“These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” said Kathleen Sebelius, the [Roman Catholic] secretary of health and human services.“Insurance Coverage for Contraception is Required,” New York Times, Aug. 1, 2011.
To quote a marketing campaign from the late 1960s, we have come a long way, baby. In a short period of little more than fifty years, artificial contraception has been transformed. As late as 1965, artificial contraception was legally prohibited by many states. On August 1, 2011, artificial contraception is not only legally tolerated, the citizenry of the United States -- at the coercive direction of the federal government -- are forced to subsidize this evil through shared insurance premium increases.
What is comical are the laudatory comments made by Secretary Sebelius that “these historic guidelines” are “based on science” and “ensure woman get preventative health benefits they need.” Truly, just pondering these few words for a moment makes one’s head want to explode in a paroxysm of maddening confusion. What scientific maxim requires the commonweal to pool its resources to provide certain citizens with devices or chemicals designed solely to frustrate nature’s design? What application of the scientific method demonstrated the validity of this notion? Why should the resources of the community “ensure” that women get “health benefits” that cures neither illness nor disease? When are these devices or chemicals ever “need[ed]” when we know that fertility is a gift and not a debilitation, and, further, that abstinence is only fool proof method of avoiding both sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy?
Of course, “science” does not dictate that I pay for my neighbor’s wife’s or daughter’s decision to intentionally and artificially frustrate the natural functioning of their bodies. And it goes without saying that contraception is to health care what bulimia is to dieting. At least with respect to the latter, the poor bulimic suffers from a mental illness that is informed by a poor self image and anxiety. Coincidentally -- or not coincidentally -- both contraception and bulimia are modern problems, for the most part, of women that largely came into existence at the time of their great liberation from the patriarchal yoke of yesteryear.
What Secretary Sebelius means by these words is that the United States Government is imposing a secular moral view that contraception, i.e., the intentional and artificial avoidance of pregnancy by mechanical means, is a “good” of such capital importance that it deserves to be subsidized by all citizens’ labor (i.e., their money). Make no mistake, the only thing science has to do with the Obama Administration’s decision to mandate universal free contraception is that contraception is sometimes effective in avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. We could also say “abortions” are “based on science” in much the same way. After all, abortion, i.e., the intentionally killing of a child in utero, is scientifically proven to result in death. Indeed, abortion administered by a doctor is (almost) always effective in achieving its morbid goal. Who knows -- perhaps such sophistry will be used to justify universally tax-payer financed abortions shortly.
How far have we fallen? The rapidity of the moral collapse of the United States is astounding. Consider for a moment the great Old Testament prophet Isaias: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” (Prophecy Of Isaias (Isaiah); 5:20.), Truly, we have a complete moral inversion. An inescapable law of history teaches to anyone paying attention that morally inverted societies collapse and ours is not immune from this truism. In every measure of community, the moral fabric of the United States is torn asunder and turned on its head. From the promotion of legal infanticide to the criminalizing of peaceful assemblies of citizens protesting this same crime against children; from the proliferation of so-called same-sex marriage to the economic and political persecution of those who denounce homosexual acts as sinful; and from the ubiquitous availability of obscene pornography in any American hotel or library to the banning of prayer at public ceremonies. It is no wonder -- indeed, none at all -- that a society that redefines good as evil and evil as good to such an extent also experiences -- in simultaneity -- an economic calamity. Only economists (and modernists) fail to see the connection between communal morality and economic well being. If there is one irony in the timing of the “historic” (albeit morally bankrupt) announcement of Secretary Sebelius regarding artificial contraception it is that it came on the same day that Congress and the Obama Administration were debating on the best method to raise the so-called “debt ceiling” for continued borrowing by the United States beyond its means. The symmetry between moral and economic bankruptcy was never clearer.
Holy Mother Church has taught from time immemorial that artificial contraception is a grave evil. Her predictions that societies that embraced it would suffer from the increase of fornication, adultery, homosexuality, the breakup of the family, and social and economic upheaval were positively prophetic. Contraception is the drug (pardon the pun) that allows this modernist dystopia to lumber along -- if only for a short while longer before it implodes. Contraception is also the social ill that will make it increasingly impossible for faithful Catholic men, as single breadwinners, to support their large (and non-contracepted) families. No one “innovation” has done more widespread social damage than the universal availability of contraception. We know many things about our Lord from the Gospel, but one attribute that we readily know is that he loved children. How fitting is it that our culture, which embraces so many demonic ideas, lavishes praise upon those devices and practices that either prevent or kill children. If only our current bishops would act -- as opposed to offering gentle remonstrances -- in the face of these great social evils. One small step might be the excommunication of Secretary Sebelius for her contribution to pervasiveness of this evil -- for both her good and ours.
If my analysis of our situation is correct, the announcement of Secretary Sebelius will be soon remembered another grim milestone on our nation’s road to perdition. Our commitment to that ruinous end now seems irreversible. The only remedy left is to pray and raise our children to prepare for coming persecutions.
God save us all.
3 comments:
Alas, Paenitet, I cannot speak with the authority that you command on the subject of "chemicals designed solely to frustrate nature’s design" or of "faithful Catholic men, as single breadwinners, to support their large (and non-contracepted) families". But I will share with you some observations.
Primo. My mother always said that if men had the first baby, there would never be a second. My mother certainly embodied love, compassion, teaching and generosity in a way that your Holy Mother Church never did; she worked for us, provided for us, clothed us, stayed up nights for us, loved us. No priest ever made the effort to come round our housing estate and teach us that "that artificial contraception is a grave evil", or anything else for that matter, let alone help with the chores, visit us when we were sick, comfort us when we were ill. By their works shall ye know them. So I believe my mother on that score.
Secundo. How do you manage to get "large families" into the same sentence as "non-contracepted" and make it an evil? Surely the Catholic Church's repudiation of contraception can only lead to large families? Contraception leads to smaller families. Bit of a non-sequitur, I feel.
Finally, on the subject of frustrating nature's design. When I had measles, nature's design for me was frustrated by the judicious use of penicillin. And later, by the application of spectacles. An operation under anaesthetic. And later still, my life was enhanced by the invention of the mobile phone, and the computer, devices that magnify beyond belief nature's endowment of voice and brainpower. My car did many more miles for me than my poor legs ever could have. Perhaps you had better cut all these devices out of your life, since they are such evils. Better still, stick to interpreting God's design rather than nature's, and let's hope you get that right.
I agree wholeheartedly with N. Salfranc!
If God did not want us to progress, he wouldn't have given us the massive brains that we have. Now that fear of persecution, torture and murder has been removed from the equation, intelligent people can be open about their views re the validity of a Book that has been written, re-written and altered to suit the purposes of the writers or rulers of the time.
We each must find our own truth, since nobody is pure enough or erudite enough to write an unbiased report of stories originally told at least 300 years after the death of Christ. We all know how stories are manipulated, exaggerated or even abridged by word of mouth, not to mention any media available at that moment in time.
I would like to add that on the subject of homosexuality and much, much worse, pedophilia, Catholic priests cannot, honestly, be the ones to 'throw the first stone', since they themselves are in a very fragile glass house!
Holy Mother Church is a gift from the living God. Her laws are eternal and divine. To N. Salfranc -- you compare measles to fertility; there is no retort to that. Fertility is no disease.
People will always make excuses for not following God's law and His Church. They always will. As it began with Satan's retort that he would not serve, so it continues today with fallen man.
We either conform ourselves to God's truth or we live a lie. I choose the Savior. I choose God. I choose His Church. Makes excuses all you want for why you reject His Church -- but you are diminished on account thereof.
Post a Comment