Posted on 08/03/2006 9:15:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
The Catholic Church in Kerala, concerned about the declining population of the community, will now ask the believers to embrace the Christian concept of sexuality that blends love and procreation. In other words, to have more children.
During the Mass next Sunday, a pastoral letter will be read out in all 26 dioceses in the state.
In the letter, Syro-Malabar Archbishop Cardinal Mar Varkey Vithayathil will remind the faithful of the need to lead a life rooted in Christian values and beliefs.
Also, to consider sex not only as an "instrument of pleasure" but also as "a tool to procreate".
Father Paul Thelekkat, spokesman of the Syro-Malabar Church, told the Hindustan Times: "There is a drastic fall in Christian population. The recently concluded synod of bishops had expressed serious concerns over the drastic fall in Christian population. So there will be some serious efforts to address this."
The letter says, "There has been a growing feeling that children are a nuisance to pleasurable life. Even those who have the resources do not beget for selfish reasons."
Blaming modern lifestyle for small families, the letter tells the congregation that if the situation continues, half the population will be grey by 2050.
The census figures and the falling attendance on Sundays have forced men of God to press the panic button. According to the 2001 census, the Christian growth rate came down to 19 per cent from 22 per cent.
"Close to their mothers?"
LOL! Touche'
"So where are the babies being born?"
I've fathered six. The little church we're attending since we've moved to Iowa a year ago has all of a sudden had a bunch of pregnancies. Maybe it's a change in the water.
I guess you are another example of the fruit of the education-by-full-blow-feminist-types.
In THIS case population control, done by your own Indian government, freely and democratically elected, wasn't your own Indian government's fault. No, it was the fault of the nasty western Imperialists.
1. I guess all those young women that were chased down and forcibly sterilized were family-less, no fathers or brothers to protect them. They had no friends to turn to either, I guess.
I wonder how the Indian government KNEW what young women needed forcible sterilization. SOMEONE had to compile a list, then find out where these women lived, when they were free to be abducted. SOMEONE had to find out if those young women had any health issues that might impede the forcible sterilziation.
It must have taken a multi-million-man army of clerks, kidnappers, doctors, nurses and such to perpetrate this crime. I wonder if they are still operating in India. Young, unsterilized women abound.
2. I guess there was no recourse for them from police or courts. These things, I guess, can happen there. I guess India doesn't have civil liberties for young, unsterilized women.
3. I guess they were abducted in the middle of the night where there was no one to see them, protect them or witness their forcible abduction.
4. I guess all the doctors, nurses, surgery assistants and hospital attendants were in on this forcible sterilization as well.
5. I guess Indian civil liberties were just done away with for these forcibly-sterilized young women.
My, my, Western Imperialism managed to do ALL THIS and the Indian government and people just stood by and watched and did nothing. What POWER "western Imperialism" has over India. I had no idea.
From what I know of India and its caste system, racism by caste is pure Hindu, from ancient EVEN pre-western Imperialism. Racism is built into the very fabric of Indian society, with name, occupation -- and color -- built into keeping people in their place: Brahmins at the top and untouchables at the bottom.
But, perhaps, somehow, in that full-blown feminist's teacher's mind, western Imperialism is to blame for even that.
Lol. She has a lot of nerve calling the West "racist." Look what pot is calling the kettle black. Perhaps she was EDUCATED by the West and brought those ideas over there. No, that couldn't be because the West decries racism and such things as forcible sterilization. In fact, the West has laws against racism and forcible sterilization. Young women chased down and forcibly sterilized doesn't happen here.
Her tirade is, like the full-blown feminist tirades here, chock full of holes, lies, wasted emotion, nonsequiters, skewed logic and unclear thinking. She ought to be "casting stones" at her OWN house instead of at the West's. She wouldn't be listened to anyway. She makes no sense. Her garbage sounds good ONLY to young, emotional, uninformed, unhappy, angry minds with no sensible minds to counteract her nonsense.
Maybe, like the full blown feminists here, she is simply an angry, bitter, unhappy woman who turns her rage and self-hate towards ANYONE else but that woman in the mirror.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, whose the bitterest of them all?
I hope you have purged yourself of that poison. It will only make your life less fulfilled.
I learned a LONG time ago that the answers to all questions and problems are at the foot of the Cross. I wonder if that full-blown feminist instructor knows that. Somehow, I doubt it.
As far as "overpopulation" goes, yes, the earth could hold more people and do so very well. But why would we want to? Call me a tree hugger, but what's the good of having so many people when other good things, such as the Amazon, or the Arctic ice, or the like, have to be lost? Don't animals and men already scramble for land and resources already? Yes, big familiess are wonderful, I don't deny that they can be a great source of love/resourcefulness. All I'm saying is not everyone is up to this.
Well said.
Looks like corn ain't the only crop Iowans are good at growing. Congrats to having a healthy family.
Would it help if I gave you my bona fides as a not full blown feminist type? I am a Catholic who agrees with all my heart and mind with the teachings of my church. So you can bet that my beliefs for the most part run counter to the feminist mind set.
However population control is racist. It must be remembered that population control did not arise isolated out of science or philosophy or religion. It is the beloved child of Eugenics.
The Eugenics movements history can easily be researched on the web. Some names you might want to give a more than fleeting glance to are Margaret Sanger, Francis Galton
( cousin of Charles Darwin), Joseph Fletcher, Kingsley Davis and Lothrop Stoddard.
I haven't even mentioned the money men behind to movement. But today one of the most prominent and influential is John D. Rockefeller who follows in his families footsteps by giving millions to population control efforts.
Paul Jalsevac has written an excellent paper titled
" The Inherent Racism of Population Control"
it can be found at www.lifesite.net
some of the works of the Population Control Advocates cited there include:
Margaret Sanger's " A Code To Stop Overproduction of Children" Also " The Negro Project" was a program of Margaret Sanger's. Suffice it to say it was not pro Negro.
Lothrop's " The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" Both of these texts are just a small sample of eugenic writings that proposed inferior races were a threat to the US and the world at large.
The philosophy that drove Malthusians, eugenicists, population control advocates are from the same root. That there are too many of the wrong kind of people. Whether it be the poor, the Jews, the Africans, the Asians, the Eastern Europeans or the disabled. It arises out of the belief that individual rights and human dignity must at times be sacrificed for the better good of society. This philosophy can be seen not only in population control support but in the arguments for euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and selective abortion.
You mock that women are forced to undergo sterilization. Yes it happens. Maybe not in the direct Carrie Buck case style but in other unjustifiable ways. The main way in which women are forced to undergo sterilization or to artificially control the birth of children is one you might have not given thought to.
Economic pressures put on their native countries by such bodies as the UN and the World Bank. After 1968 the World Bank began forcing countries to accept family planning programs they wanted to keep their loans. In 1966 the UN called for special aid for countries that were willing to decrease their population. The United Nations Fund For Population Activities " takes pride in being the
' the world's largest international source of population and reproductive health programs ' Reproductive health programs pretty much means abortion.
You may think that the economic pressure on countries to toe the population control line is ineffectual. But access to the purse strings have always been a great motivator. For people as well as nations.
One aspect of population control often not touched upon is that it always claims that the high birth rate of poor nations is a scandal not only because of the effect they have on resources but because of the very high infant mortality rate. What the second part of that justification fails to mention is that very little money
( in comparison to the cost for funding population control) needs to be spent to help overcome high infant mortality rates. Access to immunizations, clean water, ant-diaharrea medications or supplements,advocacy for breast feeding programs to train midwives and simple sanitation procedures would do a lot towards lowering infant mortality rates.
Non of these are overly costly and the lasting benefits to the people of the countries given these tools to improve infant survival rates is immeasurable.
So yes this loyal the the Church Catholic agrees that population control is racist. I agree with this statement
From the beginning, the great obstacle to the eugenics movement has been the Catholic Church, and the Church's position has been repeatedly distorted. A sketch of the Church's position can be found in: Gaudium et Spes or The Church in the Modern World the Vatican II document explaining to all people of good will why the Church wants to be involved in discussions of the problems facing the world and what she thinks she offers;...
You are probably aware that the Catholic Church can hardly be classified as being in the good graces of the full blown feminist types. So the above argument arise not from radical feminism but in the teachings on human dignity by the Catholic Church.
As a PS to my previous post. Mother Theresa is hardly a person to reference in an argument for population control.
I hope you understand why this would be so.
I like to tell people that we need to outnumber the idiots in the world.
With the "are you done" question my husband used to emphatically answer "YES". After our last surprise he sheepishly will say, "I don't know."
Great post.
I suggest doing both. With chocolate, strawberries, and champaign.
Ok, ok...
5.56mm
I am so glad to see one so young who has not fallen for the lies of this culture. God bless you.
Since I put the information about Mother Theresa as a SIDENOTE, I thought you might be able to figure it out that it was a SIDENOTE and not germane to population control. I guess that it was out of your capabilities.
Sorry for over-estimating you. I won't do so again.
Pax vobiscum.
Forcible sterilization drives are no longer run by the Indian government, but Indians are still paid cold cash for each sterilized woman they produce. Each woman is worth several hundred dollars. You can imagine the abuse that is possible within this corrupt, poverty-stricken system. Coerced sterilizations continue at a local level.
Yes, I can imagine. Cash for sterility. Sad.
Population control programs like the ones still operating in India and Africa, are run under the auspices, or at the behest, of the World Health Organisation, an arm of the United Nations.
The point is that the Indian government allows the U.N. to operate in India, or, as a behest, the Indian government invites the U.N. to run "population control programs." I guess money is a factor there too.
Perhaps the Indian government really doesn't believe in unfettered population explosions, especially when the poor are the hardest hit in infant deaths, health problems, famines, etc. Perhaps the spectre of famines dampens its enthusiam for population explosions.
Through the United Nations, and the World Health Organization, liberal disciples of Margaret Sanger (ie, Planned Parenthood International) are able to exert their will upon those they decide are "Not Fit to Breed" (ie. poor, coloured people.)
Are the rich, coloured people unfit to live? I doubt it. They can afford all the things money can buy.
Are the poor, white people fit to live simply because they are white or Brahmins? Are there so many poor white, Brahmins? Honest question. Sounds to me that the problem is that most of the poorest happen to be the darkest. In the end, the caste system produced the racism. The lowest caste were the darkest because they were valued the least.
Through their efforts, development money is tied to population control, in order to force poor countries to abandon traditional moral values which treasure motherhood and forbid fornication and contraception. In order to receive aid, they must adopt Western European secular ideas concerning women and the family.
Well, if India is foolish enough to adopt the worst of the West and can't come up with birth control and keeping Indian values, then India is doomed.
I mentioned that my Professor was a full blown feminist because I thought it was interesting that she, a Liberal, was able to see that the WHO, UN, Planned Parenthood groups ( which Liberals usually drool over,) were actually racist and anti-poor. In this case, she was able to see that conservative, pro-life groups were the pro-poor, pro-family organisations.
Even in the Great United States of America, this stuff happens. I taught reading in an inner city school system, full time last year. One part of the curriculum (which I refused to teach,) included the "Making Proud Choices" sex-ed program. It taught condom/contraceptive use, graphically, to high school students. The program advertised itself as appropriate for "urban, African-American youth." In other words, poor black kids.
Well, then if you were in the great United States of American, you would KNOW that the education in public schools stinks to high heavens and that, in the nasty Western world, we rank amoung the lowest educationally. So, I would hardly hold up my country's education as any standard.
Also, racsim is often the glib answer to problems. If this country were so racist there wouldn't be Oprey Winfreys, Bill Cosbys and the PLETHORA of wealthy and middle class black people.
The problems are 99.9% economics, not racism. If it were just racism, then ALL races, besides, whites, would be doing badly. But that isn't the case.
Our Chinese (and other Asian) communites do extremely well in America. The index for success shows them at the top of the good lists, education, degrees, stable marriages, two-parent families, home ownership, business degrees, advanced degrees, etc. They are at the bottom of the bad lists: least incarcerated, least divorces, least on welfare, etc. In fact, they do better than whites in ALL categories.
However, there are those who see only racism as the only cause to a problem, just as some women see sexism as the only cause to women's problems. Ralph Nader has always blamed ALL of America's problems on BIG BUSINESS and CORPORATIONS.
It's all rather simplistic thinking. Economics, education, societal structure, religion and some other factors, all contribute to the success, or lack thereof, of populations.
I grew up in a rich, white town. If someone mentioned the word "condom" in my health class, the school would be burned down. My sex-ed classes taught respect and self-control. There were high standards I was expected to meet, and meet them I did, by the Grace of God.
But in poor, urban areas, there are no expectations for the children. They can't be expected to say no to sex. They are the equivalent of dogs in heat.
Population Control treats poor, minority groups as if they were over-breeding animals, infesting the world with their inferior children.
Sounds like it's mostly about money. It has a lot to do with it, but NOT everything.
There are poor people in our country who DO have high expectations for their children. They are good, honest, decent people. Some people think that poor people produce the crime, that education is all poor people need. NOT TRUE. Poor people can be very religious, good, honest people.
Fact: The MOST CHARITABLE, most giving state in the union in this great nation, PER CAPITA, is Mississippi, our country's POOREST state. Massachusetts, one of the wealthier states, rates #49 on the "giving" rating. In other words, the poorest are the most charitable.
Conservatives are often accused of being Imperialists ... the fact is, the liberal Planned Parenthood Facists are the real racist, western Imperialists, forcing their ideology of abortion and contraception on poor and minority populations. They are the promoters of the worst western Imperialism there is: Population Control.
Abortion is a tool of communism. I know you would LOVE to blame it all on western Imperialism, but facts don't support you. Your neighbors to the north, the Chinese, have been forcing sterilization and birth control for a long time. Their one-child program seems to have escaped your notice.
And believe me, the despots of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro and other non-Westerners never had to worry about population problems because they murdered millions of their own people. That is THEIR "population control" problem.
Population control is a neutral tool, like any medical procedure. It's neither good nor bad. In the hands of people with brains, values and a plan, population control SHOULD be in the hands of free, adult individuals, not out-of-control governments who have "programs" to force, coerce or bribe people into submission to some government "plan." That is madness.
It's not "western imperialism" either. I know that it's a catchy phrase and sounds good to the frustrated ear, but THAT is skewed logic to think so. It's the foolish governments who take this neutral tool and turn it into a monstrous program who are the problem, not some faraway imaginary system called "western imperialism."
India has been a mature, ancient people long enough (3500 years) not to blame ANYONE (even the nasty ole tradition boogey man, western imperialism) but ITSELF for its problems.
Since George W. Bush took office, American funding of UN population control programs has been severely restricted.
Americans shouldn't be paying. Other countries should handle their own problems their own ways. There aren't too many Americans who like the current U.N. I don't. The ONLY thing they should do is rescue work and public health, as in curing the sick, not sterilizing them.
But the whole mission of Mother Theresa was based on ideals that go against the very central premise of population control advocates. To them the problem is too many people the solution is control the population. To her the problem was indifference to suffering and the belief that some human beings were not worthy of love and care. Her solution was to embrace the suffering poor and do whatever she could to affirm their innate dignity.
She did not help the poor in spite of her opposition to abortion and birth control. But because all of her positions came from her living her Catholic faith.
As for my capabilities, sidenotes are usually germane to the main topic. They are explanatory annotations to a document. Why one would make annotations that were not germane to a subject at hand is a puzzle to me. But I will accept your claim that you did not mean to link Motehr Theresa to population control advocacy.
| Sunday, August 6, 2006 The Transfiguration of the Lord (Feast) |
||
|
"With chocolate, strawberries, and champaign."
Why do you have to be in a particular city in Illinois???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.