CNA Staff, Sep 26, 2024 / 16:55 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said in a recent interview that Pope Francis wants Europe to rediscover its founding principles in order to approach problems — including a looming “demographic winter” caused by low birth rates — with “a forward-looking spirit of solidarity.”
Speaking to Vatican Media the day before Pope Francis’ departure on a trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, Parolin said without the virtue of hope and the deep conviction of God’s help in our lives, “every difficulty, though real, will seem magnified, and selfish impulses will have greater free rein to impose themselves.” He said the Catholic Church and state actors have a responsibility to support families and allow them to give of themselves generously.
“I believe that to counter the dramatic decline in birth rates, a series of actions by distinct actors are necessary and urgent. The Church, states, and intermediate organizations should all become aware of the importance — I would dare say ‘vital’ importance — of this issue and intervene with a series of measures that should be well coordinated, if possible,” Parolin said.
Care must be taken to “carefully [listen] to families to identify their real needs and provide them with help, impacting the concreteness of their lives in order to remove various obstacles to the generous acceptance of new life,” the cardinal said.
Global fertility has been falling for decades, with the problem often most acute in industrialized nations with higher standards of living, even while the fertility rates in many developing nations with strained resources, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to climb. Many of the world’s most developed countries are well below the “replacement rate” of fertility — generally about 2.1 births per woman over her lifetime — needed to keep a population stable, according to data gathered by the World Bank.
This is not the first time Parolin has addressed the possibility of a “demographic winter” — a dramatic and highly consequential shrinking of population caused by low birth rates. He did so in 2021 in a speech in France where he similarly urged the continent to rediscover its Christian roots.
Pope Francis has himself in the past described the low number of births as “a figure that reveals a great concern for tomorrow.” He has criticized what he describes as the “social climate in which starting a family has turned into a titanic effort, instead of being a shared value that everyone recognizes and supports.”
Francis in 2022 also described cratering fertility rates as a “social emergency,” arguing that while the crisis was “not immediately perceptible, like other problems that occupy the news,” it is nevertheless “very urgent” insofar as low birth rates are “impoverishing everyone’s future.”
‘Europe greatly needs to rediscover its roots’
Parolin in his remarks this week asserted that the people of Europe have largely forgotten “the immense calamities of the past,” especially the 30 years leading up to the end of World War II, and run the risk of “falling back into the tragic errors of those times.”
“While in 1945, European peoples were propelled toward a future that could only be imagined as better than the past, today they seem to view the future as an entirely unknown time or even worse than the recent past. This way of thinking affects the very capacity to embrace life and spreads a climate of resignation where hope does not dwell,” Parolin said, referring to spirits of “populism, polarization, and fear” that are on the rise in Europe.
“The Church, ‘experienced in humanity,’ and therefore the Holy Father employ the language of responsibility, moderation, and warning of the risks that can befall if dangerous paths are taken, condemning the most perilous errors. For this reason, such language does not lend itself to easy simplification and does not always present immediate solutions,” the cardinal continued.
“However, the Holy Father’s words originate from the Gospel and are always words of wisdom. They are realistic, as the Gospel is realistic, which does not promise paradise without the cross.”
Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, has shaped the history of Europe in its “cathedrals, universities, art, the development of its institutions, and a thousand other aspects,” Parolin said. The decision to exclude any mention of God in the current European Constitution leads, he said, to “the exacerbation of a certain confusion that does not help in building the European project.”
“Indeed, to find the strength for a new leap that allows reaching new and important goals, overcoming ever-resurgent selfishness, Europe greatly needs to rediscover its roots. If it intends to be a voice that is heard and authoritative in today’s world and if it wants to overcome exhausting impasses, it needs to rediscover the greatness of the values that inspired it, values well known to the founders of modern Europe,” Parolin said.
Pope Francis during his ongoing trip will greet royal leaders, prime ministers, professors and students, and Catholics in the two small historically Christian countries of Luxembourg and Belgium, both of which are experiencing steep declines in religious adherence amid the spread of secularization.
After events in Luxembourg today, the pope’s four-day trip will continue in Belgium, where he will visit three cities to mark the 600th anniversary of the Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve before returning to Rome on Sept. 29.
Parolin, who described the Holy Father as a “pilgrim of hope,” said he hopes the pope’s visit “provides an opportunity for a profound reflection on Europe and on the way the Church exists in Europe today.”
“I hope it will be a moment in which believers and nonbelievers have the opportunity to listen to the words of the successor of St. Peter and to compare their way of being and acting in the world with the invitation that comes from the Gospel,” he concluded.
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“[Pope Francis] has criticised what he calls ‘the social climate in which starting a family has turned into a titanic effort, instead of being a shared value that everyone recognizes and supports'”.
Yep, we live in an anti-child, anti-family culture.
So then why the war on traditional Mass parishes? The most vital, by far, of all Catholic parishes? These communities provide resources and a network and society that encourages large families. So, respectfully, Pope Francis, you should put your money where your mouth is.
The community is probably one of the most important things that is needed. Unless someone grew up in a large family, which is increasingly rare, the parents probably don’t know what they need, and in any case most have neither the time nor the skill to advocate for changes to provide it. A supportive network of many others at different stages of raising kids can provide the knowledgeable support they need. Solidarity and subsidiarity.
Trad parishes have that, because they have a strong tendency to follow the rules regarding contraception. Infertility still exists, but that has a far smaller effect on demographics than contraception has.
If he is so concerned about the family, why is Bergoglio constantly promoting and approving homosexuality? His words are meaningless and hypocritical when his deeds directly and continuously contradict them.
Life is a precious gift. We are all here because of the good intentions of our dear parents. Long live the memory of their heroic deeds of sacrifice, love, and concern.
Re K. Staahl above – “These [TLM] communities provide resources and a network and society that encourages large families.”
In other words, they are counter-cultural.
Ergo, obvious conclusion, Pope Francis is not the best example of a coherent thinker.
Are we to breed like rabbits? If we had affordable Catholic schools and colleges raising a family would be much less stressful. Instead our Church bankrupts itself spending billions of parishioners money on the sins of perverts. Where did all those devoted nuns go post VatII? By their fruits you shall know them. By the fruits in Rome?
The Church in Europe has given tacit approval for decades to contraception if not in practice. The Pope has not weighed the moderations and cautions that have accelerated the demographic winter of cultural Europe by unprecedented immigration . He has encouraged the development of a new cultural identity in Europe through rapid and unconditional immigration. Parolin has no authority to speak out unless it is to beg forgiveness for not following his own advice. Pitiful.
“However, the Holy Father’s words originate from the Gospel and are always words of wisdom. They are realistic, as the Gospel is realistic, which does not promise paradise without the cross.”
Medieval philosophers and theologians of all religious traditions were realists. Their motto could be translated into the Aristotelian-Thomistic aphorism, “I exist, therefore I am.”
Most modern philosophies since the “Enlightenment” have attacked reason in a dozen different ways and exalted authority instead—the authority of ideology, or politics, or the passions, or power.
Religious Nominalists thought they could maximize religion by eliminating the natural law, and the nonreligious Nominalists thought they could minimize religion by eliminating the divine law.
Later, in the 20th century, philosopher Augusto Del Noce and historian Ernst Nolte offered an original interpretation of history. They described the period beginning in 1917 as the “age of secularization,” a result of the crisis of values that arose in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. This era was divided into two phases: the sacral phase, dominated by religious nominalisms and the “secular and millenarian religions” of communism, National Socialism, and, to a certain extent, fascism; and the profane phase, dominated by secular nominalisms, represented by the affluent society, characterized by scientism and the expansion of atheism.
This society was shaped by the “third culture,” which emphasized instrumental reason and the will to power (“I will, therefore I am”), more irreligious even than communist atheism, having triumphed on the very battleground of materialism where communism once stood. The new adversary of faith in the post-Marxist era is glimpsed in a time when the relativization of all ideals converges with a technocratic worldview.
The currently most fashionable philosophy in the humanities is, in fact, postmodernism or deconstructionism whose sworn enemy is what they call logos centrism. Logos, being the Greek word for intelligible reality, truth, means universal nature or essence and any words that claim to express that. And that is a logically self-contradictory philosophy. But they no longer believe in logic. Logic is logocentric, so is Christianity which identifies the logos with Christ: “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God and the Logos became flesh.” So anti-logocentrism is really anti-Christo-centrism or the philosophy of the Antichrist.
In a summary, the first secularization was imposed after the French Revolution. Max Weber wrote unforgettable pages about the first secularization, marked by the aphorism that says: “Etsi Deus non daretur”—in the public sphere, one must act “as if God did not exist.” The slogan of the second secularization, however, is: “Etsi communitas non daretur”—”as if the community did not exist.” Today’s slogan is “I want, therefore I am” (“Volo, ergo sum”), meaning “I am what I want.”
In his 1,800-page history of philosophy, the post-metaphysical thinker Jürgen Habermas, in a surprising alignment with Pope John Paul II’s encyclical *Fides et Ratio*, describes the relationship between faith and reason as the defining theme of Western culture, and by extension, of world civilization today. For the fate of humanity, the relationship between reason and faith is more important than the “Green Deal” or the “woke movement.”
The immense work of St. Thomas Aquinas stands as a refutation and surpassing of Gnosticism, which, through its Cartesian metaphysical dualism, deprives humanity of any prospect of communion with God in truth and love, delivering us instead into deconstructionism, nihilism, Manichaeism, and contempt for the “flesh” (euthanasia, abortion, eugenics).
All biblical theologies begin with the absolute goodness of creation and the body, in which God reveals Himself as both the origin and the goal. Everything that exists, by participating in the being and life of God, is in itself *unum, verum et bonum* (one, true, and good). And in the cross of Jesus, God does not reveal a natural contradiction between Himself and the world—as insinuated by the Gnosticism of Luther and Hegel. Rather, in the cross of Jesus, we find the forgiveness of sins and the beginning of the redeemed world in the nuptial unity of Christ and the Church, in anticipation of the New Creation.
In Christianity, there is no room for Nominalisms, fatalism, or nihilism.
The United States has led the way to create a global economy that greatly benefits the super-rich. Today, the priority for people is money—-we worship money and materials. Our contribution to the global economy is to be a consumer. Women are needed in the workforce, cheap energy is needed to transport materials, and our military is huge and deadly to protect the global economy (we excel at creating deadly weapons). Money is more important than living the “Teachings of Christ”. Money is more important than having children. The world worships money and children have become an afterthought. The United States is not a Christian Nation—-but we are good at making money and deadly weapons.
All of the major economies will end up crashing because of over-contraception. The U.S. may be the only one that remains strong because of immigration. But it needs to be properly controlled (which is something Canada seems to lack the political will to implement). The abuse of the asylum system and birthright citizennship in the US needs to be addressed but so does the reactionary nativist bigotry against immigrants.
Catholics need to embrace the middle way of St. Thomas.
Where do we as a Church find the justification to express alarm over the plummeting birth rate, the disappearance of Christian Europe when the Vatican has pressed in strongest terms the presumed justice of unlawful migration, the equivalent of hostile invasion overwhelming national services displacing citizens, while similarly questioning the prohibition against contraception, regaling notorious abortionists with praise and Vatican medallions? It calls for a reversal of policy not platitude.
Writing from the United Kingdom, I can say with confidence that the UK is hopelessly overpopulated, where children and family homes are unaffordable. Not so the United States, which is too big to be overpopulated if it tried to be.
I have family in the UK and what you observe about the price of housing is correct however much of Britain is undeveloped land. I think the BBC had an article showing the very small percentage of land in the UK that’s actually built upon.
Of course you need agricultural land and open spaces too but the UK is not over populated. Especially in the north. If there were less restrictions on building affordable housing you might see some change. Perhaps the traveling people have the right solution with their caravans.
🙂
There’s a key difference between having too many people, and having people crammed together in a way – or a system – that cannot support a good life.
Nothing in the UK has a population density on the level of Manila, or even Tokyo. The most densely populated section of London (Tower Hamlets) is significantly less dense than the most densely populated sections of New York City (Guttenberg, Union City, West New York).
What the US has, is an effective income (meaning including welfare payments and I believe adjusted for pricing) at the lowest tier that is approximately equivalent to the median European income. That tends to be related to economic freedom, and also to higher population – it’s people who make money, and it’s people who are free to think independently and work together that overcome obstacles to a better life. Aging demographics do not tend to innovate.
“Overpopulation” is looking at the solution as if it were the problem.
Michael do statistics indicate that UK overpopulation is at least in part due to legal immigration + migration? Insofar as US capacity in context of territory the actual problem is sufficient facilities in urban as well as rural areas to sufficiently address the population growth. The vast majority of illegal immigrants flock to large urban centers like NYC and LA where the situation is virtually out of control.
Konstantin Kisin has observed that an appropriate measure of the benefits/disbenefits of immigration is not total Gross Domestic Product, (which puts us seventh in the international league table), but GDP per capita.
I recently observed that the seventh wealthiest country by GDP per capita is San Marino. I calculated that, if you divide UK GDP by San Marino’s GDP per capita, you find that the population of the UK would have to fall to 40 million in order to equalise UK GDP per capita with that of San Marino.
A factor which goes to the matter that the UK is overpopulated and will become even more so in the future is the Labour government’s maniacal obsession with Net Zero – we are dismantling our fossil fuel industries and can expect to revert to pre-industrial living standards last seen when the population of the UK was 10 million.
We read: “Pope Francis has himself in the past described the low number of births as ‘a figure that reveals a great concern for tomorrow’.”
Indeed, existential “concern for tomorrow,” as from discredited Enlightenment rationalism in two wrenching world wars; as from the hopelessness of societal gradualism/superficial progressivism (“time is greater than space”?); as from Carl Sagan’s “nuclear winter” in the 1980’s and now Cardinal Parolin’s “demographic winter;” as from ideological disdain for foundations (“backwardism”?); and as in the modernday idolatry of Technocracy including demographic-winter pills of all sorts.
In addition to “selfishness,” then, also much uncertainty in the air! Even climate change!
One “concrete action” toward hope, from the perennial Catholic Church—”experienced in humanity,” and therefore upholder of moral absolutes divinely gifted into otherwise-forlorn persons and humanity as a whole (the Decalogue, Humanae Vitae, Veritatis Splendor)–might be a blessing of real families.
Rather than (!), say, the now ersatz blessing of cohabitation and other “irregular” couples—as “couples.” Especially including anti-binary “couples,” all under Fiducia Supplicans marketed on Vatican letterhead.
Surely such a civilizational clarification can be a late topic for the October Synod on Synodality (say what?), or maybe another “hot-button theme” for the now fifteen post-synodal “study groups”?
Statistically speaking, the World’s population started to shrink in 1968. Even the anti-people UN acknowledges a vast collapse of population is fast coming on the world. By 2500 we will have gone from 10 billion people to about 2 or 3, and we will still be collapsing with no basis for recovery. Only girls between 14 and 44 have children and they are fast becoming fewer and fewer. The world is made up of a swelling percentage of old people like me. The implications of this are staggering. If anyone wants descendants to be part of the population in 2125, they better throw away their ‘Not For Propagation’ mentality and live the married life God intends for us.
From all I have researched the decline in world population is caused by several issues. They are not listed by importance, but the world economy and the environment may be on top.
1) Increasing infertility rates: The health of women of childbearing age seems to be more prevalent.
2) The environment: Our food is more contaminated by pesticides than ever causing a depletion of nutrients critical to fertility and pregnancy success. Monsanto has increased the sales of their insect plant spray. EPA: The health effects of pesticides depend on the type of pesticide. Some, such as the organophosphates and carbamates, affect the nervous system. Others may irritate the skin or eyes. Some pesticides may be carcinogens. Others may affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body.
https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-science-and-assessing-pesticide-risks/human-health-issues-related-pesticides
3) The economy: Many women are deferring motherhood because they need to work. Today, the cost of living has risen so much that buying a home is beyond reach. Or, they must attend to the care of their parents because they cannot afford elder care help.
4) Political turmoil: If I were a woman of childbearing age today, I would not watch TV. Social Media or Fox News and other bully platforms with the power of a lie. The enormous impact of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East showing mass murders of mothers and innocent children, and our US Capitol being destroyed by political criminals.
5) The barren couple: Catholic and evangelical restrictions on IVF are understood. The issue is IVF cannot replace the conjugal act. They compare IVF to abortion. However, there is evidence that most Christian couples having difficulty conceiving use IVF.
We now have a class of childless women called Democratic-influenced “cat women”. Another combative all-inclusive statement from a downward-spiraling politician. He overlooked politically neutral celibate women religious.
Pray that God will shed his grace on us.