Article: Stem Cell Ethics and the Things We Refuse to Do…

FATHER TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK

In arguing for ethical science, those of us working to safeguard human life would do well to examine our premises carefully, so as to avoid weak or questionable assumptions that could undermine the thrust of our arguments.

Many well-intentioned pro-lifers have inadvertently adopted flawed or incomplete arguments while trying to defend the noblest of causes: the plight of the vulnerable and the unborn. In the debate over stem cells, for example, a common argument runs like this:

Human embryonic stem cell research is wrong because we are witnessing new medical treatments for sick patients exclusively with adult, not embryonic stem cells. Every disease that has been successfully treated thus far with stem cells has relied on adult stem cells, while embryonic stem cells haven't produced any cures yet. Adult stem cells work, while embryonic don't, and it's basically a waste of resources to pursue something that is not working. Therefore scientists should stop beating their drums about human embryonic stem cells since all the real-life treatments for patients are occurring exclusively with adult stem cells

This argument, often employed by those of a pro-life persuasion, is flawed on a number of counts.

First, it seems to presume that the only yardstick for determining embryonic stem cell "success" will be in terms of benefits to patients who are struggling with various ailments and diseases. Yet researchers themselves would argue that there are many other reasons to pursue embryonic stem cell research. For example, such research is sure to be valuable for gaining further insight into the cellular mechanisms underlying the development of an organism and is already providing important clues about how an animal builds itself up from a single starting cell called the zygote. Scientific research using non-human (e.g. mouse, rat, or monkey) embryonic stem cells can address these kinds of questions in a responsible way and clearly deserves to be funded and promoted. Such non-human embryonic stem cell research is, in fact, a praiseworthy and ethically uncontentious kind of scientific investigation.

Second, the argument that adult stem cells are helping sick patients while embryonic are not -- and thus the adult stem cells are "more ethical" -- seems to reduce the stem cell ethics debate to a discussion about what works best, or what is most effective. In fact, however, the ethical concerns have very little to do with scientific efficiency and everything to do with the fact that researchers violate and destroy young humans (who are still embryos) in order to acquire their stem cells.

Furthermore, it may be strictly a matter of time before the embryonic stem cells begin providing cures for human patients. At any point in the future, we could be greeted by a front page news story announcing a dramatic "success," perhaps an embryonic stem cell transplant allowing childhood diabetics to give up their insulin injections or paralyzed patients to walk. That "success," however, would not change the ethical objections to embryo destruction or make an evil act a morally acceptable one -- though it might increase the temptation for some to cross the objective ethical line.

Bioethicist Paul Ramsey put it well in suggesting that any man of serious conscience, when discussing ethics, will have to conclude that, “there may be some things that men should never do. The good things that men do can be made complete only by the things they refuse to do."

To put it more simply: even if it were possible to cure all diseases known to mankind by harvesting (and therefore killing) a single human embryo, it would never become ethical to do so. We cannot choose evil that good might come, nor can we ever afford to pay the steep ethical price of ignoring the sacrosanct humanity of the embryo, that tiny creature that each of us once was ourselves. Treating a fellow human being, albeit a very small one, as a means rather than an end, violates his or her most basic human rights.

In fact, the direct killing of other humans, whether young and embryonic or old and in their dotage, is properly referred to as an intrinsic evil, meaning it is in every instance wrong, and ought never be chosen as a human act. Intrinsic evils do not admit of any legitimate exceptions. Once we concretely recognize the immoral character of an action prohibited by an exceptionless norm, the only ethically acceptable act is to follow the requirements of the moral law and turn away from the action which it forbids.

Bioethicist Paul Ramsey put it well in suggesting that any man of serious conscience, when discussing ethics, will have to conclude that, "there may be some things that men should never do. The good things that men do can be made complete only by the things they refuse to do."

Refusing to destroy human embryos as a scientist does not imply any opposition to science itself, but only to unethical science, which, like unethical investment practices or unethical medicine, is invariably harmful to society. Good science is necessarily ethical science; it cannot ever be reduced merely to "efficient" science, that which might work or "solve my problems" at the expense of others. In arguing for ethical science, those of us working to safeguard human life would do well to examine our premises carefully, so as to avoid weak or questionable assumptions that could undermine the thrust of our arguments.

---

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk. "Stem Cell Ethics and the Things We Refuse to Do…" Making Sense Out of Bioethics (December, 2009).

Father Tad Pacholczyk writes a monthly column, Making Sense out of Bioethics, which appears in various diocesan newspapers across the country. This article is reprinted with permission of the author, Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) has a long history of addressing ethical issues in the life sciences and medicine. Established in 1972, the Center is engaged in education, research, consultation, and publishing to promote and safeguard the dignity of the human person in health care and the life sciences. The Center is unique among bioethics organizations in that its message derives from the official teaching of the Catholic Church: drawing on the unique Catholic moral tradition that acknowledges the unity of faith and reason and builds on the solid foundation of natural law.

The Center publishes two journals (Ethics & Medics and The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly) and at least one book annually on issues such as physician-assisted suicide, abortion, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research. Educational programs include the National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics and a variety of seminars and other events.

Inspired by the harmony of faith and reason, the Quarterly unites faith in Christ to reasoned and rigorous reflection upon the findings of the empirical and experimental sciences. While the Quarterly is committed to publishing material that is consonant with the magisterium of the Catholic Church, it remains open to other faiths and to secular viewpoints in the spirit of informed dialogue.

THE AUTHOR

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, MA, and serves as the Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org. Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk is a member of the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2009 Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

Article: Our Vanishing Ultimate Resource

STEVEN MALANGA

Plummeting birthrates threaten prosperity worldwide. Can America buck the trend?

In Kamikatsu, on the Japanese island of Shikoku, officials have set up an agricultural cooperative whose members log on to computers daily to check the fluctuating prices of the produce that they grow. Then they go out and pick whatever is fetching the best price that day. Unusual, yes, but what's truly surprising about this cooperative is the average age of its members: 70. In a country where lots of folks retire at 60, Kamikatsu's residents are working well into their senior years—and they're doing so not only to buoy retirement earnings but also to energize the local economy. With nearly half of the town's residents 65 and older, the government realized that there simply wasn't enough of a traditional workforce available to build or staff most typical industries.

Kamikatsu shows in microcosm what Japan and several other nations now face—and what others soon will. For decades, demographers and economists have watched the world's fertility rate plunge as countries grew wealthier and more urban. These days, fertility rates in much of the industrialized world are far below replacement levels—that is, the number of kids that parents must have to replace themselves and adults who remain childless. Though the steepest declines happened first in wealthy countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain, even many developing countries have seen their fertility rates head downward.

The demographic shift brings extraordinary new challenges. Economists are increasingly recognizing that the struggles of places like Japan and Italy to extricate themselves from economic slumps that began in the 1990s result in part from extreme "birth dearths" that have shrunk labor pools, dried up consumer spending, and made businesses, staffed by older employees, more risk-averse. Decades of government efforts to reverse birth dearth have largely proved fruitless.

Yet one industrialized country resists the trend: America. True, the American fertility rate has also fallen in recent decades. But it has surged of late and now stands at population-replacement level, about 2.07 children per woman. That reality has led to projections of vigorous U.S. economic growth in the next half-century. What's behind the relative fecundity? A good guess is American-style free-market capitalism, which (despite recent economic woes) encourages long-term optimism, taxes less of parents' income, and affords them easier mobility into and out of the job market than they'd find in more regulated economies.

News of a population bust might come as a surprise to many Americans. More than two centuries after English scholar Thomas Malthus argued that population growth exceeded the earth's ability to feed us—"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man," he wrote—the media continue to warn us about impending environmental catastrophe and mass starvation caused by an exploding human population. These Malthusian alarms persist even though the last 200 years have proved Malthus completely wrong. As the world's population shot up, starting around the time of the Industrial Revolution, worldwide standards of living rose in tandem. People proved far more resourceful in expanding food production, tapping new veins of natural resources, and inventing technologies to accommodate a growing population than Malthus dreamed possible. When mass deprivation has occurred in modern times, it has invariably resulted from political tyranny and social chaos, not from an inability to derive enough resources from the earth.

Today, women in more than 60 countries, ranging from Austria, Canada, and Poland to Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, don't bear enough children to keep the population growing. In a handful of countries, women average just one child over a lifetime, less than half the replacement rate.

Even as modern societies became more productive, something else happened that contemporary Malthusians have ignored: fertility rates began declining. In England, the number fell from an average of nearly six children per woman in 1775 to 3.35 in 1875 to 1.96 today. In Germany, the rate slumped from more than five children per woman in 1850 (earlier data aren't available) to 1.4 today; in Italy, from nearly five children in 1850 to 1.3 today.

The trend long went unnoticed because rising life expectancy kept populations expanding. But by the 1960s and 1970s, more and more countries started seeing their birthrates sink beneath replacement levels. Today, women in more than 60 countries, ranging from Austria, Canada, and Poland to Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, don't bear enough children to keep the population growing. In a handful of countries, women average just one child over a lifetime, less than half the replacement rate. The fertility drop in many less developed countries hasn't dipped below replacement levels yet, but it's heading there fast. Over the last few decades, Mexico's rate went from nearly seven children per woman to 2.3; Egypt's, from just under seven to 2.72; and India's, from nearly six to about 2.7.

What's behind the dwindling births? The chief factor is urbanization. Starting in the Industrial Revolution, households began migrating from rural areas, where Johnny and Sally could work on the family farm to help make ends meet, to cities, where the modern economy made kids a financial burden, requiring them to spend more and more years in school to become employable. Nowadays, it costs between $170,000 and $300,000 to raise a child through high school in the United States or Europe. And as urbanization has proceeded rapidly in many less developed countries—some 50 percent of the world's population now live in cities—fertility rates are collapsing everywhere. Also putting downward pressure on fertility rates is women's desire to work, which has delayed childbearing and thus narrowed their "fertility window."

The resulting population dive will be breathtaking. Japan's population, projections say, will decline by about 21 percent over the next four decades. South Korea's population, which swelled by two-thirds over the last 40 years, is estimated to shrink by nearly 10 percent in the next 40. Europe's population will peak in about five years and contract by between 6 and 16 percent by 2050, led by big declines in Germany (down 14 percent), Italy (6 percent), Poland (16 percent), and Russia (22 percent).

Plunging birthrates will significantly slow population growth in many less developed countries as well. Mexico, which more than doubled, to 110 million people, over the last 40 years, could see flat population growth in the next 40. Thailand's population, which has grown by two-thirds since 1970, will probably increase by no more than 6 percent by 2050.

Demographers are scrambling to adjust their population projections, with little notice in the press. In the early 1990s, United Nations researchers projected that the world's population would reach a maximum of 10 to 12 billion people (up from about 6.7 billion today). They subsequently scaled back that projection to 9.5 billion and then to about 9.1—adding, however, that it might be as low as 7.9. But the truth is that no one knows how this massive reversal will end. The UN demographers optimistically claim that the world's fertility rate, currently at 2.6 children per woman, will decline to replacement level and then stabilize. But there's no clear reason for that to happen; dozens of countries have seen their rates sink far lower. In his book Fewer, Ben Wattenberg estimates that if the rate were to stop at 1.85 births per woman, the world's population could shrink to 2.3 billion by the year 2300.

Shrinking fertility rates are producing rapidly graying societies. More than 20 percent of Japan's population, for instance, is now 65 or older, and by 2050, that figure will rise to an astonishing 40 percent. Germany's over-65 population has increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 20 percent today and is expected to reach one-third of the population by 2050. The less developed countries are again following the pattern. China's 65-and-over population will rise from 8 percent today to nearly a quarter of the country by 2050. Mexico's will increase from 7 percent to 22 percent. In fact, say demographers, we're seeing something unprecedented in less developed countries: populations getting old before they get rich. Places like Iran and North Korea, where fertility rates have nose-dived below replacement levels, are aging even before they develop modern institutions to participate in the global economy.

Since economic growth depends strongly on an expanding population—something poorly understood until recently—aging countries' economies face serious problems. As late as the 1960s, Malthus-influenced neoclassical economists believed that population growth reduced a society's standard of living by dividing up the same "pie" into smaller and smaller slices. Economists have gradually come to understand, however, that in industrialized countries, population growth spurs productivity growth. This is partly because economies of scale and specialization of labor boost output per worker. Studies have found that an industrialized country whose population doubles can expect per-worker output to increase by 20 percent. Fertility decline may initially boost economic performance in less developed countries because having fewer children frees up resources, but over time, the effects of a shrinking population will prevail everywhere.

Further, economists have recognized that what's essential to wealth creation is human creativity, not natural resources. Famously disputing the neo-Malthusian warnings of Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, economist Julian Simon called people the "ultimate resource." Human beings, he observed, discovered how to convert oil, coal, and uranium, which had sat worthless in the earth for eons, into energy. "The most important economic effect of population size is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge," Simon noted. A growing population streams young workers into the labor market, and they are usually the most daring, entrepreneurial, and even knowledgeable and inventive (successive generations of workers in industrial countries have typically been more educated than their predecessors). "Those who fear overpopulation share a simple insight: People use resources," Harvard economist Greg Mankiw wrote in 1998, summing up the argument. "The rebuttal to this argument is equally simple: People create resources."

Japan shows what happens when a country begins losing its ultimate resource. The country's economic misfortunes, which began in the early 1990s after decades of post–World War II growth and have persisted with little relief, often get blamed on the bursting of the country's real-estate bubble, government support of banks laden with bad loans, and a highly regulated and uncompetitive domestic economy. But as years went by and the Japanese economy failed to cycle out of its downturn, observers gradually realized that something even deeper afflicted it: not enough people. Japan was stuck in "the world's first low-birth recession," in the words of sociologist Yamada Masahiro.

"Those who fear overpopulation share a simple insight: People use resources," Harvard economist Greg Mankiw wrote in 1998, summing up the argument. "The rebuttal to this argument is equally simple: People create resources."

The size of Japan's workforce population peaked in the mid-1990s; since then, it has been shrinking—and aging. At Matsushita Electric Industrial, now Panasonic, for example, the age of an average worker increased from 31 in 1980 to 41 in 2002. This graying has caused a significant slump in Japan's once-vaunted productivity. Older workers' experience can be valuable, but they tend to be less productive than their younger counterparts because they generally work fewer hours, are more costly to employ (since their seniority-based wages are higher), and aren't as adaptable or as up-to-date technologically. Japanese productivity (as measured by worker output per hour), once the envy of the industrialized world, is now just 70 percent of America's and below the average of the 32 countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

As aging Japanese workers poured ever more of their earnings into retirement accounts, consumer spending suffered, too. Between 1990 and 2000, average Japanese household spending actually shrank, once adjusted for inflation. While savings can lift an economy by providing more capital for business investment, Japanese producers viewed the increasing savings and the falling consumption as a sign of population stagnation, and they stopped investing at home, instead expanding in overseas markets like the U.S.

Japan's economic doldrums seem semipermanent. Japan's economy grew by a paltry 10 percent in the 1990s, or less than 1 percent a year, after averaging inflation-adjusted gains of 40 to 50 percent per decade during the 1970s and 1980s. After a brief growth spurt from 2004 through 2007, Japan's economy has again contracted, is smaller today than it was a decade ago, and "will contract in size from now on," Japanese economist Akihiko Matsutani predicts.

Italy is another country where a rapidly falling birthrate has helped undermine prosperity. Like most industrialized countries, Italy enjoyed a brief postwar baby boom, with its population increasing by 15 percent from 1950 to 1970. Despite occasional political turmoil and the stereotype of Italians as desultory workers, the economy ignited in the mid-1970s, just as the first members of this baby boom were entering their adult years, and grew fourfold between 1975 and 1990. In 1987, the country celebrated the sorpasso, its economy's surpassing of the United Kingdom's in size. But the celebration was short-lived, for the early 1970s were also the beginning of a steep and persistent drop in the Italian fertility rate, which declined by 50 percent in just 20 years, to 1.2 births per woman by 1990.

Not coincidentally, the nineties saw Italy fall into a long economic funk. The birth dearth cut into Italy's working-age population, and severe labor shortages ensued. When Franco Tosi, a manufacturing company, tried opening an auto-parts operation in Legnano in northern Italy in 2001, it couldn't find enough workers to staff the 1,500-person effort, even though the economy had been drifting for several years, and huge crates of supplies sat unopened. Italian officials estimated that the country faced a labor shortage of 100,000 to 160,000 workers throughout its northern industrial region.

A social-security crisis also looms, presaging similar problems in other industrialized countries. A full 22 percent of Italy's population is now on a pension, one of the highest rates in the world, and the country devotes 15 percent of its gross domestic product to pensions—more than any European nation. Retirement not only robs the workforce of needed laborers but also depresses household consumption because retirees almost invariably spend less than workers do. In Italy, the average adult 35 or younger spends the equivalent of $2,813 per month on living expenses; an adult 65 or older spends only $1,924. The situation will only worsen: by 2020, Italy will have just two working adults for every retiree.

The economic impact of fertility decline is most noticeable in Japan and Italy, but other countries are feeling it, too. Sweden was one of the first wealthy nations to see births fall below replacement level, where they've stayed for four decades except for a brief resurgence in the early nineties. As Sweden's population has aged—18 percent of Swedes today are over 65 and retired, compared with 14 percent in 1970—the country's economic performance has languished, with its once-formidable growth rate falling well below the OECD average over the last two decades. Entrepreneurialism—which is highest among workers aged 25 to 34, studies show—has especially suffered: only one of Sweden's 50 largest companies was created after 1970; the country now has the lowest self-employment rate in the OECD; and the number of entrepreneurs has declined by almost 9 percent since 1995, notes Johan Norberg, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Faced with the inescapable math of fertility decline, many countries have tried to address its economic consequences. The most common policy change has been to reduce the size of the welfare state, especially through adjustments to pension systems, which aren't sustainable as the ratio of workers to pensioners declines. The European trend until recently was for workers to retire earlier and earlier, even as life expectancy grew. The labor-force participation rate of people aged 55 to 64 in the European Union is just 48 percent, compared with 64 percent in the United States. Countries with some of the gravest population problems also have the lowest rates of participation. In Italy, for instance, only 36 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds are in the labor force.

Austria, France, Germany, and Italy are among the countries that have already pushed back their average retirement ages and cut benefits for early retirees. Sweden has gone further, revamping its pension system to resemble the partly privatized Chilean model, which bases a worker's retirement income on the contributions he makes to his pension account over a lifetime. French and Italian workers initially fought some of these changes but eventually accepted them: the reality of fertility decline and aging populations has become unavoidable in Europe. Demographer Paul Hewitt has even argued that it heralds "the end of the postwar welfare state."

Unfortunately, getting people to work longer won't solve countries' fertility-related economic difficulties, even if it will have a modest impact on pension spending. The Japanese, for instance, already boast a nearly 70 percent labor-force participation rate for those aged 55 to 64. But because of the country's extreme birth dearth, by mid-century the average Japanese would need to work until age 83 to keep a constant ratio of workers to retirees. Europeans would need to work until their late seventies.

That's why some nations have also sought to lift fertility levels through natalist policies. After France's population stopped growing in the 1930s, the country introduced the first such program—regional associations that promoted traditional family values—and the Vichy government kept the effort going, even under Nazi occupation. The worldwide fertility decline that began in the 1970s sparked new natalist experiments. Sweden introduced paid parental leave of one year in 1980 and then extended it to 15 months in 1989. Austria offered yearlong maternal leave, paying a woman up to 40 percent of her working earnings. Other governments have tried tax credits and even direct payments to parents.

At best, these policies have had only a short-term, marginal effect on fertility rates. Sweden's fertility rate bounced back after the country introduced its aggressive natalist policies, rising from 1.65 in 1984 to 2.1 in 1991. But the rate then slumped rapidly, falling to 1.5 by the decade's end. Norway, which introduced similar policies, saw its fertility rate stay almost flat over a 20-year period. Austria's rate never rose in response to its policies and currently hovers at 1.4. The problem, many observers believe, is that countries can't afford to offer sufficient benefits to get families to have more babies. "One might say that $1,000 a year is not anywhere near enough to raise a child," writes Wattenberg. "How about $10,000? Or a million dollars?

Sooner or later it would work; too bad there is not that kind of money around."

A social-security crisis also looms, presaging similar problems in other industrialized countries. A full 22 percent of Italy's population is now on a pension, one of the highest rates in the world, and the country devotes 15 percent of its gross domestic product to pensions—more than any European nation.

Increased immigration doesn't seem to be the answer. For starters, immigration has a very small impact on long-term population trends, even in countries with relatively high levels of migration. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study, four economists estimated that immigration over the last 40 years in Austria, whose population is 10 percent foreign-born, has added less than 1 percentage point to the share of the population that is working-age. Many immigrants, it turns out, quickly adopt the fertility patterns of their new country.

There are exceptions, such as France, where North African Muslim immigrants have retained high fertility rates. A study of birthrates among the French in the 1990s found that immigrant women from Morocco, Tunisia, and other North African countries had a fertility rate of nearly three. But the unemployment rate among the foreign-born in France is twice the rate of native-born French (by contrast, in the U.S. the foreign-born unemployment rate is roughly the same as the native-born rate). Nor have the children of the foreign-born in France proved successful at integrating into the French economy. In many North African neighborhoods in France, 30 to 40 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds are unemployed.

Seeking solutions, a few policy experts have begun looking more closely at the United States. After a big drop in the mid-1970s, America's fertility rate bounced back and has remained relatively stable, near replacement level—a 30-year-plus pattern that astounds European observers. For a time, demographers explained the difference between the U.S. and other industrialized countries by observing that America's population was more diverse, with more recent immigrants who had more children. But fertility levels among native-born white Americans also remain higher than among native-born Europeans, and the U.S.'s overall fertility outpaces that of other countries with a high percentage of foreign-born residents.

Demographers have also speculated that the higher fertility rate is a function of America's being a more religious country, reasoning that those who engage in organized religious activity favor larger families. One survey found 46 percent of Americans attending religious services regularly, compared with just 4 percent of Japanese, 7 percent of Swedes, and 16 percent of Germans. Yet fertility rates have remained stable in the U.S. even as they have plummeted in religious fundamentalist countries like Iran and Jordan, as well as in developing countries like Mexico, where rates of religious attendance remain higher than in America.

Faced with these contradictions, some scholars are now positing the distinctive nature of the U.S. economy and its labor market as a principal reason why Americans are having so many kids. "In general, women (and couples) are deterred from having children when the economic cost—in the form of lower lifetime wages—is too high," wrote economists Francesco Billari, José Antonio Ortega, and Hans-Peter Kohler in a 2006 study. "Compared to other high-income countries, this cost is diminished by an American labor market that allows more flexible work hours and makes it easier to leave and then reenter the labor force."

In Japan and many European countries with low fertility rates, government policies and cultural pressures on businesses make it difficult and expensive to lay off workers, instead promoting virtual guarantees of lifetime employment and early retirement. That, in turn, makes it harder to rehire those who have taken a break from work. Women are left with a difficult choice: either work full-time continuously and remain childless, or take time off to raise children and derail future employment opportunities. In Japan, 70 percent of women who leave the workforce to have a child never return. In low-fertility countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece, 40 to 50 percent of women are no longer working by 50. Over 70 percent of American women are still in the workforce at that age. In America, employers and workers have also proved far more innovative in designing work schemes that afford parents better reentry into the job market, including flex-time arrangements. One study found that in over 30 percent of families in America in which both parents work, one parent is not working the traditional nine-to-five schedule.

Some countries have tried to compensate for rigid labor markets by enforcing parental-leave policies that require companies to rehire mothers (and occasionally fathers) who've taken time off to have a child and by providing parents with state-subsidized child care when their leave expires. But while such policies do encourage women to work, they're enormously expensive and hurt economic growth. Norway spends an astonishing 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product on subsidized day care. Partly as a result, Norway and other Northern European countries with aggressive natalist policies are among the most heavily taxed in the developed world. Levies on the average worker amount to 44 percent of earnings in Norway and 48 percent in Sweden, compared with 29 percent in America. And high taxes put downward pressure on fertility by diminishing the disposable earnings that couples might choose to spend on child rearing. One study of Europe's plush pension systems, which require payroll taxes of up to 20 percent of earnings in some countries, found that the most expensive plans have probably diminished fertility rates by up to 1.6 children per couple.

The result of these disparities is a dramatically different demographic and economic future for the U.S. than for the rest of the industrialized world. While other developed countries shrink and age, America's population will grow by one-third through 2050, projections say. The working-age population in America will expand by some 45 million people even as it contracts by 100 million people in Europe and by 10 million in Japan. The economic boon to the U.S. could be significant: population growth has accounted for one-half to two-thirds of annual GDP growth in the industrialized world since World War II, according to Hewitt. By contrast, a shrinking population will cut Japanese and European economic growth by an average of nearly 1 percent annually by 2020, economists estimate. Shifting demographic patterns could also sharpen the American edge in innovation and entrepreneurship, as the pools of highly educated workers shrink in Europe and Japan and population growth shifts to areas of the world where education levels don't match America's.

There are a few worrying trends. The massive debt that the U.S. has piled up during the current economic crisis and the lavish new entitlement programs that Washington is considering could drive taxes much higher, depressing economic growth and potentially sending fertility rates tumbling. And a disturbing fact embedded in our high birthrate is that 35 percent of all American children are now born to single mothers—and the percentage is growing. Extensive research shows that children raised in single-parent households don't do as well in a range of areas, from school to work, and any sizable decrease in academic achievement or work-participation rates would erode the advantages of a growing working-age population.

Nevertheless, the United States faces a far less challenging task in maintaining its demographic balance in coming decades than most countries do. And the likely benefits of that stability will far outweigh many of the short-term economic concerns currently dominating headlines.

---

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Steven Malanga. "Our Vanishing Ultimate Resource." City Journal vol 20, no. 1 (Winter, 2010).

City Journal is published by the Manhattan Institute, a think tank whose mission is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility.

THE AUTHOR

Steven Malanga is the senior editor of City Journal, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a RealClearMarkets.com columnist. He writes about the intersection of urban economies, business communities, and public policy. Malanga holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from the University of Maryland, where he worked for several years as a Master Teacher helping to oversee the university's writing program. He received his B.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Vincent's College in Latrobe, PA. He is the author of The New New Left.

Copyright © 1991-2010 City Journal

Article: Fathers of Science

MATTHEW E. BUNSON

Apologists and well-read Catholics can point to many priest-scientists and declare forcefully what Fr. Georges Lemaître—discoverer of the "Big Bang"—robustly proclaimed in 1933: "There is no conflict between religion and science."

Father Michal Heller

On March 12, 2008, the John Templeton Foundation made the announcement of the winner of its annual Templeton Prize, which honors achievements engaging the great questions of life and the universe. The $1.6 million prize for 2008 went to Michal Heller, a Polish cosmologist and professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, Poland. What makes Heller additionally remarkable is that he is a Catholic priest.

The 72-year-old plans to spend the prize money to establish a research institute—named in honor of Nicholas Copernicus—that will seek to reconcile science and theology. Fr. Heller said:

If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God's thinking about the universe; the question on ultimate causality: Why is there something rather than nothing? When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes. Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made.

As a priest-scientist, Fr. Heller is not unique. Rather, he stands in a long and great tradition of learned priests who were both scientists and men of faith. Some are well-known to history, such as Roger Bacon, the 13th-century Franciscan who stressed the concept of "laws of nature" and contributed to the development of mechanics, geography, and especially optics. Others are obscure. All, however, left a lasting legacy on their eras in learning, science, mathematics, and practical progress.

Above all, the priest-scientists offer a powerful lesson to Catholic apologists: There is no reason to stand mute when the name Galileo is wielded like a cudgel and the Church is savaged as an enemy of human progress. Apologists and well-read Catholics can point to these priest-scientists and declare forcefully what Fr. Georges Lemaître—discoverer of the "Big Bang"—robustly proclaimed in 1933: "There is no conflict between religion and science." What follows is a survey of a few of the many priests and scientists who have bettered our world over the centuries. The list does not pretend to be exhaustive, and the deeper issues that underlie the long-perceived conflict between science and religion, evolution, and cosmology—so much in the modern cultural dispute—will be examined in future articles in This Rock.

---

Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253)

The Suffolk-born Englishman Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln grew up in a poor family but became arguably the most learned figure in England because of his unquenchable desire for knowledge, a deep faith, and personal humility. He was educated in theology and began teaching at Oxford, where he enjoyed an association with the recently arrived Franciscans and where he perhaps served as chancellor. Elected bishop of Lincoln in 1235, he was deeply concerned with reforming the Church in England. He renounced corrupt or unsuitable abbots, reduced ecclesiastical benefices, and authored a series of statutes to provide specific guidelines for the behavior of the clergy and the administration of dioceses.

His achievements as a Church leader, however, were eclipsed by his reputation as one of the most learned men of his age. He was a master of mathematics, optics, and science, foreshadowing the experimental methods of his pupil Roger Bacon. Historians of science claim that Robert was the founder of the scientific movement at Oxford University and so sparked a pursuit of excellence that has continued to today. Among a few of his achievements was a commentary on the Physics of Aristotle, a critique of the Julian calendar that anticipated the reform of the calendar under Pope Gregory XIII 300 years later, and treatises on optics, music, and mathematics. Such was his reputation for genius and knowledge of the natural world that he was also reputed in some unlearned circles to be a wizard and sorcerer.

---

Ignazio Danti (1536-1586)

One of the inheritors of the tradition of learning encouraged by Grosseteste was a relatively unknown Italian bishop, Ignazio Danti. The son of an artisan, he was born in Perugia and studied perhaps at the university there before joining the Dominicans in 1555. He went on to earn the patronage of the leading figures of his era, including Cosimo de'Medici in Florence and Popes St. Pius V and Gregory XIII. The latter pope named him bishop of Alatri, where he displayed great zeal for advancing the reform of the Church.

Much like Grosseteste, Danti enjoyed a wide-ranging set of interests, including astronomy, mathematics, optics, architecture, civil engineering, hydraulics, and cartography. He was especially renowned for his skills as an astronomer. In 1574, he made a set of important observations that found the equinox to be 11 days earlier than the calendar. He consequently played a role in the reform of the Julian Calendar under Gregory XIII. But Danti left his real mark as a cartographer. Cosimo de'Medici commissioned him to prepare maps and a large terrestrial globe for his own collection. He had commissions from Pius V to map Perugia and from Gregory XIII to map the Papal States. His maps can still be seen today in massive murals in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and on the walls of La Galleria delle Carte Geografiche of the Belvedere Palace in the Vatican. Finally, Danti perfected the rado latino, a surveying instrument, and he crafted designs for a canal across Italy that would link the Adriatic and Mediterranean through Florence.

---

Marin Mersenne (1588-1648)

The French priest Marin Mersenne began his long career at the recently established Jesuit School in La Flèche—the only school he could find that allowed poor students to attend. Among his fellow students was the eight-year-old René Descartes, who would become a friend. Mersenne entered the Order of the Minims in 1611 and was ordained a priest the next year. After theological studies, he became known in philosophical and theological circles for his fiery works against atheism and deism. History remembers him most, however, for his work in mathematics, especially the so-called Mersenne primes and his effort to find a formula that would represent all prime numbers.

In La vérité des sciences (Truth of the Sciences), he argued for the value of human reason. He corresponded with the foremost figures of his age, including Pierre Gassendi, René Descartes, Pierre de Fermat, Thomas Hobbes, and Blaise Pascal. He organized colloquia of scientists from around Europe to read their papers and exchange ideas. The gatherings became known as the Académie Parisiensis but were also nicknamed the Académie Mersenne, and the number of scientists whose careers were given direction by the colloquia is impossible to underestimate. In keeping with his commitment to science, he left instructions that his body be used for research.

---

Jean-Felix Picard (1620-1682)

A contemporary of Mersenne, the French Jesuit Jean-Felix Picard earned the title of founder of modern astronomy in France even as he labored as a priest. Born in La Flèche, where he studied at the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand, he was fascinated from an early age with the heavens, and he gave his intellectual life to the cause of astronomy. Picard introduced new methods for watching the stars and improved and developed new scientific instruments.

Picard was the first person in the Enlightenment to provide an accurate measure of the size of the Earth through a survey conducted 1669-1670. His calculation of a terrestrial radius of 6328.9 km is off by only 0.44 percent, and his continued progress in instruments proved essential in the drafting of Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Picard also worked and corresponded with a vast number of scientists of the time, including Isaac Newton, Christian Huygens, and a great rival, Giovanni Cassini.

Deeply respected by his contemporaries but overshadowed by Galileo, Newton, and Cassini, Picard was a founding member of the French Academy in 1666. He was honored in 1935 by having a moon crater named after him. (A less-elevated honor was bestowed in 1987, when his name was used for the character Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation.)

---

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

Far better known than Picard, of course, is the Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics.

Far better known than Picard, of course, is the Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. Born in Austria to a peasant farmer family, he entered the Augustinian Order in 1843 and was ordained a priest four years later. Mendel was largely unheralded during his life and accomplished his phenomenal work in considerable obscurity while teaching natural science in a boy's high school in Austria. Only in his last years, in fact, was he named an abbot.

Mendel earned his place in science by working with simple pea pod plants. He loved to take walks around the monastery and noticed that some plants were radically different in their traits and growth patterns. As any high school student today can attest, Mendel spent years examining seven characteristics of the pea pod plants and determined the basic laws that govern the passage of traits within a species. Especially crucial was the discovery of dominant or recessive genes, a key to modern genetics and the study of dominant and recessive traits, genotype and phenotype, and the concept of heterozygous and homozygous. Sadly, Mendel was so ahead of his time that science did not recognize his contribution until early in the 20th century. Today, he is world-famous-and often resented by students who must do their own experiments based on his work.

---

Armand David (1826-1900)

Around the same time that Mendel was taking his walks around the monastery, the missionary Lazarist priest, zoologist, and botanist Armand David was at work halfway around the world, in China. A native of Bayonne, France, he entered the Congregation of the Mission in 1848 and was ordained a priest in 1862. Sent to the missions in Beijing, he served with distinction in the community. He found China a remarkable opportunity for exploring the natural sciences. Such were his finds in the areas of zoology, botany, geology, and paleontology that the French government asked him to send specimens of his finds back to Paris for further study. These samples, seen for the first time in the West, aroused such a great interest that Fr. David was commissioned by French scientists to explore China in the search for other new discoveries. Upon his return to France in 1888, he gave a celebrated address in Paris at the International Scientific Congress of Catholics in which he documented his study of more than 60 species of animals and more than 60 species of birds, all of which had been previously unknown. Of particular interest were his "discovery" of the Giant Panda (unknown in Europe) and the Milu Deer, a species of deer subsequently called Père David's Deer (Elaphurus davidianus) in his honor.

---

Julius Nieuwland (1878-1936)

The Holy Cross priest Julius Nieuwland was concerned with practical solutions in his field of chemistry. The son of Belgian immigrants, Nieuwland grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and studied at the University of Notre Dame. Ordained a priest in 1903, he went on to graduate studies at The Catholic University of America, where he specialized in botany and chemistry.

Returning to Notre Dame in 1904, he served as a professor in botany and then chemistry, a post he held until his retirement in 1936. In the quiet halls of scientific study, he successfully polymerized acetylene into divinylacetylene. Elmer Bolton, the director of research at Du Pont, used this basic research to achieve the development of neoprene. In effect, this humble priest was the inventor of the first synthetic rubber. Embraced by the Du Pont Company, the invention had a major impact on many industries and our daily lives. For example, neoprene is used for electrical cable insulation, telephone wiring, rug backings, and roofing. Fr. Nieuwland also nearly had a major impact on the history of college football when he tried—unsuccessfully—to convince the future coaching legend of Notre Dame, Knute Rockne, to be a chemist instead of a football coach. Not to neglect his botany, Nieuwland roamed throughout swamps and woods looking for suitable specimens for study, and he was famed for using a pistol to shoot them down from high branches. For his work in chemistry, not marksmanship, he was given the Morehead Medal for research in acetylene, the American Institute Medal, and the Nichols Medal, the highest honor of the American Chemical Society.

---

Georges Lemaître (1894-1966)

Einstein applauded and declared, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." Lemaître's ideas subsequently gained ground.

Fr. Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest, physicist, and mathematician, first proposed the Big Bang Theory for the birth of the universe. Born in Charleroi, Belgium, he studied math and science at Cambridge University after ordination in 1923 and specialized in the then—most—current studies in astronomy and cosmology, especially Einstein's general theory of relativity.

The accepted idea in physics at the time was that the universe was essentially in a changeless state—a "Steady State." Where Einstein saw that the universe was actually moving—either shrinking or expanding—and devised the cosmological constant that maintained the stability of universe, Lemaître concluded that the universe was expanding. Not only that, Lemaître proposed that from this it could be concluded that all matter and energy were concentrated at one point. Hence: The universe had a beginning. This theory, at first met with great skepticism, was termed rather sarcastically the "Big Bang." For his part, Lemaître elegantly described this beginning as "a day without yesterday." He presented his theory in January 1933 to a gathering of scientists in California, and at the end of his presentation, Einstein applauded and declared, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." Lemaître's ideas subsequently gained ground. Today, astrophysicists readily accept the Big Bang and the continuing expansion of the universe. For his labors, Lemaître was made a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and a canon of the cathedral of Malines. In 1936, Pope Pius XI inducted him into the Pontifical Academy of Science.

---

Stanley Jaki (b. 1924)

Fathers Nieuwland and Lemaître made manifest that faith and science are not incompatible. The Benedictine priest Stanley Jaki has argued with great eloquence that science itself could develop only in a Christian culture. For his work, he earned the Templeton Prize and in 1990 was named to the Pontifical Academy of Science by Pope John Paul II. Born in Hungary, he earned doctorates in Systematic Theology and Nuclear Physics, is fluent in five languages, and has authored 30 books. A Distinguished Professor at Seton Hall University, Jaki's work in the history and philosophy of science has brought him a wide audience around the world. In a modern scientific world so steeped in Enlightenment philosophy and so opposed to a relationship with religion, Fr. Jaki's assertion that science and religion are consistent and that scientific analysis can shed light on both scientific and theological propositions is a bold one.

As Jaki contends, discoveries of nuclear physics and astronomy have given confirmation of an essential order within the universe. While it is true that our understanding of both fields is incomplete, the Christian perspective demonstrates that the order of the cosmos is entirely consistent with the biblical view of Creation.

Traveling in the footsteps of Lemaître, Jaki has tackled one of the greatest questions in science, cosmology, and has concluded that science permits us to gain insights into the events that followed the instant of creation but offers nothing about what happened before it, when matter itself was created from nothing. He thus boldly challenges the assertions of cosmologists and astrophysicists such as Stephen Hawking that the origins of the universe offer proof for the non-existence of God; rather, the very proposition cannot be proved scientifically because there is nothing to observe. At the same time, God's created order reflects a Creator who is totally rational and infinitely superior to our own way of thinking. Little wonder, then, that such a balanced and positive approach to the natural world that is found in authentic Christian teaching and culture permitted science to flourish.

---

Michal Heller (b. 1936)

The great cosmological questions are also the personal field of the Polish priest and physicist Michal Kazimierz Heller, a professor in Cracow, Poland, and a member also of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 1990. Fr. Heller is engaged in the highest regions of mathematics and astronomy. Currently, he is researching the singularity problem in general relativity and the use of non-commutative geometry in seeking the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics. He also concerns himself with philosophy and the history of science and science and theology. In Heller's view, all of these different facets of science point to something truly important about the "blueprint" of Creation—and the teachings of the Church help us to understand that blueprint.

---

Chance or Purpose?

Priest-scientists who have remained faithful both to the teachings of the Church and the rigors of science have earned themselves a notable place in intellectual history, as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn observes:

It is one of the more tenacious "myths" of our epoch—indeed, I would say one of the well-established prejudices—that relations between science and the Church are bad, and that faith and science exist, from ages past, in a kind of persistent conflict . . . Belief in God as Creator is not an obstacle but rather the opposite. Why should belief that the universe has a Creator stand in the way of science? Why should it in any way cause problems for science, if scientists understand their research, their discoveries and the theories they evolve, their comprehension of relationships, as "studying the book of creation"? (Chance or Purpose?, 23)

---

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Matthew E. Bunson. "Fathers of Science." This Rock (San Diego: Catholic Answers Inc., September 2008).

Reprinted by permission of Catholic Answers. The original article is posted at This Rock here.

This Rock magazine began publication in 1990 and quickly established itself as the definitive magazine of Catholic apologetics and evangelization.

Its mission continues to be the one for which it was created: to explain and defend the tenets of the Catholic faith and present practical ways to spread God's truth. It does so using unfailingly orthodox defenses of the Church's beliefs and always in a spirit of charity. Through This Rock, Catholic Answers cleaves to Peter's exhortation to apologists: "Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Pet. 3:15).

To subscribe to This Rock, go here.

Visit the Catholic Answers book and tract shop here.

Catholic Answers, 2020 Gillespie Way, El Cajon, CA 92020 USA
Main: 619-387-7200 | Fax: 619-387-0042
U.S. Orders: 888-291-8000 | Non-U.S. Orders: 619-387-7200

THE AUTHOR

Matthew E. Bunson is a contributing editor to This Rock and a consultant for USA Today on Catholic matters. He is a moderator of EWTN's online Church history forum. Matthew E. Bunsen is and the author of more than 30 books including: 2010 Catholic Almanac (Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Almanac), Papal Wisdom: Words of Hope and Inspiration from John Paul II, We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI, and The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.

Copyright © 2010 Catholic Answers

Article: The Power of Intercession

DEACON DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

"They have no wine”

There are many points we could focus on in this gospel, but for the sake of time, we can only select only a few. One point that struck me is that Mary is aware there is a problem. She notices that they have run out of wine. In the Middle East, hospitality is a sacred duty. For an essential provision like wine to fail at a wedding is really a terrible humiliation for the bride and groom. "Without wine, there is no joy," as ancient Rabbis would say.

Mary approaches Jesus and makes him aware of the problem. What we have here is a peek at Mary's thoughtfulness. We saw her thoughtfulness at the Annunciation when immediately after hearing about Elizabeth's pregnancy she sets out to visit her and stays for three months to care for her. Here, in this gospel, she intercedes for the bride and groom after noticing that they have run out of wine.

Thoughtfulness is a difficult virtue to acquire, because it involves an exit of self, a forgetting of self. I asked my students recently to imagine if I were to take a class picture, from a camera that develops the picture right away, and I was to pass it around. "What is the first thing you'd do when you have it in your hands?" I asked them. They all agreed that they'd look for themselves. They'd scan over everyone in search of their own face.

We all suffer from a twisted gravity towards the self, and it's very subtle, and so it is difficult to become aware of just how pervasive it is. In traditional Catholic theology, this is called concupiscence, which is an effect of Original Sin. Concupiscence is a tendency towards selfishness, a tendency to sin. I remember a great priest friend of mine whom we asked to do our wedding, and of course he agreed, he drove up from Washington D.C and said he's going to take us out for supper and give us his famous "four points" talk that he gives to couples about to be married. I am ashamed to say that I only remember two of the points.

One point he made concerned "concupiscence". He just said the word "concupiscence". If anything is going to destroy your marriage, he insisted, it is that. We suffer from a tendency or inclination to sin and self-seeking, and he said if you don't realize that you are your own worst enemy, your marriage will soon be in trouble. In his experience, it is selfishness that has always been the root cause of marriage break up.

And that is why thoughtfulness is difficult, because we have a tendency to think of ourselves first and foremost, and this is true even with those who have spent years and years in the spiritual life. The more we grow spiritually, that is, the closer we get to God, the more we realize how utterly selfish we are, and we begin to distrust ourselves. And that's a great thing, to distrust ourselves, because when that happens, at the same time we begin to see how utterly patient and merciful God is, and we begin to trust Him more and more.

Mary had no sin, but she knew her "nothingness". We see this in her Magnificat, where she declares: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my saviour, for He has looked upon the nothingness of His handmaiden."

Other translations say: "He has looked upon the humiliation of His servant". Either way, she saw into her nothingness, and when you know your nothingness, you lose interest in yourself, and your interest in others increases. You think of others more. They become more interesting. Mary has perfect thoughtfulness, as we see in this gospel account.

The next point is that after becoming aware of their need, Mary intercedes for the couple. She simply presents their need to her son. She is not anxious, she does not say "Do something about it", she just trusts him, for she knows that her heart beats to the same rhythm of his own heart, and that if she merely indicates their need, he will detect her sorrow and act to alleviate it.

This underscores the importance of intercession, Mary's intercession, as well as our own.

. . . when you know your nothingness, you lose interest in yourself, and your interest in others increases. You think of others more. They become more interesting. Mary has perfect thoughtfulness, as we see in this gospel account.

It is so important to become aware of the needs of others, to learn to think of others, and to work on that for the rest of our lives, precisely in order to intercede for others, to pray for them. Prayer is a far more powerful weapon that we tend to realize. To illustrate this, I'd like to use the metaphor of light. When I was a student at the university of Montreal, just after I was married, my wife and I lived in an apartment for $200 a month. That's cheap rent, and we all know we get what we pay for. It was a cockroach infested apartment, so we went through a lot of chemical insecticide. If you've ever lived with cockroaches, you know they come out at night, in the dark. They hate the light. If you get up in the middle of the night and turn on the light, they scatter very quickly.

Prayer is like that. We live in the midst of a preternatural world. We are surrounded by angels, holy angels as well as fallen angels. There is such a thing as evil spirit, and they wreak havoc upon our lives, and they very subtly try to divide, to sow seeds of division, suspicion, anxiety, etc. Now, in his treatise on angels, St. Thomas Aquinas points out that an angel is present to us not by being subject to place, because angels are immaterial, thus not subject to quantity and the dimensions of place. Rather, an angel is present to us by his attention. The angels and the saints are present to us by the attention of their gaze.

Now, evil loves the darkness, and the one thing that evil spirit cannot tolerate is attention, at least a certain kind of attention, namely, the kind that penetrates to the truth behind the facade. The realm of darkness is an expression that refers to the realm of the diabolical. They cannot stand the light, for they cannot stand exposure; for those who belong to darkness are devious and they strive to work undercover, under the cover of darkness, and since we cannot see in the dark, they seek to cause havoc and disorder under the cover of darkness. Like cockroaches, those who belong to darkness flee from all that which exposes the truth about themselves.

But prayer in the Spirit calls the attention of the angels and saints upon a situation. When we pray for a person or a situation dominated by evil, we call the attention of the saints who belong to the light, who are permeated by light, we call the attention of their luminous gaze to this person or situation. We make them present to this person or situation. We, as it were, flash a light onto it, and if this is a situation in which darkness has a hold, we cause great discomfort to the spirit of evil by our prayers. If we persevere in prayer, we will succeed in flooding this situation with light, and the devil cannot stand to endure the light for any great length of time; there is too much shame and self-loathing among those who belong to darkness.

That is why we have to persist in prayer, to pray and pray and pray without giving up, all the while trusting that God will act. The great 16th century spiritual writer Father Lorenzo Scupoli says that when we pray, we place a sword in the hand of God, so that He can fight for us—another metaphor illustrating that prayer is powerful.

We are called to pray for one another, to pray for those in darkness, to pray for our children, our spouses, our parents, our colleagues, our leaders, and to pray for the world. But this gospel also calls attention to the power of Mary's intercession. Pray to Mary. Ask her to intercede for you. She was invited to the Wedding at Cana, and because she was present there, she became aware of a dire need before the bride, groom, and head steward became aware of it. Invite Mary into your own marriage, into your own home. Consecrate your home to Mary, consecrate your life to Mary. St. Louis de Montfort shows us how to do that in his little book True Devotion to Mary. If you invite her into your life, she will intercede on your behalf, not only for what you ask of her, but also for what you are not aware of. And what son can ignore his mother? Certainly not the Son of God.

---

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Deacon Douglas McManaman. "The Power of Intercession." CERC (January 25, 2010).

Printed with permission of Deacon 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 © 2010 Douglas McManaman

Article: A Catechism on Family and Life for the 2010 Elections

A CATECHISM ON FAMILY AND LIFE FOR THE 2010 ELECTIONS


CBCP EPISCOPAL COMMISSION ON FAMILY AND LIFE
DECEMBER 8, 2009



1. Why is a Catechism for the 2010 Elections necessary?

We are going to face serious challenges in the 2010 Elections that are not only political but also clearly and profoundly moral. We are a nation that values family and life and yet for years our elected leaders have been attempting to make laws that pose a grave threat to these values. So once again we find the opportune occasion for the Church to exercise its teaching authority to guide us in carrying out their political responsibilities in a faithful citizenship.

The family has always been among the Church’s urgent concerns because it is both the Domestic Church and the Basic Unit of Society. A strong family is the only assurance to having a strong society.

In the 2004 and 2007 elections, the CBCP encouraged the faithful to exercise their Christian responsibility to be involved in politics in the conscientious selection of candidates, among others. We have consistently spoken out in defense of life and family. We do so again at this historic juncture in our national life.

As Catholic voters, we understand that to protect our society from the invasion of anti-life and anti-family values, we have to form our conscience well. This will enable us to use the power of our vote to demand accountability and coherence from our candidates. We would like to ensure that we have a democracy that is firmly founded on a consistent moral framework that will strengthen the foundation of our society and protect its weakest and most vulnerable members.

This Catechism is written primarily for the Family and Life Ministries of the different dioceses in the Philippines, which fall under the care of this Episcopal Commission. This is also intended as a reference for all families. The aim of this Catechism is to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with God’s truth with regards to family, life and responsible parenthood. It will help to make their faith operative when it comes to living their life in the Church and in society. The intention is not to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote. The responsibility to make political choices rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election.

This Catechism cannot be read with a casuistic mentality, of one searching for a fine line dividing mortal sin from venial sin. Rather, it should be read from a magnanimous perspective of one who strives to ask how to best serve the Filipino, the Filipino family and the country.


2. Will this Catechism on family and life concerns not violate the separation of Church and State?

The separation of Church and State prohibits the State from interfering in Church matters, and prohibits the State from having a State religion. It does not imply a division between belief and public actions, between moral principles and political choices. In fact, the freedom of religion upheld by our Constitution protects the right of believers and religious groups to practice their faith and act on their values in public life.

The Church has the duty to teach Catholics about the importance of taking their Faith with them in all their endeavors, including voting. Catholics must live their faith in order to integrate God into their lives. For faith to be genuine, it must be evident not only in Church activities, but in all aspects of life, at work, at home, and in politics as well. The Constitution guarantees the right of each citizen to exercise his or her religion. Catholics who bring their moral convictions into public life do not threaten democracy or pluralism but rather enrich the nation and its political life.

Every Catholic is both a faithful of the Church and a citizen of our beloved Philippines. The exercise of this faithful citizenship means that when they go to the polls to vote they should not leave God outside. They should take with them, among others:

• A renewed understanding of how God views life: “God created male and female, in the divine image He created them” and “found them to be very good.” (Gen 1:27. 31).

• A remembrance that God created marriage and “that is why man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and the two of them become one body” (Gen 2:24). It is not a lifestyle choice that the law can remake into something that God never intended it to be.

• Knowledge of what their beliefs as Catholics are and vote with a well-formed conscience.


3. Shouldn’t the Church be limited to the spiritual and religious realms alone?

The obligation to participate in shaping the moral character of our society is a basic part of the mission which the Church received from Jesus Christ, who offers a vision of life revealed to us in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The Second Vatican Council teaches that Christ, the Word made flesh, in showing us the Father’s love, also shows us what it truly means to be human (Gaudium et Spes 22). Christ’s love for us allows us to see our human dignity in full clarity and compels us to love our neighbors as he has loved us. Christ, the Teacher, shows us what is true and good, that is, what is in accord with our human nature as free, intelligent beings created in God’s image and likeness and endowed by the Creator with dignity and rights.

We Catholics share the same respect for the dignity of every person in common with many non-Catholics who accept these truths which are self-evident through the gift of reason. But undeniably what our Catholic faith teaches about the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of human life helps us to see more clearly these same truths because these are at the very core of the Catholic moral and social teaching. Because we are people of both faith and reason, it is appropriate and necessary for us to bring this essential truth about human life and dignity to the public square. Church authorities exercise their teaching function also by reminding Catholic civil leaders of their moral obligations, especially in matters related to family and life.


4. How do we Catholics enrich the democratic process this way?

Our manner of active involvement in the democratic process means that we will use the power of the vote, as citizens of the Republic, to elect political leaders who will uphold and promote the dignity of human life and the sanctity of family and marriage. Through our active participation in the democratic process, including voting, we contribute to ensuring that our democracy firmly underpins moral and ethical values and standards. In the absence of ethical values and standards democracy will become the totalitarian rule of the rich and the powerful who can trample on the rights of the weak and vulnerable, such as the unborn babies, mothers, the elderly and the poor families.

A law-making process that is based simply on the will of the majority and not on ethical principles can easily lead to unjust laws because the will of the majority can be manipulated by powerful interest groups, leaving the weak and vulnerable unprotected.


5. On family and life issues, including reproductive health, some Catholics justify their support for positions that are clearly against Church teachings by saying that they “simply follow their conscience.” Should we not follow our conscience?

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains to us that “moral conscience, present in the heart of the person, is a judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins him to do good and to avoid evil… When attentive to moral conscience, the prudent person can hear the voice of God who speaks to him or her” (no. 372). Conscience is thus not the same as one’s opinions or feelings.

One must always follow one’s conscience. But one also has the obligation to form one’s conscience, because of the possibility of having an erroneous conscience. “One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience” (no. 376).


6. As Catholics, how do we correctly form our conscience?

The same Compendium of the Catechism tells us that “an upright and true moral conscience is formed by education and by assimilating the Word of God and the teaching of the Church. It is supported by the gifts of the Holy Spirit and helped by the advice of wise people. Prayer and an examination of conscience can also greatly assist one’s moral formation” (no. 374).

The Church’s teaching authority, also known as the “Magisterium,” endowed by Christ Himself, assists us Catholics in understanding God’s will in specific issues. The Church, as our Mother and Teacher, takes into account what is happening in society and the data offered by the sciences and other fields of knowledge and offers us clear guidelines on certain specific questions.

Thus, for example, we should not think that “abortion is wrong because the Church says so,” but rather, “abortion is wrong because it kills a human being who is one of us, and the Church reminds us of its wrongness.” Indeed, whether the Church says so or not, abortion is always a most violent, unjust and inhumane act committed against the most harmless, defenseless, and weakest member of our society –the baby– and committed by those who have the greatest duty to care for, love and defend him or her most –the mother, father, doctors and other health care professionals.

Similarly, the intrauterine device (IUD) is not wrong because the Church says so. Rather it is wrong in itself whether the Church says so or not, because the IUD can kill a 5-day old baby by preventing him or her from implanting in the mother’s womb. In fact, it is medical literature and not Church dogma that describes the IUD’s modes of action, and it is from these sources that the Church bases her defense of the 5-day old baby. We were once like this 5-day old human being, and he or she, if not killed, would grow to become like us.

Through prayerful reflection of the Word of God and a careful study of Church teachings on family and life (as in other matters), we strive to live out our faith in the world. A well-formed conscience is always formed according to the mind of the Church, which Christ Himself instituted to guide us.


7. What does the Church teach regarding “responsible parenthood”?

The profound link between the conjugal union and the gift of life gives married couples a vocation to give life, as long as they can responsibly care for the children they beget. Hence, responsible parenthood calls for an understanding of the reproductive processes of the spouses’ bodies, including the woman’s fertility cycle. And as with any other passion (anger, fear, love for food, desire for more, etc.), the sexual drive should be placed under the control of the intellect and the will, through the exercise of virtues, rendering the sexual faculties truly and exclusively expressive of conjugal love and the self-giving of persons.

Responsible parenthood further involves the decision either (1) to generously raise a numerous family if the couple is capable of doing so, or (2) if there are serious reasons (health, economic, social, psychological, etc.), not to have another child for the time being or indefinitely ( Humanae Vitae 10).

Thus, responsible parenthood has nothing to do with encouraging individuals to use contraceptives as what reproductive health programs do. The sexual union is appropriate only within the context of marital love, which must always be faithful, permanent, and exclusive between one man and one woman that is open to the gift of new life.

Responsible parenthood also has nothing to do with encouraging or coercing couples whether directly or indirectly to have only one or two children. It is not a population control program. Neither the government nor the Church may tell couples how many children to have, for the decision to have either a small or a large family rests on the couple themselves.


8. What is the difference between procreation and reproduction?

Reproduction is the process by which living things replicate, to assure the continuity of their species. It is necessary for the species, but not for the individual. Reproduction, as in the case of plants and animals, does not require any bond between persons. On the other hand, procreation is the proper term for human generation as it refers to a loving act between spouses which prepares for a possible creation by God of a new person. Procreation points to a collaboration of parents with God as the ultimate source of this new life. None of these characteristics of human procreation may be found in plant and animal reproduction.

The conjugal act is like a language with two meanings: the unitive and the procreative. Through their union in the conjugal act, a man and a woman give themselves totally to each other in and through their bodies. They are telling each other: “I give myself totally to you, and I love and accept you totally; we are one flesh.” That is the unitive meaning.

Furthermore, the structures and functions of the male and female reproductive systems are such that when a sexual act is performed, there is a possibility of new life to be formed. This gives a procreative meaning to the sexual union. Thus, to accept each other totally includes saying, “since I love and accept you totally as you are, including your bodily functions, I also totally accept the possibility of our love bearing fruit, the gift of a new child.” Thus, the unitive and the procreative meanings of the sexual act cannot be separated from each other.

Textbooks consistently using the term “reproduction” instead of “procreation,” even if intended for Catholic schools, should be thoroughly checked for the contraceptive mentality. They may confuse the students on the Church’s clear teaching on family and life. Presenting the views of dissenting theologians as being on equal authority with Church documents would bring about such confusion.


9. Why is contraception morally wrong?

Contraception is any action taken before, during or after the conjugal act which is aimed at impeding the process or the possible fruit of conception. In contraception, it is like the spouses telling each other, “I love you as long as we do not give birth.” In short, contraception makes the conjugal act a lie. It expresses not a total love, but rather a merely conditional or partial love. Contraception separates the unitive and procreative aspects of the conjugal act.

Since many contraceptives have also been shown by medical science to have various ill effects, their use could signify further contradictions and lies. It endangers then the physical well-being of the wife as well as the spiritual health of the marriage.


10. Why are natural methods of birth control not contraception?

The natural methods simply enable the wife to ascertain when she is fertile and when she is infertile. It is scientific information placed at the service of either a procreative decision or a non-procreative decision by the spouses. In this case couples do not do anything to prevent the normal consequences of the marital act from taking place. Rather, they make use of the wife’s God-given cycle in their decision whether to have another child or not for the time being.


11. What is reproductive health?

The UN defines reproductive health as the state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. It states that people have the right to a “satisfying and safe sex life.” The conjugal union is natural and proper in marriage, but in contrast, reproductive health disposes all people, including children and adolescents, to the sexual act and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to reproduce, provided that these are not against the law. (Cairo, Program of Action).

Following this definition, if having a satisfying sex life results in an unwanted pregnancy, the mental anguish this causes will negatively affect the person’s mental and social well-being unless one has access to contraception and abortion. This is the convoluted reasoning behind UN agencies’ insistence that reproductive health necessarily presupposes access to contraception and abortion.

Furthermore, the Reproductive Health bill (House Bill 5043), which carries the same definition of reproductive health, will penalize with one to six months imprisonment, and/or 10-50 thousand pesos fine, parents who for example prevent their grade school and high school children from using contraceptives, and having satisfying and safe sex. This item, along with the fact that certain contraceptives actually cause the abortion of 5-day old babies, is often ignored in supposedly unbiased and scientific surveys on the acceptability of the Reproductive Health bill.

All these are in the name of reproductive health and rights. What about the rights of parents? And the rights of the unborn?


12. What are some experiences in other countries in relation to reproductive health and related to family and life issues?

Family and Life workers and families in the Philippines, to whom this Catechism is primarily directed, could easily and clearly see the probable goals of reproductive health and rights advocates in the country, by looking at what is happening abroad. In some countries, school clinics are required to inform parents if their child has been treated for a minor scratch; on the other hand, the same school clinics are PROHIBITED from informing parents if their child seeks treatment for abdominal pains caused by a recent abortion. In other places, children are required to obtain parental consent for a tattoo, but not for an abortion.

A high-ranking official of a foreign country massively funding reproductive health services in the Philippines categorically stated last April that, “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion.” A local columnist rejoiced in November 2008 that “In Mexico City… the long struggle for reproductive health and rights culminated in the recent passage of a law lifting all restrictions on abortion.” Countries all over the world and the United Nations agencies work for reproductive health and rights until they have fully facilitated access to abortion.

Underlying this concept of reproductive or sexual health and rights is a view that radically separates sexuality, procreation and the complementariness between men and women. It is a view that identifies pleasure as the ultimate goal of sexuality and reduces procreation as a function of the health care systems. It also implies that men and women relate in temporary and modifiable unions that are a far cry from the beauty of conjugal love that is fully human, total, faithful, exclusive and open to life.

Men and women are persons before all else, and for this reason sexual behavior cannot be used only for pleasure. Otherwise it would mean using a person simply as an object.


13. In defending family and life, do we Catholics not impose our beliefs on others and violate the principles of tolerance and dialogue?

Many Protestants, Moslems, believers of other religions, and even non-believers share our belief in the dignity and value of human life. Tolerance means respect for the right of other persons to profess a different opinion and belief. However, tolerance cannot be understood as believing that other peoples’ points of view are equally good as one’s own, since this would blur the lines between good and evil and renounce the judgment of a sound and well-informed conscience.

In fact, publicly proclaiming one’s own beliefs is a service for dialogue, because through this way others can know exactly what and how one thinks. One offers one’s thoughts for reflection to others while respecting their beliefs, but without assuming that all beliefs are equally valid.

Attempts to enact legislation promoting anti-family programs receive huge financial assistance and provide alluring incentives to persuade our politicians to commit themselves to their advocacy. Foreign-funded lobby groups have been operating for more than a decade to openly advocate for the enactment of population control laws, as well as abortion-friendly laws in pursuit of the UN Cairo Conference objective of universal abortion rights. It makes one wonder why countries with below replacement fertility rates, desperate for babies and spending huge sums of money to encourage their own citizens to bear more children, contradict themselves by spending huge sums of money to suppress our population growth.

All these are consistent with the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200 entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interest” which identified the increase in world population as inimical to the interest of West. This document has been coming out in recent public debates on reproductive health policies, and is available on the internet. Do not reproductive health advocates bow down to their impositions? Is it not more correct to say that they are the ones imposing their policies on our country?


14. Is it morally acceptable to vote for an anti-family candidate?

With the foregoing considerations, it would not be morally permissible to vote for candidates who support anti-family policies, including reproductive health (in the particular understanding being presented in the recent debates, which includes, among others, promotion of abortifacients, penalties on parents who do not allow their adolescent children to engage in sexual acts, etc.), or any other moral evil such as abortion, divorce, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Otherwise one becomes an accomplice to the moral evil in question.

The gravity of these questions allows for no political maneuvering. They strike at the heart of the human person and the family and are non-negotiable. Supporting them renders a candidate unacceptable regardless of his position on other matters. The right to life is a paramount issue and hence cannot be placed on the same plane of discernment as the candidate’s positions on the environment, unemployment, health care, or others. This is because, as Pope John Paul II says, the right to life is “the first right, on which all the others are based, and which cannot be recuperated once it is lost.” It is also because the family is the basic unit of society. A candidate lays down the ground for refusing solidarity with anyone if he refuses solidarity with the unborn in the first few days or months of life, or with the dying. Why should anyone vote for such a candidate?


15. How should we Catholics engage questions related to family and life similar to the ones discussed in this Catechism?

Whenever we explain our desire to further strengthen the Filipino family, we should base our arguments primarily on legal, medical, economic, educational, psychological, sociological and other scientific data rather than on religious teachings alone. This translation of our faith into legitimate inputs to the policy making process helps our elected officials see more clearly the reasonableness of our advocacy.

For example, factual demographic data from the UN Population Division showing rapid ageing and collapse of the world population in 40 years, or the drop of Philippine fertility below replacement rate in 15 years, are reasonable grounds to encourage elected officials to instead opt to file bills banning contraceptive attempts to bring fertility down. The fact that artificial contraceptives are also abortifacient and cancerous reinforces this argument. This way elected officials will see that those who promote family and life (including in their opposition to the Reproductive Health bill) are not only the Bishops, as the mass media frequently portray, but above all parents, whether Catholics or not, who truly understand the issues, not only as taught by the Church, but as supported by data from the different fields of knowledge.

We Catholics should always remember that we are not only members of God’s People, but of Philippine society as well. Hence when it comes to voting in the 2010 Elections and even beyond, and holding dialogues with our political leaders, we should carry out our responsibilities and demand our rights as citizens. When we speak with our Honorable Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors and other officials, let us highlight our place of residence in provinces and barangays rather than our parishes, our membership in civic groups rather than Church organizations, and our occupation as office workers, businessmen, farmers, firsherfolk, bus or tricycle drivers, vendors, youth and women advocates, and others. Let us emphasize to them that we are their constituents –citizens, taxpayers and voters– who have put them into office, and demand that laws protecting the Filipino Family be firmly upheld.


APPENDIX

Excerpts from CBCP documents related to the themes presented in this Catechism, highlighting the value of Family and Life, and the obligations of the faithful
in the exercise of political choices. Full texts may be downloaded from the CBCP website:
http://www.cbcponline.net/documents/


===================================================

WE MUST REJECT HOUSE BILL 4110
(A Pastoral Statement of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines)
May 31, 2003

But in truth the term “reproductive health care” as now used internationally, beginning with the United Nation’s Cairo document, explicitly includes abortion - the most abominable crime.
“Reproductive health care” and “reproductive rights” also include other ambiguous ideas, such as a “satisfying and safe sex life.” In. the context of House Bill 4110, this would include a “constellation of methods, techniques, and services,” the “full range of supplies, facilities, and equipment” that would safeguard “reproductive health.” It is in this way that the bill unreservedly promotes the whole range of contraceptive devices that could be imagined. Unconscionably, House Bill 4110 would even make such devices available to adolescents, by virtue of “reproductive rights” for the sake of “reproductive health.”

===================================================

PASTORAL STATEMENT ON THE COMING 2004 ELECTIONS
26 January 2004

In our own dioceses, we shall encourage local groups and communities to participate critically in these discussions. In particular, we reiterate the call to the Catholic laity to exercise their Christian responsibility and noble calling to be involved in politics through education in social responsibility, non-partisan poll-watching, in the conscientious choices of candidates, etc

===================================================

NATION-BUILDING THROUGH ELECTIONS
(Pastoral Statement on Elections 2004)
April 21, 2004

At least three basic criteria are to be considered:

First, is the candidate a person of competence, i.e. in terms of leadership experience, professional qualifications, and record of governance? Second, is the candidate a person of conscience, i.e. with personal integrity, transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights? And third, is the candidate a person of commitment to a vision and program of action on key issues such as family and life, environment, illegal drugs and gambling, justice, peace and order, poverty alleviation, education, etc.?

===================================================

“HOLD ON TO YOUR PRECIOUS GIFT”
A Pastoral Letter on Population Control Legislation and the “Ligtas Buntis” Program
February 18, 2005

Last February 15th, a committee in Congress approved a bill on population control, “reproductive health”, sexual rights for young people, and mandatory child sex education, among others. The measure imposes fine and imprisonment for parents, spouses, and health professionals who impede “sexual and reproductive rights.” It creates a program for fertility control by encouraging the limitation of family size to two children. It gives incentives to 2-child families. Women—married or single—will be taught “all methods and techniques to prevent pregnancy.” The sponsors have called the proposal “responsible parenthood” and “population management.”
During committee deliberations, the authors have also denied the beginning of human life at fertilization.

What is the underlying agenda? The central idea is to reduce our population purportedly to spur economic growth. This is also saying that in order to eliminate poverty, we must reduce our human resource.

The premises are all wrong. A long line of serious economists and demographers have long discredited the Malthusian myth that positive population growth stunts economic growth. Modern history has also demolished this myth.
Since a population control program was put in place in the country in the 1970s—with billions of public money spent every year to fund it--our population growth has been declining and continues to do so today, and yet, poverty has not been reduced. Official government data attest to this. If this population trend continues—and it will if we remain unmoved—the Philippines, much to its peril, will lose precious human capital.

THE CHURCH CANNOT REMAIN UNMOVED
BY THESE ASSAULTS ON THE FAMILY

1. The legislative proposal to limit the size of the Filipino family in the guise of “reproductive rights” is unjust, arbitrary, and unreasonable legislation. It has no place in public governance.

2. “Responsible Parenthood” goes beyond simply providing for a family’s material needs. While we must preach about providing bread, there is no substitute for first preaching about the higher truth about man.

For we know by our Faith what is authentic “responsible parenthood”: It means respect for one’s generative functions. It calls upon married persons to use discernment and generosity in their decisions. It calls for due regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions in deciding “to raise a numerous family.” It includes the spouses’ decision “based on grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.” Responsible parenthood makes parents “free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator.”(Humanae Vitae)

To our leaders and lawmakers: A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit you to write or support measures which contradict the basic rights of families and the fundamental imperatives of faith and morals.” (“On the Participation of Catholics in Political Life”, Vatican, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) Christian leaders have both a political and moral obligation to safeguard “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Failure in this duty is a betrayal of public trust and an open defiance of your Faith.

To all spouses: Build your family on the rock of Christian generosity and discernment. Your right to found a family is rooted on your Christian responsibility and freedom of religious belief, together with the right to act according to that belief. That freedom may not be breached.

To our Health Workers: You have the right to conscientious objection. It is both a civic right and a Christian duty to insist on it.

To all the faithful—Defend truth. It gives light to our reason, and preserves us from error. Resist the enticements of false “freedoms” and counterfeit “rights.” Defend the privacy of family.

Take heart and stand firm. Be courageous in the Faith. Hold on to that precious gift—that “pearl of great price.” It is the source of unfailing strength. It is your breastplate when you face the storms that besiege conscience.

===================================================

Liberating Our Country from “Unfreedoms”
June 12, 2006

We recall what Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est wrote: “The formation of just structures is not directly the duty of the Church, but belongs to the world of politics, the sphere of the autonomous use of reason.”

What is the duty of the Church? “The Church has an indirect duty (says Benedict XVI), in that she is called to contribute to the purification of reason and to the reawakening of the moral forces.” What is the duty of the civil society? “The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the State, the Pope says, “they are called to take part in the public life in a personal capacity in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas for the common good.”

===================================================

Working and Praying for Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Elections
A Pastoral Exhortation
April 24, 2007

“The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of the citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility of both electing and holding accountable those who govern them…” (John Paul II, Centessimus Annus, #46).

As we approach once again the critical moment of our national election on May 14, let us meet the new crossroads in our history with our best efforts to make it an Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Election. Being in a democracy, this is the Covenant of HOPE that we are all enjoined to give for our country’s future.

===================================================

STANDING UP FOR THE GOSPEL OF LIFE
CBCP Pastoral Statement on Reproductive Health Bill
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
November 14, 2008

Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative power of God (CCC 2258). The Church carries out the mandate of the Lord to go and proclaim to all the nations the Gospel of Life. The protection and preservation of human life and the preservation of the integrity of the procreative act of parents are important elements of our mission from the Lord. It is our fidelity to the Gospel of Life and our pastoral charity for the poor that leads us your pastors to make this moral stand regarding Reproductive Health Bill 5043 that is the object of deliberation in Congress.

The Church has always concerned itself with the poor. It has innumerable institutions and programs meant to help the poor. Our objection to this Bill is precisely due to our concern that in the long run this Bill will not uplift the poor. “The increase or decrease of population growth does not by itself spell development or underdevelopment”. (CBCP Statement, July 10, 1990)

Sacredness of Life from Conception. The current version of the Bill does not define clearly when the protection of life begins. Although it mentions that abortion is a crime it does not state explicitly that human life is to be protected upon conception as stated in the Constitution.

The prevention of implantation of the fertilized ovum is abortion. We cannot prevent overt abortions by doing hidden abortions. It is a fallacy to think that abortions can be prevented by promoting contraception. Contraception is intrinsically evil (CCC 2370, Humanae Vitae, 14).

Freedom of Conscience. By mandating only one Reproductive Health Education Curriculum for public and private schools, the Bill could violate the consciences of educators who refuse to teach forms of family planning that violate their religious traditions. This provision also could violate the rights of parents to determine the education of their children if the proposed curriculum would contradict their religious beliefs.

Heroic Parenting. Family health goes beyond a demographic target because it is principally about health and human rights.

Since human resource is the principal asset of every country, effective family health care services must be given primacy to ensure the birth and care of healthy children and to promote responsible and heroic parenting.

===================================================

A CBCP Pastoral Statement on Lay Participation in Politics and Peace
“Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss” (Ps 85, 11)
July 12, 2009

2. “Direct participation in the political order is the special responsibility of the laity in the Church…. it is their specific task to renew the temporal order according to Gospel principles and values” (CBCP, “Pastoral Exhortation on Philippine Politics,” 1997).

3. Recently our beloved Pope Benedict XVI reminded the lay faithful of their “direct duty to work for a just ordering of society” and “to take part in public life in a personal capacity” (Deus Caritas Est 29).

===================================================

REITERATING CBCP POSITION ON FAMILY
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo
September 16, 2009

With the introduction of the Reproductive Health Bill 5043, a.k.a. Reproductive Health Bill, in Congress, truth and morality, the value and dignity of life, family and marriage are sadly made to depend on human laws. That is what is implied in the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill presently under discussion in Congress.