Reversing the Trend

I live in the city with the fewest children in America. San Francisco has the lowest child to adult ratio of any American city, but one of the highest canine to human ratios. There are 110,000 children and 120,000 dogs in my city (the doggies “fill the streets and parks, the outdoor cafés and shops … keep appointments with their masseurs and acupuncturists … sit for portraits and for readings with their astrologers….” according to Michael Mason in a 2006 National Geographic article). More dogs than children.

Running a city parish can be mighty discouraging. The Masses are mostly empty, and those that actually make it to Mass struggle with the burdens of advanced age, some in wheelchairs and many with canes. Anyone looking at the average city parish from the outside would say the Church is dying because very few are having children. A family came to the 11:00 Mass this morning with six children, and they radiated throughout the huge empty church like the sun. I met them after Mass: “Oh, we don’t live in San Francisco—could never afford it. We’re on vacation.”

Fifty years ago the Church said that if we accept a contraceptive mentality, we will have fewer children. If we have fewer children, we will become more selfish. If we become more selfish, we will become more desperately sad. I live in a city of unparalleled natural and historical beauty that is desperately sad.

There is a reason they call it “birth control.” It is an attempt to control human generation, to control our species at its very core, to control nature at its essential genesis. Mother Nature, and Nature’s God, however, will not be controlled, and we priests need to reassure our people that we can trust nature and nature’s God even with our sexual lives.

Zoltan Istvan writes in a Huffington Post article on transhumanism: “In vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, and cytoplastic donation are changing the way we mate and build families…many babies in America will be designer children, with genetic traits, sex, and emotional tendencies picked out ahead of time… men will be able to give birth to children….” In China the new elite pay up to $250,000 to buy a child with their own DNA and choice of gender, which usually means a male, which means several female babies have to be thrown out before they get a little boy. Thus the wealthy convince themselves that they have “control,” at the expense of many other human lives.

It’s an old story, and a sad story. But almost all the confusion about sexual and human identity began with our acceptance of birth “control” fifty years ago. Which means that we can reverse the trend, if we want to. We priests have a large part to play in this drama. Our nerve failed in 1968, but we can return to the contest in 2014. We can help correct the crazy tilt by correcting the very concept of “birth control.” We can teach that humans are stewards, not owners, of their very lives, including their sexuality and fertility. It is not too late to teach this fundamental truth to our people.

CANFP is one organization teaching this essential truth, and providing resources to help us do the same. I took out a membership for my new parish as soon as I arrived. It’s an outfit worth supporting.