Once, we cared for one another. Maybe not perfectly, but it was there.
We tried to be there for each other, to help each other. Once, even poor
Catholic neighborhoods were able to build beautiful churches and schools.
They weren't cheated out of their money. Their church, their school, was a
sign of pride, of community, of faith. Even nationally, the concept was one
of 'You' or 'We'. When the Civil War began one of the Union's best regiments
was the Irish Brigade. Irishman, who were called clannish, papists, poor,
ignorant, etc. joined to fight for this country. Many blacks did the same,
the 9th and 10th Cavalry, the 54th Massachusetts, and others. Were we
perfect? Was racism and other prejudice still around? Sure it was, but
within the prejudice, there were unseen signs of love and caring. The
underground railroad and other things. This was agape at it's best. We read
in history the many sacrifices others made for the benefit of others.
Risking death, hunger, ridicule, etc. not for themselves, but for others.
Today, that seems to be gone. Oh, we 'hear' about caring for others,
'celebrating diversity' etc., but the reality is that agape has been
replaced……by eros.
Love is a word tossed around fast and furious today. But what kind of
love?
Agape is often called Christian love. A totally selfless love, which
seeks not one's own advantage but only to benefit or share with another.
(ref. Agape; Modern Catholic Dictionary; Fr. Hardon)
Agape is what we saw with the poor Catholic neighborhoods. Agape is what
we saw when, though not necessarily liked, blacks and others were given
shelter, hidden, etc. to safeguard them from hateful attack.
But today, Eros holds sway. Though many of us think of Eros as only the
sexually erotic, it goes beyond just that.
It's a possessive, selfish love. One that seeks it's own benefit instead
of others. It's acquisitive love on whatever plane of self satisfaction the
person has. (Ibid) Yes, sex is part of that, as is the love of money, food,
even learning and art. Among other things.
On a recent "Today Show" a guest said how the pill liberated us from
sexual convention. True, to a point, since there have always been methods of
artificial birth control. But the pill was fast and easy. Now one could
engage in sexual activity without caring for the person you were having sex
with (and it didn't even need to be your spouse) since the consequences of
that 'choice' were easily avoided.
"Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on
which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to
reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let
them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up
towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much
experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that
men-especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point-have need of
encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be
offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared
that the man, growing used to the employment of anticonceptive practices, may
finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and
psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere
instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved
companion" (Humanae Vitae, Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth
Control; #17).
Sex, as a blessed and wonderful gift of God to express our love for our
spouses (giving oneself entirely to them) by which God brings new life into
the world, has become debased. Sex as recreation. One fellow wrote me that
sex is fun, ergo, it's ok, and not a sin. Even a modicum of reasoning could
see that that logic would also mean that pedophilia is not a sin since its
'fun' for the pedophile and other 'fetishes' I don't care to get into.
Things that even the most militant sexual libertine would say is wrong. But
if its not wrong for them, why not for the others with 'diverse' tastes and
orientations?
But the error goes even deeper. Under the socially acceptable cover of
'choice' we see this Eros becoming the presiding love.
The woman who 'chooses' to engage in sexual contact outside of marriage
is liable to get pregnant, even with condoms, the pill, etc. (That's why
abortion is a necessary part of artificial contraception) to 'save' her
career, her lifestyle, her figure, whatever, she 'chooses' abortion. The
child doesn't matter. If it impairs her wants and desires, it's a parasite
to be eliminated. We won't mention that at least 50% of these aborted
children must be females deprived of their 'right to choose'.
Why would anyone feel it's ok for a child to pay for anothers mistake?
What 'crime' has the unborn committed?
Not only are bizarre reasons given to justify this (it cuts down on
crime, helps the environment, etc.) we even see schools and the media
contributing to the establishment of Eros as the primary love. Sex is
healthy, sex is good. A colleague of Dr. Kinsey once wrote that 'sex before
eight was too late.' Recently, the American Psychiatric Association said
that children abused by homosexuals showed no psychiatric damage wahtsoever.
(I wonder how it is that heterosexual abuse hurts them but homosexual abuse
doesn't?) We see television showing all sorts of 'living arrangements' as
acceptable. On Friends, just as an example, we saw one marriage destroyed
when Ross' wife ran off with her lesbian lover (Isn't that funny!) Ross,
since then, has slept with at least four other women, including Rachel,
another star of the show. Monica has been with at least three. Recently, she's
found 'love' with Chandler. In fact, most of the situation comedies revolve
around the sexual practices of their stars. Goebels (Nazi Propaganda
Minister) found that comedy was an effective means to 'teach' the new German
mentality.
In these shows, the only people who are celibate are that because 1)
they're obnoxious, or 2) ignorant.
In fact, go to a Planned Parenthood, or Sex Ed meeting and propose
abstinance until marriage to curb sexually transmitted diseases and teen
pregnancy and you're likely to be laughed out of the meeting for
if you disagree with the 'norm' of the times, chances are you
will be isolated, ridiculed, etc.
"It has been left to the very latest Modernists to proclaim an erotic
religion which at once exalts lust and forbids fertility . . . The new
priests abolish the fatherhood and keep the feast - to themselves."
{The Well and the Shallows, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1935, p. 233}
It's been shown that if a person engages in pre-marital sex , the odds are
that they will continue to do so even after marriage. After all, it's just
sex. (Or sex with their spouse is boring and they need 'spice'.)
If one looks at even the issue of women priests, we'd see the real issue
underlying their 'indignation'. (It has to be noted that even the WOC
[Women's Ordination Committee] has said that their aim is not to have women
priests. Rather, coupled with the argument is attached to langauge of
'women's issues'. These issues, in fact, is the issue of abortion and
artificial contraception.
But this 'worship of sex' goes beyond just the person's personal life.
It has crept into our national, and international, policy.
"Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in
the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies.
Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of
the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the
solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even
imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the
method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a
way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties
encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of
placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most
personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy." (Humanae Vitae,
Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control; #17)
Once, we were outraged by China's one child policy and the fact that some
in India will kill a child if it's a girl. Yet, recently, we hear people in
the US advocating the same policy since 'even the reduction of families to
two children is causing an alarming increase in the world's population'.
"The fact is, the world does not have an overpopulation problem. We do
have problems of food distribution and massive political, economic, and
social justice problems. We do have a problem with a lack of technological
development in what are generally called the "developing" countries. But the
world is not overpopulated! This "problem" is simply Planned Parenthood's way
of pushing its eugenics agenda without having to use the term." (Deadly
Deception; Human Life International; confirmed by the Population Research
Institute)
We can confirm this simply by reviewing the agenda of the Cairo Conference.
Poverty in many Third World nations is not due to large families, but rather
a lack of resources. Health care is almost non-existent. The wages received
for their labor is often negligible, and often times, comes from US
corporations with a profit margin much larger than their nations' Gross
National Product.
The Cairo Conference hoped to 'eradicate' poverty and over-population via
'family planning' and 'reproductive health programs'.
"First is the area of poverty alleviation and eradication through suitable
reproductive health programmes, including family planning and sexual health
... [and] in the area of research into linkages between population, migration
and urban growth and their implication for human settlements." (Coordination
and Cooperation Within the U.N. System in the Implementation of the Habitat
Agenda; 15 January 1996)
Doctors in Africa have closets and drawers full of condoms and birth
control pills, but hardly ever any penicillin. Has anyone ever heard the UN,
the US, or anyone else, propose raising their standard of living? Sending
money to build business? Productive farms? No, because that would mean we
may not be able to sustain what we have. Not to mention that their exports
would then also cost more.
All in all, the claims and rationalizations of groups like Planned
Parenthood and others are, at best, misinformed, at worst, down right lies.
The facts are that abortion has nothing to do with the drop in crimes
reported. The facts are that they don't save money. The facts are that
birth control doesn't reduce the need for abortions, in fact, it demands it.
The facts are that it doesn't reduce teen pregnancy, nor does it 'liberate'
the woman. In fact, it makes the woman even more of an object of sexual
enjoyment than before.
In fact, Planned Parenthood and pro-choice rhetoric has more in common with
the eugenics policies of Nazi Germany than anyone realises.
"Today eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most
adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social
problems.
"I think you must agree ... that the campaign for birth control is not
merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of
eugenics ... Birth control propaganda is thus the entering wedge for the
eugenic educator.
"As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the
unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the
greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the
inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this
matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the
feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should
not be held up for emulation.
"On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and
discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."
(Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda."
Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.)
Is it any wonder than many (Planned Parenthood among them) advocated
forcing welfare mothers to either accept sterilization or birth control
implants before receiving any assistance?
"Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying ...
demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism ...
[Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the
world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of
others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight
of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks
that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends
to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying for, and even
submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class
of human beings who never should have been born at all."
( Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on "The
Cruelty of Charity," pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library
edition.)
"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My
brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40).
However, if you happen to oppose the views of today's 'intellectual elite',
chances are you will be ridiculed, ostracized, and maybe even imprisoned as a
danger to society.
"Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile
you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice
in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven;
for so their fathers did to the prophets… 'Woe to you, when all men speak
well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets' " (Luke 6:22-23;
26).
"I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away. They will put
you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you
will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they
have not known the Father, nor Me. But I have said these things to you, that
when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them" (John 16:1-4).
" Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a
playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure
of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of
some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's
edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place
the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked
peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends
returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island;
and their song had ceased."
{Orthodoxy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1908, p. 145}
Eros over Agape, anyone or anything which gets in the way of personal
satisfaction, must be eliminated. Is it any wonder anti-Catholicism is on
the rise? Even within the Church?
Pax Christi, Pat