As president of the Acton Institute, Fr. Sirico lectures at colleges, universities, and business organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. His writings on religious, political, economic, and social matters are published in a variety of journals, including: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the London Financial Times, the Washington Times, the Detroit News, and National Review. Father Sirico is often called upon by members of the broadcast media for statements regarding economics, civil rights, and issues of religious concern, and has provided commentary for CNN, ABC, the BBC, NPR, and CBS’ 60 Minutes, among others. He is the author of A Moral Basis for Liberty, Catholicism’s Developing Social Teaching, and Environmentalism and its Spiritual Implications among others.

Copyright © 2009 Wall Street Journal

Most needed: People skills

From :  http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/205992/most-needed-people-skills

All in the family

JOHN LEO

From :  http://catholiceducation.org/articles/marriage/mf0069.html

Why a strong, intact home life is the biggest single factor in raising good, successful kids.

It took the media a while to acknowledge that most of Katrina’s victims were black. Apparently, it will take longer to mention that most of the victims were women and children. I noticed three commentators who brought up the delicate subject of the mostly missing males — George Will, Gary Bauer, and Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit News. Will noted that 76 percent of births to Louisiana’s African-Americans are to unmarried women, and probably more than 80 percent in New Orleans, since that is the usual estimate in other inner cities. Will wrote: “That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos, in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.”

A good deal of hard evidence shows that this is so. Two decades of research produced a consensus among social scientists of both left and right that family structure has a serious impact on children, even when controlling for income, race, and other variables. In other words, we are not talking about a problem of race but about a problem of family formation or, rather, the lack of it. The best outcomes for children — whether in academic performance, avoidance of crime and drugs, or financial and economic success — are almost invariably produced by married biological parents. The worst results are by never-married women.

High crime. In a policy brief released last week, the Washington-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/imapp.crimefamstructure.pdf looked at 23 recent studies dealing with family structure and youth crime. In 19 of the 20 studies that found family structure to have an effect, children from nonintact or single-parent families had a higher rate of crime or delinquency. Neighbourhoods with lots of out-of-wedlock births have lots of crime. Ominously, one study said that the more single-parent families there were in a neighborhood, the more crime there was among two-parent kids living around them. Again, these studies are controlled for race.

Among the other findings:

• Adolescents in single-parent families were almost twice as likely to have pulled a knife or a gun on someone in the past year. This was after controlling for many demographic variables, including race, gender, age, household income, and educational level of parents.

• In a large sample of students in 315 classrooms in 11 cities, the “single most important variable” in gang involvement was found to be family structure. In other words, the greater the number of parents at home, the lower the level of gang involvement. A study of American Indian families found that living in a two-parent family reduced gang involvement by more than 50 percent.
  

The upshot of these studies is that America is confronted by a form of poverty that money alone can’t cure.

• Another study concluded that out-of-wedlock childbearing had a large effect on the rate of arrests for murder, an effect that “seems to have gotten stronger over time.”

• “Adolescents in married, two-biological-parent families generally fare better than children in any of the family types examined here,” one study reported. The other family types studied were single mother, cohabiting stepfather, and married stepfather families.

• One study, judged most important by the institute, found that divorce rates had no relationship to violent crime rates but that out-of-wedlock births had a strong relationship to youth crime — nearly 90 percent of the increase in violent crime between 1973 and 1995 was accounted for by the rise in out-of-wedlock births.

The upshot of these studies is that America is confronted by a form of poverty that money alone can’t cure. Many of us think social breakdown is a result of racism and poverty. Yes, they are factors, but study after study shows that alterations in norms and values are at the heart of economic and behavioral troubles. That’s why so much research boils down to the old rule: If you want to avoid poverty, finish high school, don’t have kids in your teens, and get married.

But the conventional wisdom is determined to ignore the evidence. It holds that family fragmentation — sorry, diverse family forms — is positive and here to stay. Peggy Drexler, the author of a new book, Raising Boys Without Men, says people who promote intact families are playing a “blame game” against single mothers. She thinks eating dinner regularly with your children is more important than the number or gender of adults in the home. And boys, according to Drexler, have an innate ability to become men, even without a man in the house. (But if boys can raise themselves, why should any father stick around?) The book carries blurbs from various establishment figures. Why not? Her ideas are ordinary ones among our elites.

For Further Reading:

Peggy Drexler, Ph.D., with Linden Gross, Raising Boys without Men (Rodale, 2005). Read more of Drexler’s work, including her Gender and Psychology article, here. Read an interview with Drexler here.

Caitlin Flanagan, “Boys Will Be Boys,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2005. (Subscription required.)

Mark Early, “Junk Science,” Breakpoint , 26 October 2005.

Mark Early, “Psychological Cheerleading,” Breakpoint, 27 October 2005.

William Raspberry, “Poor Women’s ‘Magical Outlook,’” Washington Post, 26 September 2005.

Glenn Sacks, “Are boys really better off without fathers?” SeattlePost-Intelligencer, 6 September 2005.

Betsy Hart, “As a single mom, I know marriage makes the best setting for raising children,” Jewish World Review, 30 August 2005.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., “Raising Boys without Men—The New Feminist Fantasy,” Crosswalk.com, 17 October 2005.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., “Lesbians raising sons; got a problem with that?” Baptist Press, 30 December 2004.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 040624, “Take Your Choice: Parents or Prisons?”

Roberto Rivera, “Patriarchy: It’s All about Transmission,” BreakPoint Online, 7 July 2003.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 040618, “Captain Obvious Strikes Again: We Do Need Dads.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 050906, “Rebuilding the Foundations: Of Beauty and a Father’s Love.” (Free registration required.)

Christina Hoff Sommers, The War against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (Simon and Schuster, 2000).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Leo, John. “All in the family.” US News and World Report (October 3, 2005).

Reprinted by permission of John Leo.

AUTHOR

John Leo is a contributing editor for U.S.News & World Report, and his column on the state of our culture appears weekly in 140 newspapers across the country. Leo has covered the social sciences and intellectual trends for Time magazine and the New York Times. He is also the author of two books: Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police and a book of humor, How the Russians Invented Baseball and Other Essays of Enlightenment. He lives with his wife and daughter in Manhattan.

Copyright © 2005 US News and World Report

The Vatican’s unofficial synopsis of Caritas in Veritate

From www.catholiceducation.org : http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0953.htm

POPE BENEDICT XVI

“Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness” is “the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity”: Thus begins Caritas in Veritate, the encyclical addressed to the Catholic world and “to all people of good will.”

In the introduction, the Pope reminds us that “charity is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine.” On the other hand, given “the risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living,” it is linked with truth. And he cautions us: “A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance” (§ 1-4).

Truth is necessary for development. Without it, says the Pope, “the social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation” (§ 5). Benedict XVI dwells upon two “criteria that govern moral action” that come from the “charity in truth” principle: justice and the common good. Every Christian is called to love through an “institutional path” which has an incidence on the life of the pólis, of life in society (§ 6-7). The Church, he insists, “does not have technical solutions to offer”; however, she has “a mission of truth to accomplish” for “a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation” (§ 8-9).

The first chapter of the document is about Paul VI’s message of Populorum Progressio. “Without the perspective of eternal life — the Pope warns us — human progress in this world is denied breathing space.” Without God, development becomes negative, “dehumanized” (§ 10-12).

Paul VI, one can read, stressed on “the indispensable importance of the Gospel for building a society according to freedom and justice” (§ 13). In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI “shows the strong ties between life ethics and social ethics” (§ 14-15). He explains the concept of vocation in Populorum Progressio. “Development is vocation” because “it derives from a transcendent call.” He goes on to underline that it is thus “integral,” that is, it has to “promote the good of every man and of the whole man.” “Faith — he adds — does not rely on privilege or positions of power,” “but only on Christ” (§ 16-18). Paul VI shows that “the causes of underdevelopment are not primarily of the material order.” They are above all in the will, thought and even more “in the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples.” “As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers.” We must, therefore, mobilize ourselves so that economics evolves “towards fully human outcomes” (§ 19-20).

In the second chapter, the Pope deals with human development in our time. Profit as the exclusive goal, “without the common good as its ultimate end, risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.” He goes on to mention some distortions of development: financial dealing that is “largely speculative,” migration of peoples “often provoked” and then insufficiently attended to, and “the unregulated exploitation of the Earth’s resources.” Before such interconnected problems, the Pope calls for “a new humanistic synthesis.” The crisis “obliges us to replan our journey” (§ 21).

Development today, says the Pope, “has many overlapping layers.” “The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase,” with new forms of poverty emerging. Corruption, he fears, is present in countries rich and poor; too often, multinational enterprises do not respect the rights of the workers. Besides, “international aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions” both of donors and of beneficiaries. At the same time, says the Pope, “there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge on the part of rich countries, through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care” (§ 22).

Since the end of the “blocs,” John Paul II had been asking for a global “re-examination of development,” but this “has been achieved only in part.” There is today “a re-evaluation” of the roles of the “state’s public authorities,” and one can foresee an increase in the “political participation in civil society, nationally and internationally.” The Pope then turns his attention to the search, by rich countries, for areas in which to outsource production at low cost. “These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems,” with “grave danger for the rights of workers.” To this, one has to add that “the cuts in social spending, often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks.” In any case, one can observe that “governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom of labor unions.” Those who rule are reminded that “the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity” (§ 23-25).

Truth is necessary for development. Without it, says the Pope, “the social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation”

On a cultural level, the possibility of interaction opens new perspectives of dialogue, but with a double danger. First, there can be a cultural eclecticism in which all cultures are viewed as “substantially equivalent.” The opposite danger is that of “cultural leveling,” “the indiscriminate acceptance of types of conduct and lifestyles” (§ 26). The Pope then turns his attention to the scandal that hunger represents. What is missing is a “network of economic institutions” capable of confronting this emergency. One must hope for “new possibilities” in the techniques of agriculture and land reform in developing countries (§ 27).

Benedict XVI then underlines that the respect for life “cannot in any way be detached” from the development of peoples. Various parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control which “go as far as to impose abortion.” In economically developed countries, there is “an anti-birth mentality, frequent attempts (being) made to export this mentality to other states as if it were a form of cultural progress.” In addition, there is “reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked” to “specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition” of birth control. The “laws permitting euthanasia” are another matter for concern: “When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good” (§ 28).

There is another aspect connected to development: the right to religious freedom. Violence “puts the brakes on authentic development,” and this “applies especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism.” At the same time, promotion of atheism in many countries “obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources” (§ 29), for development needs the interaction of the various levels of knowledge, put in harmony through charity (§ 30-31). One must hope that the economic choices continue “to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment” for everyone. Benedict XVI warns us against “short-term — sometimes very short-term — economy, which leads to “lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers” in order to “increase the country’s international competitiveness.” For this, he exhorts us to correct some dysfunctions of the development models, as is required today by the “Earth’s state of ecological health.” He concludes with globalization: “Without the guidance of charity in truth, this global force could cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions.” Therefore, we have to deal with “a new and creative challenge” (§ 32-33).

Fraternity, economic development and civil society is the theme of the third chapter of the encyclical, opening with a praise of the experience of giving, often unrecognized “because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life.” The conviction that economics are free from the “influences of a moral character” “has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way.” Development, “if it is to be authentically human,” must “make room for the principle of gratuitousness” (§ 34). This is particularly relevant regarding the market.

“Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function.” The market “cannot rely only on itself”; it “must draw its moral energies from other subjects” and must not consider the poor as a “burden, but a resource.” The market must not become “the place where the strong subdue the weak.” Commercial logic needs to be “directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility.” The market is not negative by nature. Therefore, what is to be challenged is man, his “moral conscience and responsibility.” The present crisis shows that the “traditional principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated.” At the same time, the Pope reminds us that economics do not eliminate the role of the state and requires “just laws.” Calling to mind Centesimus Annus, he points to the “necessity of a system with three subjects: the market, the state and civil society” and calls for ways of “civilizing the economy.” We need “economic forms based on solidarity.” The market and politics need “individuals who are open to reciprocal gift” (§ 35-39).

In the fourth chapter, the encyclical deals with the development of people, rights and duties,  and the environment. One can notice the “claims to a ‘right to excess’” in the affluent societies, while food and water are lacking in certain underdeveloped regions. “Individual rights when detached from a framework of duties can run wild.” Rights and duties are in connection to an ethical context. If, on the other hand, their basis is only “to be found in the deliberations of an assembly of citizens,” they are liable to be “changed at any time.” Governments and international bodies must not forget “the objectivity and ‘inviolability’ of rights” (§ 43). On this matter, one can dwell upon the “problems associated with population growth.” It is a “mistake” to “consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment.” The Pope reaffirms that sexuality cannot be “reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment.” One cannot regulate sexuality through “strategies of mandatory birth control.” He then goes on to underline that “morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic resource.” “States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family” (§ 44).

“The economy,” he adds, “needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centered.” The same centrality of the human person must be the guiding principle “in development programs” of international cooperation, in which the beneficiaries should always be involved. “International organizations might question the actual effectiveness of their bureaucratic machinery,” “often excessively costly.” The Pope notices that too often “the poor serve to perpetuate expensive bureaucracies.” Hence his call for a “complete transparency” concerning funds received (§ 45-47).

The market “cannot rely only on itself”; it “must draw its moral energies from other subjects” and must not consider the poor as a “burden, but a resource.” The market must not become “the place where the strong subdue the weak.”

The last paragraphs of the chapter are devoted to the environment. For the believer, nature is a gift of God to be used in a responsible way. In this context, our attention is brought to consider the energy problem. The fact that some states and power groups “hoard nonrenewable energy resources” constitutes “a grave obstacle to development in poor countries.” Therefore, the international community should “find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of nonrenewable resources.” “The technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption,” while at the same time “encourage research into alternative forms of energy.”

Basically, “what is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new lifestyles.” A style which, up to now in most parts of the world, “is prone to hedonism and consumerism.” The decisive issue, therefore, is “the overall moral tenor of society.” The Pope goes on to caution: “If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death,” “the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology,” including that of environmental ecology (§ 48-52).

The cooperation of the human family is at the heart of the fifth chapter, in which Benedict XVI shows that “the development of peoples depend above all on a recognition that the human race is a single family.” On the other hand, one can read that the Christian religion can contribute to development “only if God has a place in the public realm.” By “denying the right to profess one’s religion in public,” politics “takes on a domineering and aggressive character.” The Pope warns: “Secularism and fundamentalism exclude the possibility of fruitful dialogue” between reason and religious faith, a breach that “comes only at an enormous price to human development” (§ 53-56).

The Pope then examines the principle of subsidiarity, which offers a help to the human person “via the autonomy of intermediate bodies.” Subsidiarity “is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state” and is well-suited to direct globalization towards its authentic human development. International aids “can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence,” hence all subjects of the civil society, and not only the rulers, should be involved. “Too often, aid has served to create only fringe markets for the products” of these countries (§ 57-58). The Pope exhorts the economically developed nations to “allocate larger portions” of their gross domestic product to development aid, thus respecting the obligations undertaken. He then advocates a greater access to education and more towards “the complete formation of the person,” for relativism makes everyone poorer. An example is given by the perverse phenomenon of sex tourism. “It is sad to note that this activity takes place with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists’ countries of origin, and with the complicity of many of the tour operators” (§ 59-61).

The Pope then deals with the phenomenon of migration, with “epoch-making” proportions. “No country can be expected to address today’s problems of migration by itself.” Every migrant is “a human person” who “possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance.” The Pope asks that the foreign workers not be considered as merchandise and shows the “direct link between poverty and unemployment.” He pleads for a decent employment for all and invites the authorities other than those in politics to focus their attention on the workers of countries where their social rights are violated (§ 62-64).

Finance, “after its misuse which has wreaked such havoc on the real economy, needs to go back to being an instrument directed towards development.” “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity.” In addition, the Pope calls for a “regulation of the financial sector” to safeguard weaker parties (§ 65-66).

He adds: “Development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth.” And he concludes by exhorting us to have a “new heart” in order to rise “above a materialistic vision of human events” (§ 76-77).

The last paragraph of the chapter deals with the “strongly felt need” for a “reform of the U.N.” and of the “economic institutions and international finance.” There is an “urgent need of a true world political authority,” which seeks to “observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity,” an authority vested with “effective power.” The Pope concludes with a call to establish “a greater degree of international ordering” for the management of globalization (§ 67).

The sixth and final chapter is centered on the development of peoples and technology. The Pope cautions us against the “Promethean presumption” which would have us believe that “humanity can re-create itself through the wonders of technology.” Technology cannot have an “absolute freedom.” “The process of globalization could replace ideologies with technology” (§ 68-72). Connected with technological development are the “means of social communications,” called to promote “the dignity of persons and peoples” (§ 73).

A particularly crucial battleground in “today’s cultural struggle between the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility is the field of bioethics.” The Pope goes on to add: “Reason without faith is doomed to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence.” The social question has become an “anthropological question.” Research on fetuses and cloning is “being promoted by today’s culture,” believing it has “mastered every mystery.” The Pope expresses his fear of a “systematic eugenic programming of births” (§ 74-75). He adds: “Development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth.” And he concludes by exhorting us to have a “new heart” in order to rise “above a materialistic vision of human events” (§ 76-77).

In his conclusion, the Pope underlines that development “needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer”; it needs “love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace” (§ 78-79).

Pope Benedict XVI. “Vatican released unofficial synopsis of Caritas in Veritate.” (July 7, 2009).

The encyclical can be read in full here.

THE AUTHOR

Pope Benedict XVI is the author of Caritas in Veritate. Among his other writings are: Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi, God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est, Jesus of Nazareth, The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium, God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, The Spirit of the Liturgy, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Introduction to Christianity, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Behold the Pierced One, and God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life.

Copyright © 2009 The Vatican

From www.opusdei.org : http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=33781

In the midst of the present economic difficulties, we offer a “Novena for Work” for asking St. Josemaria’s intercession in finding a job.

June 20, 2009

PDF: Novena to St. Josemaria for Work

During these times of economic crisis, many people have lost their jobs and face serious difficulties supporting their families. With his teaching about the sanctification of ordinary work, St. Josemaría is a natural intercessor for all those seeking work or anxious about losing their job.

Above is a link to a Novena for Work that thousands of people have used to ask St. Josemaría’s intercession for finding or keeping jobs. Use it yourself and send it along to any friends or relatives looking for work.

The novena has proven to be very powerful. Below are a just a few recent testimonies from people it has helped.

Better work, better pay and closer to home!
I went to this web-site to send the Novena for Work to my cousin, and I noticed that it asks people to send information about the favors they have received through the intercession of St. Josemaría. So, here I am. Last July I decided to resign from my job because I discovered that the owners of the company were not honest. I needed the job, but I could not work in a place that was completely unethical. I could not obtain a normal job, because I am still a student and companies usually offer internships that pay very little. Through my boyfriend I met Opus Dei. Among his books I discovered the Novena for Work and I began to pray it. I had sent out my resume a week earlier to a number of websites that had open positions. A week after I finished the novena I was offered two very good positions. The company that offered the better starting salary—four times what I had been earning before—was only 15 minutes from my house. In addition, it is a well-known company with good ethical principles and I have met wonderful people there. Now I tell everyone I can about this novena.
Vanessa Graziella,
Brazil, February 25, 2009

When God wanted it.
I was out of work for six months. My children and I prayed the Novena for Work to St. Josemaría, and I continued to go to Mass daily and to pray the Holy Rosary to our Lady. I applied for a number of jobs without success. Despite my unemployment, I continued to trust that God would look after my family. And, through the help we received from my parents and my brothers, this happened. When God wanted it, he gave me not one job but two. With the grace of God I have been able to do both jobs and I offer all my work for the love of God and neighbor. Many thanks for the help and powerful intercession of St. Josemaría.
J.A.
United Kingdom, February 19, 2009

A great help in finding work
While I was praying a novena to St. Josemaría, I had the good fortune to take part in a selection process that was long and very demanding. At a certain point, they stopped contacting me. So I started again to pray the novena and then I received a phone call. In the end I was selected for an important management position in a ski resort in Chile. This came after almost one year of unemployment. Throughout the whole process I always felt accompanied by St. Josemaría and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and this helped me to give excellent interviews during the selection process. I can testify to the great help in finding work that is to be gained from St. Josemaría and his Novena.
Enrique S., Chile
Chile, January 20, 2009

Jobs for me and for my brother-in-law
I have received the favor of a job in my area of work. I am an architect and an urban planner, presently doing some specialized studies. I was getting ready to go to class on Friday, April 17, when I received a telephone call for an interview. This was four days before my birthday. It was a birthday present! I had begun to pray the novena on April 6, and the news made me very happy. On April 20th, one day before my birthday, I signed the contract. Today was my first day on the job and it went very well. In the novena I started on April 6, I asked for work for myself and for my brother-in-law. Today he received the favor of a job. I am very thankful to God for this blessing through the intercession of St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer and also to our Lady of Fatima and our Lady of Shoenstatt.
J.H.
Brazil, April 27, 2009

If you receive a favor regarding your work, please let us know at info@opusdei.org.

From The Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines, Inc.:

http://alfi.org.ph/home/index.php/2008/11/what-do-contraceptive-societies-become/

Out of Wedlock Births

In 1960, the oral contraceptive, or birth control pill, was approved for sale.  Over the years since, the percentage of out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. has gone from about 6% per cent to about 37%, a more than 500% increase, and more than one-third of all births.  In Europe, more than half of the children in Sweden and Norway are born to unmarried mothers. In Denmark, it’s 45%.  Other countries have seen commensurate increases.

Why did this happen?  Since birth control pills prevent pregnancy, shouldn’t the out of wedlock pregnancy rates have gone down?  The answer is no, because of the law of unintended consequences, which is sometimes expressed as “You can’t change only one thing.”  That is, when you change one thing, others change as a consequence.  That is what happened here.  The acceptance of contraception changed the way people think about sex.  The logic is simple: If contraception is legitimate, then sex is not necessarily related to producing children.  If sex is not necessarily related to producing children, there is no compelling reason to limit it to marriage.  While the logic was important, the fact that sex is the strongest physical attraction that human beings experience also plays a big role, because it distorts people’s judgment.  And contraceptives just aren’t as effective as is popularly believed: a year’s worth of “typical” Pill usage results in one to eight pregnancies per 100 women, while typical condom usage results in ten to eighteen pregnancies per 100 women.
So, contraception vastly increases out of wedlock births.  What else?

Divorce

During the twenty years following the introduction of the contraceptive world view which came along with the Pill, the U.S. divorce rate reached 250% of what it had been, despite having been fairly stable in the preceding decades.

Why did this happen?  Because, since acceptance of contraception changed the way people think about sex, it changed their way of thinking about marriage:  If contraception is legitimate, then marriage is not necessarily connected to having and raising children.  If marriage is not necessarily connected to children, then it is about finding happiness.  If I am married and unhappy, my marriage is not fulfilling its purpose.  I should get a divorce.  Studies show that over 50% of contracepting couples divorce.  (By the way, research has shown that people who divorce because they are unhappily married usually are not happy five years later, whether they remarry or not.)

Decline of Marriage

So divorce is also one of the major consequences of a contraceptive society.  What next?  In the developed world, marriage is dying out.  Britain is now experiencing the lowest rate of marriage since records began in 1862.
The same is true of many of the countries of Europe. Japan and the U.S. are also experiencing this phenomenon. What accounts for this?  Again, the logic of contraception: If contraception is legitimate, there is no need to enter into marriage, with all its obligations, in order to have a sexual relationship, since the consequences of sex can be controlled.

As a result of this thinking, by 1998, American households that consisted of a father, a mother and one or more children were just 26% of the total, while in 1970, they were 45%.  The number of unmarried cohabiting couples had increased 865% since 1960, the year the pill was introduced.  The percentage of adults who were currently divorced had increased 300% during the same period.  The percentage of children in single-parent families increased from 9% in 1960 to 28% in 1998, a 211% increase.  35% of children were living apart from their biological fathers.  More than 50% of teenagers said that out-of-wedlock childbearing is a “worthwhile lifestyle.”  Only 35 percent of adults now consider children an important component of marriage.

Crime

What happens to society as a whole in the face of the major changes that the contraceptive lifestyle produces?  Over the thirty year period following the introduction of the birth control pill in the U.S. — the same period in which artificial contraception became a mainstream practice instead of a fringe phenomenon — the rate of violent crime rose by nearly 500%.  During the next twenty years, the U.S. incarceration rate in prisons and jails also rose nearly 500%, despite the fact that it had already increased significantly during the thirty year period of massively rising crime rate.  But how can these crime statistics be related to contraception?  Because the greatest predictor of criminality is family status of children:  A large number of scientific research studies have shown that children of broken families on average, not necessarily any particular individual, but especially those raised in homes without the presence of their biological father, are very much more likely to engage in criminal behavior.  In fact, they fare significantly worse in virtually every category of human welfare that can be measured, from physical health to mental health to achievement in school to completing school to success in a career to annual income to happiness in life and on and on.

Depopulation

What other effects of the contraceptive society are there?  The most important is that the societies themselves are dying out.  Human beings must have an average of 2.1 children each in order to replace themselves.  (The figure is 2.1, and not just 2, because some of these children will not bear children of their own.)  A typical child born today in Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, or the largest cities in China, has no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts and no uncles – although he or she does have four grandparents to eventually support with pension contributions.  More than fifty of the world’s nations, representing 44% of its total population, already have fertility rates below 2.1, some far below, and most of the rest are headed there.  As a result, demographers now know that the world’s population will peak sometime in the next half century, and then rapidly collapse, unless there is a very dramatic reversal of the decline in fertility rate.  So far, no nation in the world that has fallen below replacement fertility since records have been kept has managed to climb back above it, despite some having made efforts to do so.

For the worst example of this consequence of the contraceptive society, the population of Russia is currently declining by three quarters of a million people per year, and will probably continue to do so indefinitely.

China also will suffer this fate, sooner rather than later.  Its working age population will be falling within six years from now.

We in the Philippines are also going to experience this, even if the Reproductive Health Act is not passed.  It will simply happen sooner, and become worse, if it is.  This graph represents a consensus projection of existing conditions — not those under Reproductive Health.

Abortion

Another very important component of the contraceptive society is abortion.  All countries that adopt the contraceptive mentality eventually legalize surgical and chemical abortion.  Part of the reason for this is that most popular contraceptives sometimes cause very early abortions: the pill, the patch, suppositories, and all other hormonal contraceptives, as well as IUD’s, or Intrauterine Devices [as you have heard from Dra. Leah].  This creates a climate of disrespect for life.  The other part of the reason is that contraceptives don’t work very well.  One-half of all unintended pregnancies in France and the U.S., as examples, occur to women who were using contraception.  The Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, reports that the failure rate of the Pill for low-income, cohabiting teenagers is almost 50% — one-half of them get pregnant each year.  When this happens, because they cannot accept the fact that they are pregnant, since contraception was supposed to prevent it, failed contraceptive users are much more likely than non-users to turn to abortion to accomplish what they are told is the same result.

STD’s

Another observed consequence of contraception is a vast increase of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, or STD’s.  For example, a “culture of promiscuity” has led to almost 400,000 new cases of sexually transmitted diseases in Britain in 2007, the highest number since record-keeping began thirty years ago. The vast increase in STD’s occurs because those who use contraception are told and believe that they are “protected” by doing so.  This gives a false sense of confidence concerning the risks associated with engaging in sex outside a lifelong monogamous relationship.  Of the many contraceptives in common use, none gives any protection against sexually transmitted infections except the condom, and that protection is limited for most STD’s, and non-existent for others, because they are spread by mere skin contact.  Despite widespread condom usage in the U.S., which has a population less than four times as large as ours, there are nearly 19 million new STD cases each year, more than half of them among 15- to 24-year-olds.  To take just one of the more than twenty STI’s in circulation, it is estimated by medical authorities that three million new cases of Chlamydia occur in the U.S. each year, 1.2 million of them among teenagers.  In other words, the U.S., with less than four times the population, contracts as many cases of Chlamydia each year as the Philippines has in total.  But this favorable disparity will disappear if we too adopt the contraceptive mentality.  And while the U.S. has the most extensive medical establishment in the world to deal with this serious disease, which can be treated effectively if diagnosed in time, we do not have that advantage, and timely diagnosis is unlikely here — since it is often asymptomatic — let alone treatment.  Direct medical costs associated with STD’s in the United States have been estimated at up to 14.7 billion dollars annually. We can expect equally devastating health and financial consequences here if the Reproductive Health act becomes law.

AIDS
The use of condoms to prevent AIDS corresponds to an increase in the rate of AIDS cases.  Edward C. Green, a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a former condom advocate, has said, “The way condoms are marketed in Africa and other developing parts of the world is as if they were 100 percent safe. Condoms have brand names like Shield and Protector that gives the impression that they are 100 percent safe.”  But he has found that “20 years into the pandemic there is no evidence that more condoms leads to less AIDS.” Citing data on condom availability in many African counties, Green went on to say that “we are not seeing what we expected: that higher levels of condom availability result in lower HIV prevalence.” Dr. Norman Hearst of the University of California — San Francisco supports this analysis with statistics on Kenya, Botswana, and other countries, which show an increasingly alarming pattern of increased condom sale correlation with rising HIV prevalence by year.

The Philippines and Thailand. Another example of how condoms fail to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS is presented by the Philippines and Thailand, which have comparable populations.
In 1984, the first case of HIV was detected in both of these nations. By 1987, Thailand had 112 cases of AIDS, and the Philippines had 135 cases. In 1991, the World Health Organization predicted that, by 1999, Thailand would have 70,000 deaths from the disease, and the Philippines would have 85,000 deaths. Consequently, in 1991, both nations took concrete and comprehensive measures against the spread of the HIV virus — but directed their efforts in completely different directions. The Thai Minister of Health instituted a “100% Condom Use Program.” All houses of prostitution were required to have supplies of condoms, and condom vending machines were installed in all supermarkets, bars, restaurants, and other public gathering places. This program was widely accepted and implemented by the people of Thailand. Two years later, Rene Bullecer, M.D., received authorization from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to establish the organization AIDS-Free Philippines as its official program to combat HIV/AIDS nationwide. The government signed on to this effort as well. By the end of 2003, the disparity in the effectiveness of both types of programs had become glaringly obvious, as shown in this table;
Disparity in the effectiveness of Thailand Method and Philippines Method

Parameter
Thailand
Philippines

Adults and Children Living with HIV
570,000
9,000
AIDS Deaths in 2003
58,000
500
Population
62,833,000
79,999,000
HIV Infection Rates Per Million
9,072
113

This table shows that the Thai HIV infection rate is eighty times higher than the Filipino HIV infection rate.
The current rate of HIV infection in the United States, with all its sex education, all its sexual freedom, all its advanced antiviral drugs, and all its billions of condoms, is 3,900 per million, thirty times higher than in the Philippines.
What lesson does this teach us?
USAID has concluded that the reason that the Philippines has such a low incidence of HIV/AIDS is that youth here have a very high rate of abstinence, and married people largely remain faithful to their spouses. The USAID report grudgingly admitted that “The Catholic Church must be credited with influencing sexual behavior.”
Economic Stagnation
Population growth has been the historical driver of economic development. Because of shrinking numbers of workers and consumers, as well as the pressure of increased social security taxes, economies stagnate and eventually shrink in a contraceptive society.  This has been occurring in Japan, the world’s second largest economy, over the past decade, and will soon be playing a large role in Europe, if it isn’t already.

Impoverished Elderly

A long-term consequence of enacting Reproductive Health will be the impoverishment of our elderly, particularly women.  As family ties become weaker, and fewer children are born, there will be many elderly with no one to support them.  Given the state of our public finances, the government will not be able to assume this role, as it has in some countries.  (In fact, most of the developed countries are already facing severe difficulties in funding their pension systems, for the same reason.)   Both the Asian Development Bank, in its 2002 annual report entitled Population And Human Resource Trends and Challenges, where the authors state that the bank’s “Developing Member Countries are aging faster than they are developing,” and the United Nations, for example in a press release by UN ESCAP News Services dated May 15, 2002, where it states “The combination of a declining birth rate, and lack of adequate provision for senior citizens in many Asian and Pacific countries, could result in future destitution for many people, especially women,” have essentially admitted this.

Pornographic Sex Education

Because of the large numbers of out of wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, especially among the young, there is an irresistible demand for sex education, which in modern secular society is not permitted to have a true moral component, and is limited to techniques, variations, and how to reduce risks – generally without seriously promoting abstaining from sex.  SIECUS, the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, is the original and largest organization for sex education in the country.  Its guidelines for sex education in schools include the following: Beginning at age 5, teaching that masturbation feels good; starting at age 9, teaching there are many ways to give and receive sexual pleasure without having intercourse; at age 12, more on the joys of masturbation alone or with a partner, as an alternative to intercourse; and at age 16, common sexual behaviors including use of pornography, bathing/showering together, and oral, vaginal or anal intercourse.
The state of California recently overhauled its sex education requirements. When fully implemented, SB 777 and AB 394 will teach children in California government schools to support homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality via instructional materials, programs and activities, and school ’safety’ guidelines.  In addition, the California State School Board this year implemented SB 71 requiring public schools that provide sex education to promote unmarried sexual activity with no restraints other than mutual consent.

Allan Guttmacher, former president of Planned Parenthood, was once asked,
“What makes abortion so secure in America?” He answered in two words:
“Sex education.” Atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hare, responsible for outlawing prayer in U.S. schools, wrote: “The issue of abortion is a red herring. . . . The fight is over sex education, including information on birth control.”  These quotes illustrate the internecine relationship between these phenomena.

Government Bankruptcy

Because the number of workers per retired person in a nation declines as population growth slows, each worker must support more retirees.  However, this requires increases in social security taxes that are extremely unpopular, and therefore don’t often take place.  For example, the European Union’s population is set to reach 506 million by 2060 when there will be only two people of working age for every person aged 65 or more.  Currently there are four.  This will necessitate a doubling of social security taxes, which is unlikely to happen.  All developed nations are facing similar problems.  One compounding factor is that in difficult economic times people are more reluctant to have children.  Since the current difficulties are caused by too few children in the first place, this could lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of population decline and economic decline.

It is not only developed nations that are facing this problem.  China, for example, by 2040 will have about 400 million citizens over the age of sixty, most without access to pensions, and without relatives nearby.  By 2050 there will be 100 million Chinese over age 80 in the same condition.  Starvation is a realistic threat.  A similar situation will eventually take place in the Philippines.

Euthanasia

The lack of respect for the value of human life that produces abortion leads to pressure for euthanasia, including its legalization in some countries, and practice in others.  At first voluntary, it tends to often become involuntary over time.  In the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal since 2001, surveys by Dutch researchers have shown that doctors have killed at least 1,000 patients annually through euthanasia without the patient’s consent or request. This year the Netherlands legalized the killing of children under the age of 12 by euthanasia, without consent — it is already legal to euthanize children between the ages of 12 and 17 if they request death.  As retirement costs begin to bankrupt governments, we can expect to see euthanasia proposed, and even adopted, as a solution.

In 2005, Terri Schindler Schiavo, a woman who had suffered brain damage but was not in a coma, was starved and dehydrated to death – which it is illegal to do to a dog – by order of a judge in the state of Florida, because her husband claimed she had said she wanted to die if she became incapacitated.  Her husband stood to collect on a large life-insurance policy when this began, and was living with another woman.  Similar cases have occurred since 2005.

Terri Schiavo
Terri Schiavo in hospice with her mother on August 11, 2001

Euthanasia is also justified as a source for organ donation.  In a paper just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, heart transplant surgeons described how they “modified” the definition of death for three brain-damaged infants so they could justify removing their hearts for transplantation into three other infants who suffered from severe heart problems

Coercive Laws

Under a proposed amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the UK, those groups advertising services to pregnant women who provide “false information” or even information that is “factually correct” that convinces a woman to change her mind about abortion, will have committed an offense.
A court in Lille, France, handed down a sentence on a French Parliamentarian, fining him 3000 Euros and forcing him to pay an additional 6000 Euros to be split between three homosexual activist groups who brought the charges against the MP.  This despite the fact that the MP, in the remarks upon which the charges were based and in his defense, was clear that he was not speaking against homosexual persons but homosexual sex acts.

Ake Green, pastor of a Swedish Pentecostal church in Kalmar, Sweden, was given a 30-day suspended sentence in July, 2004, by a Swedish court for inciting hatred against homosexuals by speaking out in a sermon against homosexual acts. In February 2005, an appeals court overturned the conviction.  However, Sweden’s chief prosecutor disagreed with the appeal court’s conclusion, claiming the sermon did in fact amount to hate speech, and ordered a review of the case.

Alberta, Canada, Pastor Steve Boissoin filed an appeal to the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal ruling that convicted him of hate speech. The pastor was found guilty last November of having written a letter to the editor that was “likely” to expose homosexuals to hatred. In June of this year, the Alberta Tribunal issued a remedy ruling that ordered Boissoin to pay $7,000 in fines, to never speak disparagingly about homosexuality or about the complainant, and to apologize in a letter to be published in the same paper. Besides the fines, Boissoin had to spend many tens of thousands of dollars defending himself against the complaint.  The complainant was never mentioned in the letter which was the basis of the complaint.

Crystal Dixon, associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo, a state university, was first suspended, then fired, after writing a letter to a local newspaper.  Dixon, an African-American, challenged the civil rights comparison of race with homosexual behavior, saying that science has never found a genetic cause or DNA for homosexuality.

If the Reproductive Health Act becomes law, this meeting could be ruled illegal, and I and the other speakers would be subject to arrest:  The act provides as follows:

SEC. 21.  Prohibited Acts. – The following acts are prohibited:

f} Any person who maliciously engages in disinformation about the intent or provisions of this Act.

SEC. 22.  Penalties. – …the accused who is found guilty shall be sentenced to an imprisonment ranging from one (1) month to six (6) months or a fine ranging from Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) to Fifty Thousand Pesos(P50,000.00) or both such fine and imprisonment…  An offender who is an alien shall, after service of sentence, be deported immediately without further proceedings by the Bureau of Immigration.

The great problem with this language is that those who support the Act and believe it to be beneficial get to define what is disinformation.

Prostitution

About 240 underage girls are transported into the Kansas City metro area every month to be prostituted. Kansas City is not even in the top 25 largest urban areas of the U.S.  It has been estimated that up to 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. This doesn’t even consider adult prostitutes.

Sexual Chaos

In the U.S, during a typical week, according to an authoritative polling firm, 38 percent of adults younger than 25 engaged in sex outside of marriage, 33 percent viewed pornography and 25 percent got drunk.

A recent study in the UK revealed three leading potential “triggers” for serious mental health problems in girls: premature equalization, commercialization, and alcohol abuse. The report reveals a loss of childhood innocence and says girls today experience high levels of “stress, anxiety and unhappiness.” Sexual advances from boys, pressure to wear clothes that make them look too old and magazines and websites directly targeting younger girls to lose weight or consider plastic surgery were identified as taking a particular toll. Two-fifths of the 10 to 14 year old Girl Guides surveyed know someone who has self-harmed, a third had a friend who suffered from an eating disorder and almost two in five know someone who had experienced panic attacks. Many feel strongly that self-harm could be within the spectrum of “typical teenage behaviour”  A quarter said they know someone who has taken illegal drugs.

A 2007 report of the American Psychological Association found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls’ self-image and healthy development.

UK Schools are now handing out Morning-After contraceptive/abortifacient pills to students without age restrictions.

New York’s Office of Children and Family Services, which runs the state’s juvenile-detention centers, has quietly adopted new rules that cater to lesbian, gay, bisexual and “transgender” youth in its custody, The Village Voice reported. “Transgendered” youth can request private sleeping quarters and be called by their chosen name. The new guidelines even allow boys to wear girls’ panties and bras, use makeup and shave their legs.

The U.S. states of California, New York and Massachusetts have legalized same-sex marriage.

California is changing its school textbooks and teaching to eliminate all references to husband or wife – any teacher who uses these terms will be punished.

The U.S. state of Colorado has passed a law that all public facilities, including restrooms, must allow people to use them based on their own gender perception.  Thus, a public restroom might have 40 year old males, and nine year old girls using it simultaneously, as well as all other possible combinations.

Over half of all infants born to girls younger than age 18 are fathered by adult men.

Sex education courses include teaching masturbation techniques and homosexual sex.

In the new CBS program Swingtown, an apparently naked man seduces a woman while her husband watches.  Millions of children watched this program.

One of the most popular programs on television is Desperate Housewives, with the theme of promiscuous adultery, including with adolescents.

A Florida High School drama teacher with a history of alleged sexual misconduct is wanted for having sex with two 17-year-old students, impregnating one of them, and taking her to a clinic where she got an abortion.
A woman in Germany who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who’s the father.

You’ve all heard of the sad sad sagas of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears – and Charlotte Church, who began her career singing Catholic hymns.

Junior-high school girls in the U.S. often dress in a way that was limited to prostitutes a generation or so ago.

Serious cases of sexually-transmitted disease in Scotland have more than doubled over the past decade thanks to the huge number of young Scots being infected.

At high school proms in the U.S., it is common for students to perform simulated sex dances: so common that some parents and cultural writers are suggesting it should not be prohibited. At one California high school students complained that they didn’t know any other way to dance.

A second-year law school student and former beauty queen who posed for a racy calendar while brandishing a weapon and recently completed a semester-long unpaid stint clerking for a Federal judge, has been accused of kidnapping, biting and threatening a former boyfriend with a handgun.

British schools are taking on the mantle of providing pupils with a stable upbringing because the skills of parents are declining, according to the general secretary of the union for education professionals. There has been a “downward spiral” in the quality of parenting, he said, that is likely to continue in the future.

A U.S. Federal prosecutor, married with children, was arrested as he arrived in Detroit to have sex with a five year old.

In the U.S.
64% of abortions involve coercion
84% were not fully informed
52% felt rushed and 54% uncertain beforehand, yet …
67% received no counseling beforehand, and
79% were not informed about alternatives
Coercion can escalate to violence
Homicide is the leading killer of pregnant women
Risk of death for women is 62% higher after abortion
31% suffer health complications after abortion
65% suffer symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
60% said “part of me died”
Teens are 6 times more likely to commit suicide if they’ve had an abortion in the last 6 months
Clinical depression risk is 65% higher after abortion
Suicide rates are 6 times higher after abortion*

U.S. Catholic bishops state that harvesting embryonic stem cells involves the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, a gravely immoral act.

Planned Parenthood, which receives more than 300 million dollars of government funding annually, has a promotional Web site which targets youth and features short “public service” video vignettes which, among other things, promote casual sex, immodesty, homosexuality and even group sex.
U.S. Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama voted against and spoke against the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.  This act bans killing babies who survive abortions by starving and dehydrating them to death. He also voted repeatedly against banning partial-birth abortions, which involve delivering a baby except for its head, then evacuating its brain.
Withering of Christianity

For more than a thousand years, Europe was known as Christendom.  Today, 16 percent, 14 percent, and 13 percent, respectively, of the British, French and Germans consider religion very important.

Researchers estimate that the percentage of adults in the U.S. who actually attend religious services during the previous weekend dropped from 42% in 1965 to 26% in 1994.

“… figures from the 1989 English Church Census and additional attendance data from the 1996-97 UK Christian Handbook indicate that only around 10 percent attend worship services each week.”

In Ireland, where 90 percent of the population is nominally Catholic, less than 50 percent attend Mass even once a month, according to church officials’ estimates. That figure is more dramatic given that 91 percent of the country attended Mass regularly just 30 years ago, according to a recent church study.

At the Most Precious Blood parish in Dublin, parishioners over age 30 say they remember when the church, which seats 1,700, was packed for all four Sunday Masses. There were about 75 persons — including only five children — at the 11 a.m. Mass at Most Precious Blood on a recent Sunday.

“I don’t go to church, and I don’t know one person who does,” says Brian Kenny, 39, who is studying psychotherapy and counseling at Dublin Business School. “Fifteen years ago, I didn’t know one person who didn’t.” But he says he’s merely typical of his generation. “I’m very spiritual,” he says. “I speak to an energy force I call God, and I get answers,” he says. “If you can get a spiritual connection without going to church, why go to church?”  A generation ago, Ireland was possibly the most Catholic country in the world.

Although some 85% of Swedes are church members, only 11% of women and 7% of men go to church, the government says.

European leaders rejected any mention of the role of Christianity in creating European society in a new constitution for the 25 European Union countries, despite a personal plea from then Pope John Paul II.

Italy’s nominee for justice minister of the EU, Rocco Buttiglione, was rejected because he was openly religious and condemned homosexuality.

In Ireland, the Archdiocese of Dublin, the capital city, ordained only one priest in 2004. In 2005, for the first time in what historians say is hundreds of years, the diocese did not expect to ordain a single priest.

Dissolution of Society

In his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II said: “By living `as if God does not exist,’ man not only loses sight of the mystery of God, but also of the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being” (n. 22) He added that “the eclipse of the sense of God and of man inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breeds individualism, utilitarianism and hedonism” (n. 23). In all of this, said Pope John Paul, “we see the permanent validity of the words of the Apostle: `And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct’ (Romans 1:28)” (ibid).

Pope Benedict XVI wrote, as Cardinal Ratzinger, ”In order to survive, Europe needs a critical acceptance of its Christian culture. Europe seems, in the very moment of its greatest success, to have become empty from the inside. Crippled, as it were.”

The Old Testament, the New Testament, and even Augustine’s City of God warn that calamity befalls nations that are not faithful to the Lord.  Unfortunately, as we heard at Mass yesterday, “The natural man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God: for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

But there are also secular witnesses to this: Noted sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, who founded the Sociology department at Harvard University, found in his studies no culture surviving once it ceased to support marriage and monogamy.”

J.D. Unwin, a British anthropologist in the 1930’s, studied 86 cultures that stretched across 5,000 years. He found, without exception, when they restricted sex to marriage, they thrived. But not one culture survived more than three generations after turning sexually permissive. Unwin had no Christian convictions and applied no moral judgment: “I offer no opinion about rightness or wrongness, he wrote.” Nevertheless, he concluded, “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.”

There are already two consecutive sexually-permissive generation’s in the West.

We read the following in St. Luke’s account of  the Passion, as Jesus walked the road to Calvary:  “…Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!’  30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us’; and to the hills, “Cover us.’  31 For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”  32

This passage has long been a source of mystery as to what events Jesus was referring to.  The world has experienced the greatest economic boom in the history of mankind over the past six decades, yet families have far fewer children, and the wealthiest nations have the fewest.  Now we are at the start of what we are told will be the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Birth rates fell significantly during the Great Depression.

Hope

Our country has a choice:  We can adopt the contraceptive model of society like most of the other nations of the world, and become like them, as described.  Or we can reject the contraceptive model of society, and make our own path to a better world, in the footsteps of Jesus.  It will be one or the other – we can’t do both.  But if we choose to follow our Lord, we have to recognize that consistent prayer and sacrifice must come first in our efforts: this battle cannot be won by human action alone, because at bottom it is a spiritual battle, for our souls, and the soul of our country.