The hatred Satan has for every one of us is a sad mirror image of the love God has for each of us. The greatest success Satan has had since World War II is making childlessness fashionable, and to separate sex in human minds from its procreative purpose. CS Lewis saw this coming:
“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in it’s healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which he has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better Style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return-that is what really gladdens Our Father’s Heart.”
CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
We have been fearing these doom stories for a long time now. The problem isn’t population numbers but how populations are managed within cities. Humans inhabit a very small percentage of the earths surface.
No species on God’s earth chooses to reduce its species numbers deliberately, except humans.
I don’t think childlessness is fashionable, at least in this country. The trouble is that people are less open to having children because they have lower risk tolerance. A more severe problem is that the lives of the young are so disordered and their approach to life so dilatory that they haven’t time for more than two before it is too late.
==
We should pause before taking on Musk’s brand of pronatalism, which is anything but Catholic. Sex can be separated from procreation not only through contraception/abortion but also through morally evil technologies such as in vitro fertilization and third party reproduction (surrogacy and sperm donation), all of which Musk advocates for and engages in himself. As Catholics, we must stand for the good of marriage and families by opposing these technologies.
[…] Catholic5. “Luce,” Mascot of Dumbed-Down Catholicism – George Weigel at Denver Catholic6. Extreme Birthrate Collapse – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic7. Why Those in Hell Can Never Leave […]
I haven’t asked, but I believe some shirt tails of ours made use of IVF. Everyone’s physiology is different, but you’re married at 32 you’re much more likely to have the issues which prompt people to use IVF than if you marry at 25. The median age at which one’s first child is born and the median age at which one is married keep marching upward.