Philosophical Parasites and the Cuckoo's Egg

There are two kinds of philosophies in the world:
1) those that encourage adults to have children and
2) those that discourage adults from having children.

Any cultural group that follows the second philosophy will extinguish itself. If we consider these philosophies in total, it doesn't matter deeply what the pro-life philosophy is. It could be religious, e.g., Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Confucianist, Taoist. It could be economic, e.g., capitalist, socialist, communist, hunter-gatherer, whatever. It could be some philosophy based on experimental or formal science. It could even be a philosophy based on astrological symbols and homeopathy. Doesn't matter. All we care about is, does this philosophy encourage fertile adults to have and raise children?

Similarly, it doesn't matter deeply what the anti-life philosophy is. Again, it could be religious, economic, scientific, pagan. Doesn't matter. The question is, does this philosophy encourage fertile adults to avoid having children?

Natural growth cultures, if they are functioning correctly, naturally have the children necessary to carry on the next generation. Anti-life cultures naturally don't have any children. The only way they maintain themselves is by successfully converting (stealing) adults from the Natural Growth cultures.

Notice, it doesn't matter what the children think. Children, by definition, don't generate. Only adults generate. So, if children are raised in an anti-life philosophy, it doesn't matter. Only the adults matter. The adults - at some point during their fertile lives - will necessarily adopt one philosophy or the other. Converting children is a complete waste of time. Conversion of adults is the only thing that can effect outcomes. So, we might summarize these philosophical families this way:

Philosophy	Natural Growth Culture flourishes unless adults abandon it		Cuckoo’s Egg Culture must convert adults or die
Pro-life, encourages adults to have   children		X
Anti-child, discourages adults from having children			X

Now, Catholicism, and Christianity in general, has traditionally considered itself pro-life. We think of ourselves as an evangelical culture that grows by converting adults to Christian belief. Let's see how we have been doing for the last couple of centuries. TFR stands for Total Fertility Rate. It refers to the total number of children a fertile woman in the culture will have over the course of her lifetime.

So, we see that in the United States, Christianity has consistently failed to impart its ideas to the next generation of fertile adults. You can try to argue that we succeeded for 20 years out of the total 200 years in the chart, but that really doesn't work well. It means we failed for 180 years out of the total 200 on the chart. Worse, it is obvious the anti-child philosophers have been consistently successful in convincing fertile adults to follow an anti-child philosophy.

But that's just the United States.
How has the rest of the world done? Well, the numbers are clear.

The entire world has consistently lowered its TFR. Not one culture, anywhere in the world, has maintained or raised its TFR over the course of the last 200 years. Not one. This victory of anti-life philosophies is called the "demographic transition." Over the last two centuries, pro-life philosophies have failed to win converts. Anti-life philosophies have consistently won the converts necessary to flourish. People who participate in the pro-life culture are having the children and raising them to adulthood. As adults, those former children are being converted to prefer not having children.

Obviously, this cannot continue. Insofar as every fertile adult adopts in anti-life philosophy, that adult's DNA disappears from the gene pool, that adult's philosophy dies with him or her. The numbers indicate that the anti-life adults are, during their lifetimes, converting other fertile adults to their own sterile philosophy at a much, much higher rate than any of the pro-life philosophies convert adults to a fertile philosophy. This is true even when the people pushing the anti-life philosophy show a marked contradiction between what they say they believe and what they actually do to live out their purported "beliefs".

If evolutionists honestly believed that only the fittest survive, then they clearly don't consider themselves or their philosophy fit. People who teach evolution don't have children, at least not enough to replace themselves. Thus, they must believe themselves to be unfit to procreate, they must consider themselves an evolutionary dead-end. The person who accepts evolutionary theory apparently becomes evolutionarily unfit.

So, how does this apply to Catholics?

Well, obviously, we have not previously, nor are we now, successfully evangelizing any modern culture. This is not a post-Vatican II problem. This is not even a post-Vatican I problem. This problem has existed since at least the dawn of industrialization. We have had this problem ever since industrialization started making us physically rich.

Christianity, and the world's other pro-life philosophies, do not know how to evangelize the modern, wealthy industrialized world. We were quite, quite good at evangelizing the world when it was mostly agricultural. We have had no success since it has become industrial and post-industrial. Quite the reverse, in fact. The modern industrial world has a very good idea of how to spread its anti-child gospel to successfully convince fertile adults, whether Christian or not, that humankind should become extinct.

We obviously cannot yet answer their outlook or arguments because we obviously have not yet successfully answered those outlooks or arguments.

Everything we have tried in the last 200 years has failed.
The things they have tried in the last 200 years have succeeded.
We have God on our side, but we are losing.

That's worth pondering.

Pope St. Pius X on the Papacy

Distracted with so many occupations, it is easy to forget the things that lead to perfection in priestly life; it is easy [for the priest] to delude himself and to believe that, by busying himself with the salvation of the souls of others, he consequently works for his own sanctification. Alas, let not this delusion lead you to error, because nemo dat quod nemo habet [no one gives what he does not have]; and, in order to sanctify others, it is necessary not to neglect any of the ways proposed for the sanctification of our own selves.

...

The Pope is the guardian of dogma and of morals; he is the custodian of the principles that make families sound, nations great, souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and of peoples; he is the head under whom no one feels tyrannized because he represents God Himself; he is the supreme father who unites in himself all that may exist that is loving, tender, divine.

It seems incredible, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are regrettably in our age in this hard, unhappy, situation of having to tell priests: love the Pope!

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, "si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit," [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey - that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls.

Saint Pius X

Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union 

November 18, 1912

“Tradition? I am tradition!”

                   - Bl. Pope Pius IX 

The American Popes

I find it fascinating that Americans get very upset when the Pope makes a statement that applies to America's political situation ("separate Church and state!"), but consider themselves fully authorized to tell the Pope how to handle events in the Catholic Church.

American outrage over the abuse problem is especially ironic, given that those same Americans chose to make their last two top presidential candidates a choice between a woman who viciously covered up her husband's rapes vs a man credibly accused of rape by his own wife and thrilled to be endorsed by the convicted rapist, Mike Tyson.

Remarkably enough, even as they pontificate to the Pope about how to handle sexual abuse, most Americans still defend their chosen rape perpetrators as excellent choices to rule over them.

It's almost like Americans are hypocrites.
Imagine that.

Update:
Hey, look, yet another newspaper points out that Vigano is a damned liar.