- Mar 18, 2014
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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
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