March 9, 2003

Lent fine-tunes the virtues of faith, hope, and love. God gives each man and woman a special assignment for each brief lifespan. No two assignments are the same, and we do not know fully what they are, but the virtues accomplish the job.

In the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which built upon Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Conubii of 1930, Pope Paul VI warned that contracepting life shows a lack of faith and hope and love and would have dire consequences. Like all true prophets, he was widely mocked and many Catholics themselves disregarded him. He was considered extreme for fearing that a contraceptive mentality would lead to abortion, euthanasia, genetic manipulation, disordered sexuality, and a general contempt for natural law.

Pius XI and Paul VI are not alive to point out the fulfillment of their prophecies. The facts can do it for them. The hysteria about a “population explosion” has fizzled in the face of harsh reality. After spending mountains of money on anti-birth propaganda, and exceeding its own record for mistaken predictions, the United Nations Population Division now admits a day and a dollar too late that it was wrong.

The 2002 Revision of the U.N. report admits that future fertility levels in most developing countries will probably fall below the long-term replacement level (2.1 children per woman) in this century, and three out of four countries in the less developed regions will soon have the same problem.

By 2050, populations will decline in 33 countries. Italy will shrink 22% and the Russian Federation 50%. Throughout the world, the number of persons over 60 years of age, now 19% of the population, will make up 32% of the total population. Among the developed countries, 17 will have a median age of 50 years or more, with Japan, the Czech Republic, Singapore, and Spain at the top of the list of aging nations.

Our own country is already suffering from this decline, and even the efforts of our present government to redress the anti-life stance of previous years cannot repair the damage. Harm to the Social Security system, health insurance programs, and tax structures is evident already. Moral and psychological consequences will be worse. Socially we are already seeing the results of trying to fill the gap by massive immigration: Europe is becoming de-Christianized and quickly Islamified. This explains many of the present anxieties in foreign policy.

The false prophets who mocked the truly prophetic voice of the Catholic Church are either dead or lack the integrity to apologize. As Christ humbled people with the facts without humiliating them, so the Church without recrimination can now reassert the Gospel truth. God wants world events to be guided by the faith and hope and love of the Resurrection. Without those virtues, life would be one long Lent with no Easter.

Fr. George W. Rutler