Contraception & Pope Francis' Insistence On The Essential Need To Redistribute Wealth

NONE OF THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS WILL BE SOLVED

WITHOUT ATTACKING THE STRUCTURAL CAUSES OF INEQUALITY 

Pope Francis

***

Dear Mary,

Thanks for your email.

It is possible Pope Francis will pronounce on the permissibility of artificial contraception.

However, he has had such success just "dropping (traditional) hot potatoes" as his way of shifting the debate to the essential importance of behaviors and policies that prioritize a "preferential option for the poor" that I think it more likely he will continue down this same path, trusting that newly-empowered Catholics will simply decide to bypass formal church teaching on artificial contraception. 

Benign neglect of contraceptive teaching in Catholic countries like Spain, France and Italy is so widespread that birth rates are now perilously low.

Even in "2nd world countries" like Mexico, a typical woman now gives birth to about 2.5 children as opposed to 6 plus which was the "norm" when I first visited in '67. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN

The situation is kin to the sin of usury - for centuries a repugnant mortal sin.

Then, Capitalism prevailed and the church aligned with The New Economic Model by no longer inveighing against usury even though it "remained on the books."

"We Have Multiplied And Filled The Earth. 
What Now For Natural Law?"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/03/we-have-multiplied-and-filled-earth.html

Here is a recent survey of Catholic attitudes on contraception and other sex/gender issues. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/09/catholics-church-contraception-abortion-survey

By my lights, American liberalism committed a linchpin error by replacing FDR's single-minded focus on economics with sex and gender issues.

Sure, sex and gender issues are important.

But economics is so foundational to the underpinnings of everything that by "following the money"  -- to the relative exclusion of other issues -- we are most likely to implement fundamental changes that "automatically" re-align subsidiary issues.

I am appending several quotations to spotlight the pope's pit-bull tenacity on issues of economic equality and resource re-distribution.

Pax tecum

Alan

P.S. It is remarkable that, "out of the blue," this man towers over every other political "leader" on the world stage.

Weighed down by the debts of Capitalism “a new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules"
Pope Francis
Excerpt: 84-page document

"Not to share with the poor is to steal."
Pope Francis

On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 7:44 PM, MDH wrote:

Alan, I'm waiting for Pope Francis to make the connection between poverty and the contraceptive issue.  Do you think he will?

   Just finished reading (belatedly, I'll admit)  Alan Gurganus's Plays Well With Others.  Love these quotes regarding Paradise:

 "Our ranks  are comprised solely of seeming nonbelievers who somehow found ways to live believingly."

and this:

"...God is best seen refracted among the varieties of human character."

Thanks for all the good stuff you fwd.

MDH.