By CHRISTOPHER MANION
During his general audience on January 5, as Pope Francis addressed the role of St. Joseph in the Holy Family, he paused to address the beauty of adoption and its role in family life.
“I think particularly of all those who are open to welcoming life by way of adoption, which is such a generous and beautiful, good attitude. Joseph shows us that this type of bond is not secondary; it is not second best. This kind of choice is among the highest forms of love, and of fatherhood and motherhood. How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them!
“And how many married couples want to be fathers and mothers but are unable to do so for biological reasons; or, although they already have children, they want to share their family’s affection with those who do not have it. We should not be afraid to choose the path of adoption, to take the ‘risk’ of welcoming.”
The Holy Father continued, addressing the attitude of many in the secular culture who embrace a different view:
“The other day, I was talking about the demographic winter that we have today: Many couples do not have children because they do not want to, or they have just one — but they have two dogs, two cats.”
“Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children. Yes, it’s funny, I understand, but it is the reality, and this denial of fatherhood and motherhood diminishes us, takes away our humanity.”
“It is riskier to deny fatherhood or to deny motherhood, be it real or spiritual. A man and a woman who voluntarily do not develop a sense of fatherhood and motherhood are missing something fundamental, important. Think about this, please.”
The Pope’s secular critics responded quickly, citing familiar complaints: Women can’t be priests; homosexuals can’t adopt children from Catholic agencies; having children in this economy is inhumane; there are already too many people. Even some pet owners felt offended. But few addressed the problem that the Holy Father raised: the “demographic winter” and how the dissolution of the family has caused it.
Pope Francis is correct. Today countries throughout the West are facing a “birth dearth” without parallel in recent history. At the same time, and intimately connected, the traditional family is facing unprecedented challenges from an increasingly hostile secular culture. And not only in the West.
“Think About This, Please”
“Birthrates in China are in free fall,” writes China expert Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute. “And the all-powerful Communist Party of China seems powerless to do anything about it.
Births in China are at the lowest level in recorded history.
“Many Chinese men in their twenties and early thirties seem to have simply given up on life,” Mosher writes. “Unlike their fathers and grandfathers, who worked long hours at their jobs so they could buy an apartment, attract a wife, and raise a family, these coddled only sons have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. It’s not just indolence; it’s an entire way of life.
“They even have a name for themselves. They are ‘tangping’ers’ — the Chinese expression means to ‘lay flat’ — dedicated to doing just enough to get by in life. Their plans do not include marriage, much less children. It’s just too much work for the flat-layers.”
China’s barbaric one-child program, which Mosher revealed to the world some forty years ago, have had an undesired but inevitable effect. Each mother was permitted only one child. The rest were aborted, by force, if necessary.
The result? Once the program revved up, it meant that four grandparents and two parents all depend on one child to care for them in their old age. So sons, not daughters, were more highly prized.
That’s why “the tangping’ers would have a hard time finding a bride in any case,” he writes. “The traditional preference for sons means that men far outnumber women in China, especially in rural areas. China has more than 30 million surplus men, and the competition for brides is fierce.
“To make matters worse, many young women in China’s cities have taken themselves out of the marriage market altogether. They are focused on building careers, not marriages. Ask them about children and they will point out that they are already responsible for two aging and increasingly childlike parents.
“Few members of either group will ever marry, much less have children, and together they number in the tens of millions.”
Bad news all around. So, in 2020, the Chinese Communist Party leadership decided to abruptly shift into reverse and adopt a “three-child policy…to actively respond to the aging of the population.”
It comes far too late to reverse the coming collapse, Mosher writes.
As Pope Francis points out, the West is suffering from a “demographic winter” as well.
Americans need to renew our faith and fortitude, and encourage our children to marry, to have children, and to contribute to a flourishing culture in charity. As Steve Mosher puts it, “The United States needs a new Marshall Plan” to reverse the birth dearth.
There are many ways to pursue this goal, and we’ll be addressing them in coming weeks.
Bishops Get A Border Bundle From Biden
The tidal wave of illegal immigrants continues to flow, not only over the border but into communities all over the country. Joe Biden is sending them in thousands of secret flights that land unannounced in remote airports and unload their human cargo in the middle of the night.
And America’s Catholic bishops are playing a crucial role.
Former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan says that more than three million foreign nationals “have tried to violate America’s sovereignty and illegally enter” the United States under Joe Biden. In an interview at the border earlier this week, he pointed to a bus loading up illegals that had just crossed into Texas.
“Where do they go?” he asked. “To an NGO shelter — and what does the NGO then do? They give them food, clothing — and then they give them a packet that’s got a plane ticket to any city that the illegal alien wants to go. And how are they being funded? Some by donations, but some by the federal government as well. And DHS [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Mayorkas, the chief architect of the open border policies, has now made it impossible for ICE [Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to actually remove them, even if they remain here illegally.”
And who is the major player in this massive crime wave?
“There are multiple NGOs — Catholic Charities is at the top,” says Morgan. They are “actively facilitating . . . maybe it’s a little harsh to say ‘conspiring’ — the illegal movement of immigrants into this country. And the government is subsidizing what they’re doing . . . on the backs of taxpayers, hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Next Tuesday, February 8, the USCCB will observe the International Day of Prayer for Victims of Human Trafficking.
On the other 364 days of the year, says Commissioner Morgan, the USCCB facilitates and profits handsomely from human trafficking.
“Hundreds of millions,” he says.
Perhaps we might ask our shepherds about this nagging contradiction.
And they’re making it easy. Later this month, we’ll all be getting our various “Bishop’s Lenten Appeals” in the mail.
Why not just use the handy reply envelopes they enclose?
We might tell our bishops that the Coyote smugglers bringing illegals through Mexico charge $5,000 or more per person. And they are sex-and-drug smugglers as well.
Yet our bishops never criticize them. Not even the “good” ones.
Is it perhaps because the Coyotes are the indispensable silent partners of the bishops’ NGOs in the billion-dollar illegal immigration industry?
If you don’t hear back, please remember the hundreds of Catholic schools and charities that refuse taxpayer funding. They have seen what has happened to the USCCB, and they want no part of it.
They’ll write you back.
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