By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON
Oh, what a tangled web we weave: When first we practice to deceive! These lines, written by Sir Walter Scott over 200 years ago, aptly describe the complex, unforeseen destructive effects that self-deception is having on Western society. Politically correct notions advanced by the mainstream media are convincing people that abortion is a woman’s choice, assisted suicide is death with dignity, a union between two people of the same sex is marriage, and gender is a personal option.
These lies are destroying the countries of the West, not only from the point of view of culture, but demographically.
A society that does not value children, that kills them in the womb, that creates unions that cannot reproduce, that practices euthanasia, that is confused about biological facts is leading to population decline among many nations. A dearth of children is putting them at risk politically, economically, and defensively.
Taiwan’s president recently warned that his country’s lack of children is a serious national security threat. In 1951, the average Taiwanese woman had seven children; today, the fertility rate is 1.1 children per couple, well below the 2.1 needed to keep the population from shrinking. What is happening in Taiwan is occurring in many other countries that are struggling with below-replacement fertility rates.
Italy’s health minister recently said her nation is dying because its people do not want children. With a fertility rate of 1.4 and 40 percent of Italian couples choosing not to have children, the country as it now exists is doomed.
Japan has a fertility rate of 1.4. By 2060, that nation’s population is projected to fall by 30 percent; for every 10 people 4 will be 65 or older, while fewer than 1 will be 14 or under. In Britain, the fertility rate is 1.9; in Russia 1.6; in Spain 1.5; and in Germany1.4.
America is on a similar track. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in December 2014, reported that the number of births in the United States in 2013 declined 9 percent from 2007 — the last time it was at the replacement level — depressing the fertility rate to 1.86.
This is lower than during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the lowest it has been since the late 1970s when there was high unemployment, inflation, long lines at the gas pump, and, as President Carter described it, a national loss of “confidence in the future” characterized by “paralysis and stagnation and drift.”
Low fertility rates have enormous implications for every sector of a nation’s society — the economy, social stability, health care, pensions, defense, and foreign relations, among others — regardless of the country’s political system or views. Big government, Social Security, national health care, and other entitlement programs are not sustainable if there are not enough future taxpayers being born to fund them.
The free market and the creation of new companies and industries cannot continue if labor shortages are due to a population profile that is radically skewed toward the aged. Abortion, contraception, delayed childbearing, high rates of divorce, and a laxity toward marriage are depriving many nations of their next generations. How and in what form will these countries survive?
Giving birth implies an optimistic view of the future. In his general audience on February 11, Pope Francis stated: “Children are a gift.” He asked people to “think of the many societies we know here in Europe. They are depressed societies because they don’t want children, they don’t have children.” He further said: “A society that is not surrounded by children because it considers them a problem has no future.”
The Pope blamed a “culture of well-being” for convincing married couples that a life of prosperity and indulgence, marked by travel, vacations, and summer homes, is better than having children. But the lives of these couples “will end in old age in solitude, with the bitterness of bad solitude.” An increasingly infertile present can quickly become a barren future. A nation without children will eventually lead to the decline of the nation.
Catholic women in America have typically borne more children than the general population. This has been attributed to Church doctrine prohibiting birth control, the family culture of immigrant populations, a strong sense of religious identity and solidarity, and the prominent place of churches and Catholic schools in Catholic communities.
Starting in the late 1960s, with dissent over Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae and confusion over the teachings of Vatican II, there has been a lessening of adherence to Catholic doctrine, an increase in people leaving the faith, and for many who remain decreased faithfulness in its practice.
Today, Catholics are barely distinguishable from other religious groups in their attitudes toward contraception, abortion, marriage, religious attendance, and other moral-social indicators.
Since 1970, in spite of a 50 percent increase in the number of people who identify themselves as Catholics, there have been huge decreases in the number of children attending Catholic elementary and secondary schools, in enrollments in parish religious education programs, in Baptisms, First Communions, and Catholic marriages. Further, under half of the alleged Catholics now attend Mass even once a month.
While secularism and individualism are fueling demographic decline, a reinvigorated faith in God is the antidote. Faith helps us realize that our lives have a purpose greater than the materialism of this temporary world, and that there is a loving, merciful but just God who will judge our actions here on Earth. This prompts us to be more faithful to our religion, to our responsibilities, to our families and neighbors, and more open to life.
Let us use this remainder of this lenten period to pray, fast, and sacrifice, to beg God to help us create a public morality, a morality capable of responding to the threats to our existence as a nation.
Let us begin to evangelize among our fellow Catholics, as well as society-at-large, so that there will be a rejuvenation of faith.
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(The author is a visiting scholar in The School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America.)
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