What’s Changed Since Humanae Vitae?

[redleghunter]

Yes, I'm an Evangelical Christian but a proud graduate of a Jesuit University. I believe the essay below is an important piece of information on what's going on in the West (Europe especially).



What’s Changed Since Humanae Vitae?

Throughout this academic year, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University is hosting a series of lectures, billed as the “first interdisciplinary” study to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. The series promises to examine the “many problems” that have emerged in family life since Pope Paul wrote on the ethics of human love and the morally appropriate methods of family planning. And that could indeed be useful.

Yet the roster of series speakers is not replete with defenders of Paul VI’s teaching in Humanae Vitae, and at least one of the lecturers has telegraphed his revisionist theological punch by suggesting that today’s “new situation” is quite different from that addressed by Humanae Vitae.

On that, at least, he’s right: Today’s situation is far worse.

The Gregorian promises the involvement of both the social sciences and moral theology in its study, presumably to complement the work of a new historical commission on Humanae Vitae established by Pope Francis. So let’s look at some of the relevant social science.

Demographers tell us that a society must have a “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) of slightly over 2.1 (the average number of children a woman has during her child-bearing years) in order to maintain its population over time. Here are the most recent Eurostat TFP figures for the countries of the European Union in 2014: Austria: 1.47; Belgium: 1.74; Bulgaria: 1.53; Croatia: 1.46; Cyprus: 1.31; Czech Republic: 1.53; Denmark: 1.69; Finland: 1.71; France: 2.01; Germany: 1.47; Great Britain: 1.81; Greece: 1.30; Hungary: 1.44; Ireland: 1.94; Italy: 1.37; Latvia: 1.54; Lithuania: 1.63; Luxembourg: 1.50; Malta: 1.42; Netherlands: 1.71; Poland: 1.32; Portugal: 1.23; Romania: 1.52; Spain: 1.32; Slovakia: 1.37; Slovenia: 1.58; Sweden: 1.88. Thus, the TFR for the European Union as a whole in 2014 was 1.58, well below population-replacement level and heading toward the demographic Niagara Falls that demographers call “lowest-low fertility.”

Please note that no EU country was in a major war in 2014. Nor was any EU country beset by a devastating plague. Nor did Europe suffer a Vesuvius- or Krakatoa-like natural disaster. In other words, none of the causes of demographic collapse that have depleted populations throughout history was in play in the European Union in 2014. And insofar as I’m aware, European men have not suffered the loss of fertility that sets the stage for P. D. James’s brilliant novel, The Children of Men.

Remainder of article at link below:

What’s Changed Since Humanae Vitae? | George Weigel

 

[SkyWriting]

Yes, I'm an Evangelical Christian but a proud graduate of a Jesuit University. I believe the essay below is an important piece of information on what's going on in the West (Europe especially).

What is "both natural and evangelical." is that humans live with no electricity or benefits from electricity or technology. This would likely keep the populations survival at even lower numbers even if the birth rate skyrocketed thanks to no birth control per the Pope's wishes.

 

[redleghunter]

What is "both natural and evangelical." is that humans live with no electricity or benefits from electricity or technology. This would likely keep the populations survival at even lower numbers even if the birth rate skyrocketed thanks to no birth control.

The above makes no sense at all.

 

[SkyWriting]

The above makes no sense at all.

That's what I'm saying. Calling on people to "live naturally" would entail giving up on all the benefits of society. Artificial heat and cooling for example. 'Natural Family Planning" means that you have more children one year to make up for years when you don't grow enough food and they all die. That's living naturally. I wonder if the Pope could grow enough food for more than himself without unnatural technology.

 

[redleghunter]

That's what I'm saying. Calling on people to "live naturally" would entail giving up on all the benefits of society. Artificial heat and cooling for example. 'Natural Family Planning" means that you have more children one year to make up for years when you don't grow enough food and they all die. That's living naturally. I wonder if the Pope could grow enough food for more than himself without unnatural technology.

Humanae Vitae is about family and reproduction.

What has God told us about provision for ourselves and our family?

 

[SkyWriting]

Humanae Vitae is about family and reproduction.

What has God told us about provision for ourselves and our family?

That is my point as well. "Living Naturally" has no value. It makes no sense.
Similar to the idea that a marriage is void if one or both are not able to reproduce.
That doesn't even follow the "Live naturally " rules.

 

[SolomonVII]

...So from a strictly social-scientific point of view, one is led to the inescapable conclusion that Europe’s infertility is self-induced. Which means that European infertility is deliberate and willful, not random and accidental. Which means that Europe is contracepting itself into demographic oblivion.

This defines the nihilism of our time. 'Better to be dead than to be alive, and better than both is not to have been born at all'.

In a nihilsitic culture, the Pill is more destructive than the atom bomb. It gives people the choice to remove themselves from the gene pool, forever.
And many people are opting in to that kind of world.
The main purpose of sex today is to comfort the last generation.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Yes, I'm an Evangelical Christian but a proud graduate of a Jesuit University. I believe the essay below is an important piece of information on what's going on in the West (Europe especially).



What’s Changed Since Humanae Vitae?

Throughout this academic year, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University is hosting a series of lectures, billed as the “first interdisciplinary” study to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. The series promises to examine the “many problems” that have emerged in family life since Pope Paul wrote on the ethics of human love and the morally appropriate methods of family planning. And that could indeed be useful.

Yet the roster of series speakers is not replete with defenders of Paul VI’s teaching in Humanae Vitae, and at least one of the lecturers has telegraphed his revisionist theological punch by suggesting that today’s “new situation” is quite different from that addressed by Humanae Vitae.

On that, at least, he’s right: Today’s situation is far worse.

The Gregorian promises the involvement of both the social sciences and moral theology in its study, presumably to complement the work of a new historical commission on Humanae Vitae established by Pope Francis. So let’s look at some of the relevant social science.

Demographers tell us that a society must have a “Total Fertility Rate” (TFR) of slightly over 2.1 (the average number of children a woman has during her child-bearing years) in order to maintain its population over time. Here are the most recent Eurostat TFP figures for the countries of the European Union in 2014: Austria: 1.47; Belgium: 1.74; Bulgaria: 1.53; Croatia: 1.46; Cyprus: 1.31; Czech Republic: 1.53; Denmark: 1.69; Finland: 1.71; France: 2.01; Germany: 1.47; Great Britain: 1.81; Greece: 1.30; Hungary: 1.44; Ireland: 1.94; Italy: 1.37; Latvia: 1.54; Lithuania: 1.63; Luxembourg: 1.50; Malta: 1.42; Netherlands: 1.71; Poland: 1.32; Portugal: 1.23; Romania: 1.52; Spain: 1.32; Slovakia: 1.37; Slovenia: 1.58; Sweden: 1.88. Thus, the TFR for the European Union as a whole in 2014 was 1.58, well below population-replacement level and heading toward the demographic Niagara Falls that demographers call “lowest-low fertility.”

Please note that no EU country was in a major war in 2014. Nor was any EU country beset by a devastating plague. Nor did Europe suffer a Vesuvius- or Krakatoa-like natural disaster. In other words, none of the causes of demographic collapse that have depleted populations throughout history was in play in the European Union in 2014. And insofar as I’m aware, European men have not suffered the loss of fertility that sets the stage for P. D. James’s brilliant novel, The Children of Men.

Remainder of article at link below:

What’s Changed Since Humanae Vitae? | George Weigel

Today's situation is worse because of lack of adherence, to Humanae Vitae. If people listened, the statistics wouldn't be what they are. Humanae Vitae said that people shouldn't use artificial means of birth control, and yet look at what has happened.

The Sexual Revolution has been ridiculously terrible for the world.