Baptiste the Prophet

Baptiste and Wujek

In 1976 Pope Paul VI invited Karol Cardinal Wojtyla to preach the papal retreat. In researching the event for my book, what struck me in Wojtyla's meditations was his inference that “the signs of the times” might explain the denial of the truth of Church teaching which had infiltrated her like “the smoke of Satan.” Surely the Pope Paul was moved by Wojtyla's preaching, for in June of 1968 he penned his magisterial Credo of the People of God, a vigorous defense of traditional Church doctrine after the Council’s close, followed by his prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae, for which the “modernizers” never forgave him. Monsignor Charles Pope's reflection on "Where Wisdon Lay" is never more timely than at present, Post-Obergefell, and so I reprint it here in full:

The Wisdom of Humanae Vitae: Time Has Proved Where Wisdom Lay

Msgr. Charles Pope • December 7, 2009

A generation has passed since the publication of the boldly pastoral and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae which upheld the ancient ban on the use of artificial contraception. Perhaps no teaching of the Church causes the worldly to scoff more than our teaching against artificial contraception. The eyes of so many, Catholics among them, roll and the scoffing begins: Unrealistic! Out of touch! Uncompassionate! Silly! You’ve got to be kidding!

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

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

Indeed, times DOES prove where wisdom lies. Some forty or more years after widespread acceptance of contraception set in how have we done? Perhaps it is best to review some of the “promises” that contraceptive advocates made, then review the prophecies of Paul VI. Then lets review the record, looking at the “fruits” of contraception.

The Promises of the Contraception Advocates:

Happier Marriages and a lower divorce rates since couples could have all the sex they wanted without “fear” of pregnancy.
Lower abortion rates since there would be far fewer “unwanted” children.
Greater dignity for women who will no longer be “bound” by their reproductive system.
More recently contraceptive advocates have touted the medical benefits of preventing STDs and AIDS.

What were some of the concerns and predictions made by Pope Paul VI? (All of these are quotes from Humanae Vitae) :

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

So, forty years later, who had the wisdom to see? The World or the Church? Well let’s consider some of the data:

The divorce rate did not decline. It skyrocketed. Divorce rates soared through the 1970s to to the 1990s to almost 50% of marriages failing. In recent years the divorce rate has dropped slightly but this may also be due to the fact that far fewer people get married in the first place, preferring to cohabitate and engage in a kind of serial polygamy drifting from relationship to relationship. The overall divorce rate despite its slight drop remains high, hovering in the low 40% range. Contraceptive advocates claim that divorce is a complicated matter. True enough. But they cannot have it both ways, claiming that contraception would be a “simple” fix to make marriages happier and then, when they are so horrifyingly wrong, claiming that divorce is “complicated.” Paul VI on the other predicted rough sailing for marriage in advent of contraception. Looks like the Pope was right.

Abortion rates did not decrease. They too skyrocketed. Within five years the pressure to have more abortion available led to its “legalization” in 1973. It has been well argued that, far from decreasing the abortion rate, contraception actually fueled it. Since contraception routinely fails, abortion became the contraception of last recourse. Further, just as the Pope predicted sexual immorality became widespread and this too led to higher rates of abortion. It is hard to compare promiscuity rates between periods since people “lie” a lot when asked about such things. But one would have to be very myopic not to notice the huge increase in open promiscuity, cohabitation, pornography and the like. All of this bad behavior made more possible by contraceptives also fuels abortion rates. Chalk up another one for the Pope and the Church.

The question of women’s dignity is hard to measure and different people have different measures. Women do have greater career choices. But is career or vocation the true source of one’s dignity? One’s dignity is surely more than their economic and utilitarian capacity. Sadly, motherhood has taken a real back seat in popular culture. And, as the Pope predicted women have been hypersexualized as well. Their dignity as wives and mothers has been set aside in favor of the sexual pleasure they offer. As the Pope predicted many modern men, no longer bound by marriage for sexual satisfaction, use women and discard them on a regular basis. Men “get what they want” and it seems many women are willing to supply it rather freely. In this scenario men win. Women are often left with STDs, they are often left with children, and as they get older and “less attractive” they are often left alone. I am not sure this is dignity. But you decide who is right and if women really have won in the new morality that contraception helped usher in. I think the Pope wins this point as well.

As for preventing STDs and AIDS, again, big failure. STDs did not decrease and were not prevented. Infection rates skyrocketed through the 1970s and 1980s. AIDS which appeared on the scene later continues to show horribly high rates. Where is the promised deliverance? Contraceptives it seems, do not prevent anything. Rather they encourage the spread of these diseases by encouraging the bad behavior that causes them. Here too it looks like the Church was right and the world was wrong.

Add to this list the huge teenage pregnancy rates, the devastation of single parent families, broken hearts and even poverty. The link to poverty may seem obscure but the bottom line is that single motherhood is the chief cause of poverty in this country. Contraception encourages promiscuity. Promiscuity leads to teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy leads to single motherhood (absent fatherhood). Single motherhood leads to welfare and poverty. Currently in the inner city over 80% of homes are headed by single mothers. It is the single highest factor related to poverty.

Declining birth rates are also having terrible effects on contracepting cultures. Europe as we have known it is simply going out of existence. I have written on that before HERE: Contraception is Cultural Suicide! Europe’s future is Muslim. They have huge families. Likewise here in the USA white and African American communities are below replacement level. Thankfully our immigrants are largely Christian and share our American vision. But for the Church the declining birthrates are now resulting in closing schools, parishes, declining vocations and the like. We cannot sustain what we have on a population that is no longer replacing itself. Immigration has insulated us from this to some extent but low Mass attendance has eclipsed that growth and we are starting to shut down a lot of our operations.

Conclusion: Time will prove where wisdom lies. What have we learned in in over forty years of contraception? First we have learned that it is a huge failure in meeting its promises. It has backfired. It has made things worse, not better. Marriage, families, children have all taken a huge hit. Bad behavior has been encouraged and all the bad consequences that flow from it are flourishing. Most people seem largely disinterested in this data. Hearts have become numb and minds have gone to sleep. I hope you are not among them and that you might consider this information well and share it with others. Time HAS proved where wisdom lay. It’s time to admit the obvious.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Women Warriors?

A s a Catholic man and history teacher, I always tell my classes that, for reasons of masculinity and chivalry, I oppose women in the military (I teach at an all-female Catholic girls high school). So this article gives a better explanation of my view from a Catholic man's perspective: WOMEN DON'T DESERVE COMBAT by Mr. Gabe Jones “For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman’s personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation.” (Pope St. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 10) December 3, 2015 ought to be remembered as the date that any remaining vestiges of our country’s collective sense of chivalry died a tragic death. It was on this day that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced his decision to require combat positions in every branch of the United States military – including the Marine Corps – be opened to women. Despite being one of the most significant news items in recent memory, if you did not p...

Things Catholic

In my second chapter I discuss why the political terms "liberal" and "conservative" are misnomers for adjectives modifying the term "Catholic." This is especially important now, when, following the resignation of Benedict XVI, pundits will misuse these terms in discussing the Holy father's legacy. Read more on this here.

The Pope and the Pill

C atholic teaching on the natural moral law reveals that man does not have unlimited dominion over his body or his sexual faculties, as Paul VI reminded us in Humanae vitae , for both of these must be used within the limits of the order of reality established by God (HV 16). When these limits are ignored, rejected or exceeded, horrifying consequences result. Here we are brought to Pope Paul's prophetic words: "Let [responsible men] first consider how easily [artificial birth control] could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings . . . need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and e...

On the Contemporary U.S. Scene

M ichael Flynn made a lot of enemies inside the government during his career. When he exposed himself as vulnerable these pounced. How?? Anonymous and possibly illegal leaks of private conversations with a foreign national. Now, we aren't supposed to spy on Americans without probable cause, nor disclose the results of our spying in the pages of the Washington Post because it suits a partisan or personal agenda (overturning the results of an election). Current and former national security officials used their position, their sources, and their methods to destroy a political enemy. Why aren’t all Americans upset by this? Mr. Flynn is not the only recent occurrence of such. The New York Times reports that civil servants at the EPA lobbied Congress to reject Donald Trump's nominee to run the agency because Pruitt was critical of the way the EPA was run during the Obama years. Traditionally, civil servants follow the direction of the political ap...

Several Hundred people do Not Lie!

At present many Catholics and non-Catholics like have little to no understanding of the emotional causes of homosexual attractions and behavior, largely due to spiritual laziness or lack of will to do extensive research into causes of the disorder. Nor is there an awareness of the powerful role that Catholic spirituality can play in the healing of this disorder. In fairness, the reasons for this state of ignorance include the scant literature available on the value of the Catholic Faith and the sacraments in the resolution of homosexual attractions and acts, this in spite of the hundreds of success stories for those seeking to resolve the disorder--hence this blog post. Furthermore, traditional therapy has failed to resolve homosexual behavior, because by definition there is an all-powerful divine element excluded from the process. Add to this the views within the media and educational, social service, health and political fields, and the matter grows more complex. It is no s...

Dancin' With Mr. D: Non-Binary?

A n LGBT activist has admitted that the battle over men accessing women’s bathrooms and vice versa has little do with transgenderism, and everything to do with re-working society and getting rid of the heterobinary structure—eliminating distinctions between “male” and “female” altogether. Male and female He made them. Riki Wilchins, who has undergone “sex change” surgery and is a far-left social change activist, has written that p eople should be able to enter whatever bathroom “fits their gender identity,” but the fact that we even have “male” and “female” bathrooms reflects something about society that needs to change. He added that there are many “genderqueer” or “non-binary” people, pointing to a student who recently “came out” to President Obama as “non-binary” at a London townhall as an example. “Non-binary” people don’t identify as male or female and they often want to be referred to as “they” or “hir” or “zer.” So the fact that there...

Homosexual Marriage

The urgency of the issue of gay marriage at this time and the compelling arguments raised against it here, make this paper an important resource: Answering Advocates of Gay Marriage KATHERINE YOUNG AND PAUL NATHANSON Claim 1 : Marriage is an institution designed to foster the love between two people. Gay people can love each other just as straight people can. Ergo, marriage should be open to gay people. Claim 2 : Not all straight couples have children, but no one argues that their marriages are unacceptable Claim 3 : Some gay couples do have children and therefore need marriage to provide the appropriate context. Claim 4 : Marriage and the family are always changing anyway, so why not allow this change? Claim 5 : Marriage and the family have already changed, so why not acknowledge the reality? Claim 6 : Children would be no worse off with happily married gay parents than they are with unhappily married straight ones. Claim 7 : Given global overpopulation, why w...

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

Montini and Bergoglio

In 1972 Pope Paul VI, reflecting on the crisis facing the Church when he realized the implementation of Vatican II was not forthcoming as the Council fathers intended , opined on the reality of Satan: “….So we know that this dark disturbing being exists and that he is still at work with his treacherous cunning; he is the hidden enemy who sows errors and misfortunes in human history. It is worth recalling the revealing Gospel parable of the good seed and the cockle, for it synthesizes and explains the lack of logic that seems to preside over our contradictory experiences: "An enemy has done this." He is "a murderer from the beginning . . . and the father of lies,"[Jn 8:44] as Christ defines him. He undermines man's moral equilibrium with his sophistry. He is the malign, clever seducer who knows how to make his way into us through the senses, the imagination and the libido, through utopian logic, or through disordered social contacts in the give and take of...

Search This Blog