(October 29th, 2003 Vatican Mission to the U.N.)
Posted on 02/01/2006 7:05:24 AM PST by NYer
ROME, January 31, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The UK Ambassador to the Vatican got an earful from a Vatican Cardinal at a Rome conference ten days ago for refusing to acknowledge facts about fertility decline and its serious implications.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the President of the Pontifical Council on the Family was the keynote speaker at the conference titled "The Family in the New Economy: Reflections on the Margins on Centesimus Annus". The conference, sponsored by the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, was also addressed by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Institute.
Morse presented the facts on the below-replacement fertility rates for the whole of Europe and the dire social and economic consequences that would ensue. In an article based on her talk she wrote: "The fertility rates in the western industrialized countries are well below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman. For the European Union as a whole, the estimated 2005 fertility rate was 1.47 babies per woman. In some countries, the rate is even lower. However, in France, approximately one birth in three is to a Muslim family. Stripped of the Muslim influence, the fertility rate of the native-born or traditionally European French would be 1.2, similar to the rates in Italy and Spain." (see the full write-up here:
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?article=307 )
In a column, describing events at the conference, Morse writes, "Some, who were involved in politics in their respective countries, claimed that my analysis had nothing to do with their countries. The demographic situation wasn't nearly so dire. And anyway, the non-dire fertility decline would surely be solved by state programs providing family support."
National Catholic Reporter's Vatican correspondent John Allen was on hand at the conference and reports that the doubting Thomas was none other than Francis Campbell, the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the Holy See. Campbell, reports Allen, said that fertility rates were cyclical and the current state reflects such a cycle.
For her part, Morse offered a conciliatory response, but she recalls, "Cardinal Lopez Trujillo wouldn't have any part of that."
The Cardinal supported her findings with statistical data accumulated by the Vatican. "He assured the audience that his office at the Pontifical Council on the Family had been gathering world-wide demographic data for a long time. The trends were absolutely as devastating . . . Fertility rates have been falling for decades. Differences in state support for families made some difference, but not a significant difference in fertility rates. This is not a short-term phenomenon that can be easily reversed. Rather, the decline in fertility is a complex phenomenon in which economic incentives and cultural attitudes are deeply intertwined," reports Morse.
Allen records some of the words used by Cardinal Trujillo in response to Campbell's remarks. Trujillo insisted upon the "frightening fact" of demographic trends in Europe, reports Allen.
"We are realizing the worst prophecies of aging and demographic implosion, and European politicians are seeing this with alarm," said the Cardinal. "The myth of over-population has collapsed."
Reflecting on the exchange Morse writes, "I thought to myself, it isn't every day that I have a Cardinal to take my part in a debate. And not only that, but the churchman was taking a much more realistic position than the politicians. While much of the secular world assumes religious people are pie-in-the-sky-dreamy-eyed, here it was the politicians who were whistling past the graveyard, dodging reality at all costs. The Cardinal was taking the long-term view, facing the problem on its own terms, which includes both economics and attitudes."
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Europe is disappearing.
With our third world immigrants (legal and illegal) breeding like rabbits...the same could be said of the United States IMHO.
And I don't buy the whole "most mexicans coming over the border are Catholic" argument either. I know only God can judge a mans heart; but based on crime statistics amd border patrol data, most illegals coming over the border seem to be as Catholic as John Kerry.
I think many Europeans feel that Europe is crowded and fewer people would be OK.
"And anyway, the non-dire fertility decline would surely be solved by state programs providing family support."
....as in...taxes and redistribution of wealth?
Thanks but no thanks.
Birth control, abortion, easy divorce, and seeing children as a "chore" instead of a gift are all to blame for this.
Ugh! Those signs are so tacky!!
I'm doing everything I can to help with the population of the US. :o)
I know there are so many factors to the declining birth rate but my first thought when I read these articles is to blame feminists. Margaret Sanger being at the head of this movement.
A culture that is accepting of homosexuality is likely to place little value on children, except as the objects of exploitation.
They're going to have a lot fewer people if they keep going the way they are going... unfortunately for them, all of those who remain will be praying to Allah.
In the modern feminism, I see a replay of the fall of man - in Eve's greed for power, gnosis and control in spite of what God says.
One day, I will write it up.
I trust the Cardinal.
Uganda Winning the Battle Against AIDS — Using Abstinence
SARAH TRAFFORD
Uganda may be on its way to wiping out AIDS by using the Biblical values of chastity and fidelity, a new Harvard University study finds. According to the study, abstinence education has shown significant effectiveness in reducing AIDS in Uganda, with the HIV infection rate dropping 50 percent between the years 1992 and 2000.
The east African nation is making a big impact with the revelation that the AIDS epidemic can be curbed. Riddled with HIV infections since the 1970s, Uganda has found miraculous success by using abstinence as its prevention strategy. Promotion of abstinence through billboards, radio programs and school sex education curricula has resulted in a slow and steady drop in HIV infection rates, as well as new attitudes about conquering AIDS in Uganda.
"Uganda is one of the countries that attach great importance on promoting abstinence among our youth," said Ahmed Ssenyomo, minister counselor at the Ugandan Embassy, in a speech to the African American Youth Conference on Abstinence.
When the program started in the late 1980s, the number of pregnant women infected with HIV was 21.2 percent. By 2001, the number was 6.2 percent. The Harvard study also reported Ugandan adults are not having as much risky sex: of women 15 and older, those reporting many sexual partners dropped from 18.4 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent in 2000.
The emphasis on abstinence in Uganda’s program is unique. In other nations with high HIV infections, such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, condoms have been promoted as the answer to ending the AIDS crisis. In Botswana, 38 percent of pregnant women were HIV positive last year, contrasted with 6.2 percent of Ugandan women.
Much of the program’s success is due to the nation’s willingness to look beyond the sexual revolution to the past.
"What we’re seeing in parts of Africa is communities responding to the epidemic by saying, ‘Let’s see what’s in our culture — how can we deal with this with what we had in the past?’ " Susan Leclerc-Madlalas, a medical anthropologist at the University of Natal in South Africa, told the Associated Press. "What they had most of the time was a way of regulating sexuality."
Many AIDS officials reject abstinence as a potential prevention strategy despite evidence that promotion of abstinence and fidelity have significantly reduced AIDS cases in Uganda over the past decade.
(excerpt - more here:)
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0074.html
"They're going to have a lot fewer people if they keep going the way they are going... unfortunately for them, all of those who remain will be praying to Allah."
Well, if demographics in Europe keep moving at present pace the Mohammedans will soon help move things along with a little selective herd thinning.
So, the people criticizing this are a group that never married and never had any children. Ooookay.
That's it in a nutshell.
I think many modern Europeans are just lazy and don't want to do the work of raising children.
Anyone with eyes to look around at the numbers can readily see that only about 35% of Hispanic Immigrants maintain a Catholic identity in this country.
In my own city of Philadelphia, only 1/3 of the Hispanic population is registered in the parishes (the diocese keeps a detailed breakdown of registration against the census for each parish).
In my own city of Philadelphia, only 1/3 of the Hispanic population is registered in the parishes (the diocese keeps a detailed breakdown of registration against the census for each parish).
I wouldn't doubt that at all. My point is that %35 or 1/3 does not equate to "most".
Yes, Muslims have a tendency to go from 51% of a population to 90%+ with amazing rapidity.
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