The Empty Manger
This year, as every year, the crèche has sat empty of God. The shepherds knelt, the angels sang, the ox and ass and eager lamb looked on, even Joseph and Mary stared down adoringly—at a vacant manger. There was no Infant here. When people knelt before this nativity scene to pray, they closed their eyes, as if averting their gaze from a lovely face that gaped with a missing tooth.
For all the lights and wreaths that have hung since before Thanksgiving, it isn’t Christmas yet—as the good men of the Holy Name Society (who craft the crèche) remind us by withholding the Jesus bambino for four long weeks, until the eve of the feast.
So it goes at Immaculate Conception, the New York City church where I was baptized and grew up helping to construct the nativity scene each year, and where I expect someday to be buried. Each year, through the weeks of Advent, I pass the empty manger and feel a potent twinge at the desolate cradle—a hint, perhaps, of how expectant parents must yearn, and how the Israelites groaned for a Messiah.
The nativity scene remains an exquisite piece of popular pious art—potent enough to keep its hold on our imaginations, amidst the tinsel, the tipsy parties and the toys. Begun by the man his contemporaries called “a second Christ,” St. Francis of Assisi, this custom of assembling wood, or plastic, or papier-mâché to re-present the scene of Jesus’ birth anchors the feast less in the mind than in the heart, reminding all that first and foremost this is a feast of birth.
Of human birth. The God we Christians adore climbed down from the pillar of fire, emerged from the burning bush, to walk among us. He didn’t, like Zeus, impersonate a swan or bull, or like Apollo a golden youth. Instead, He lay down as a helpless infant among the beasts, and placed Himself entirely at our mercy. So likewise would He, one day, lay down His life.
Herein lies a paradox. Because the dominant note in the life of Jesus, for all His tenderness toward sinners and humble victimhood, was not passivity or surrender. He knew Himself the son of kings and Son of God, and so He spoke “as one with authority.” He challenged the men of might and Mammon who’d hijacked their ancestral religion for pride or gain. He displayed a healthy loyalty first to fellow members of His noble, ancient race—but compassion toward foreigners—as with the gentile woman who sought her daughter’s healing:
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matt. 15:24-28)
He rebuked the wind and waves, drove demons out, threatened to tear down Solomon’s temple, then emptied it of moneychangers with a whip of knotted cords. With His life at stake, He displayed neither fear nor fawning—deigning only to speak to the procurator of mighty Rome a few sarcastic words. And death itself, which claimed Him gruesomely, He shook off like an ill-fitting coat, to emerge alive from the underworld—as Byzantine icons wonderfully depict—leading an army of the righteous dead, from Adam to Abraham, Melchizidech to the Maccabees.
Knowing all this, one awaits the Infant with a hint of fear. When the babe is laid at last in the straw, it seems to radiate. The awe on the Wise Men’s faces now makes perfect sense—as if they hear in the Child’s heartbeat the ticking of a clock, which once it stops will blast apart the sinews of the world.
There is something of this power in the birth of any child—for good or ill. Ron Rosenbaum makes much in his eloquent Explaining Hitler of the fascination some feel with photographs of the infant, still-innocent Adolf. Each child who’s born contains within him the seeds of virtues and vices, hard-wired from his ancestors—and a mystic spark of infinitude, his capacity for free will. We can neither pretend that children are born blank slates, nor that they are fully-written scrolls which merely await unrolling. In every child, as in the Christ child, there abides an eternal paradox—which is why the human “sciences” will always remain an expressionist art.
If Mary’s conception of Jesus was miraculous, there’s a smaller wonder abiding in the work of every loving parent. Young women who’ve spent their youths painting and preening to win a mate now pour their strength and beauty into another—neglecting their own needs and ambitions for the sake of this new creature, this wild hazard into the future. Young men increase their toils, take up the burden of long hours and grueling obedience, the better to store up treasure for the benefit of—this baby. This tiny stranger, who shares with them some chromosomes, they trust. The last luxuries of youthful narcissism are burned away in the bonfires of the hearth. Mary and Joseph do not look into a mirror, or even at each other; forgetting all else, they gaze upon the Babe.
So we see in the tame tableau which stands before a hundred thousand American churches, and millions of family homes, the sacrificial mystery in miniature which makes possible human life. It also explains the survival of every race and culture which walked the earth, and the secret to their continuance. Demography is destiny—and the cradle will have its revenge. As Steven Sailor has documented more than once, the growing power of this nation’s “Christian right” can be found in its burgeoning birth-rate, in the fact that men and women in the “red counties” have chosen new life over lifestyle, and progeny over pleasure. They abandon the cultural richness and beauty of cities, and take to the desert—willingly inhabiting the soulless “sprawl” which consumes ever more of our landscape every year. And for what? To shield their offspring from chaos, crime, and corruption. Those of us who cling to the beautiful “blue counties”—with their ethnic restaurants, convenient transit and exquisite, empty churches—will lack the space, the means, or the peace of mind to produce large families. Instead of conceiving and raising children, we talk of breeding tiny clones of ourselves to cannibalize for parts. The present advantage is ours—but we will have no future.
The contrast is ever starker in Christendom’s cradle, Europe. One need not have wept (as I did) while reading Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West to know what is happening; the pansexual hedonists of the Netherlands are now in a panic over their nation’s Islamic future. Even the blasé Parisians have begun to wonder whether their nation’s bureaucratically atheist state is acid enough to dissolve the faith of burgeoning immigrants—before the Arabs outbreed, outvote, and expel the residual Frenchmen. The Germans who a generation ago worshiped their race as a pagan god now look on lackadaisically, and welcome the Turk into Europe. To read their children’s future, they may look to the fate of the Christians in Lebanon, or Kosovo —two other lands where the cradle has had its revenge.
Any healthy creature or culture shows two signs of life: It reproduces itself, and it fights off intruders. The West, for the past generation, has lacked the vigor to undertake either task. But each of us plays a part in this catastrophe—or its reversal. Just as we work to awaken our fellow citizens to an immigration policy which caters to the greed of stingy employers and the graft of politicians, so we can each do our part to win back the future. We can open ourselves to life, accept the myriad sacrifices entailed in parenthood, and embrace just one more child than we had hoped for. There’s a Catholic Web site which implores married to couples to do just this, entitled One More Soul. We needn’t (and shouldn’t) concern ourselves with convincing other peoples to reduce their child-bearing. Let’s mind our own business, and populate our own country.
Imagine that: If overnight, the native-born peoples of the U.S. increased their birth rate by 50 percent. Imagine if the same thing happened in Europe. The cries of immigration enthusiasts that we need to import our next generation from abroad would be drowned out—in the yawling and giggling of millions of native newborns. The backbreaking jobs we are currently pressing upon middle-aged foreigners would be taken up soon by teenagers—our own and our neighbors’ children. The immigrants among us would see a vigorous, vital culture—and wish to assimilate. Deprived of constant influxes from the Old Country, their offspring would intermarry with our own, and a little spice to our current stew—instead of filling up our emptying country like a vessel.
Since I love old Europe too, I hope that this generation can rouse itself to reject the invasion of an intolerant, alien faith—a truncated heresy of Christianity best suited to desert nomads—and deed its children a chance of rediscovering their heritage. Better Notre Dame remain unused for a few decades in an underpopulated Paris than be turned, like Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. We owe too much to Europe to slough it off like the shell of a hermit crab. The continent which gave us Charlemagne and Shakespeare, de Tocqueville and Vincent de Paul, deserves a second chance. Out of this filial piety to the cradle of our culture, I pray that the Turks once again will be turned back at its gates.
And I pray that Americans learn to love life once again—to love it rightly and truly, according to the rules its Author imposed. These rules He respected enough to obey them Himself: He was born of woman, poured out His strength in the service of others, and one day He died. The family he fathered with that blood, the Church, lives on in the normal way—by filling its empty cradle with a thriving Christian child.
John Zmirak is author of The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey, and Song.
Comments
@John Zmirak,
Thank you for your Christmas meditation, which should
be read by all future Catholic parents. I’ve enjoyed
your articles and essays previously, and let me hope
that you’ll continue writing in various venues.
May Our Lord bless you and yours this Holy Season.
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I laughed at the comment, “empty churches.”
Well it’s true. Money is the root of all evil,
and a bunch of middle-class wanna-be gen-Xers
are buying up houses which they think will
save them from a working-class existence.
It’s the televangelists who preach prosperity.
I look forward to the death of hope in this
country. Only then I presume the people will go
looking for hope, and there is only one place
that provides that emotion. Watch when the
churches are full and they want to spread their
influence to the politicins residing in
Washington. It’s a wonderful pendulum. The only
way that will stop that process is secession. No
power in Washington, no outlet for christian
energy.
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Gott Ist Tot?
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I could not agree more with your enthusiasm for procreation, Mr. Zmirak, and I have been preaching this for some time in these forums and in the Chronicles forums. However, the main opposition to the gospel of life comes not from immigration enthusiasts, but from immigration restrictionists. It is the latter who quote the loathesome Garrett Hardin on the “tragedy of the commons” and who claim it is too difficult to rear children and whine that they should not be required in their own country to compete with foreigners in fertility. At least those who favor immigration do not consider population to be a problem.
And as far as turning back the Turks at the gates is concerned, has it occurred to anyone that we have an obligation to preach the Gospel to the Turks. I don’t recall that Christ said, “Go forth and proclaim the Gospel to all nations . . . . except the Turks”
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What a great article!
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First a gripe (not about this fine article!) then some theology.
1. Error #1: All the world needs if luv (not Faith and Hope). Scrooge was (half) right. Dickens and Hugo, at best, were Pelagians. They wanted the moral fruits of the Faith, but not the Faith. Can’t be.
2. Error #2: Christmas is the biggest (if not the exclusive) Christian High Holy Day
Nope. EASTER, not Christmas, is the supreme Christian Solemnity. Every day of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday evening, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday) are more important. Look at the Church’s ranking of feasts: The Triduum comes first and foremost, and Christmas is the equal of Pentecost! Most of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox world put Easter first. Only in northern western Europe and the Anglophone world is the relation the opposite of where it belongs. Why this happened has a number of reasons, largely secular.
The error is compounded by ignoring Advent (a season unto itself with its own spirituality), with the empty feeding trough (a.k.a. “manger”), and forgetting that Christmas is a season of 12 days, not one day, and its climax is Epiphany, the feast the predates Christmas by at least two centuries. For birthdays in the Mediterranean sphere were important only for one people: the Romans. And so in Rome, in the 4th Century, Christmas began and never became standardized throughout the Roman world until after the Chalcedon definition of AD 450. Some Oriental Churches still don’t have it.
3. Error #3 Christmas is for children. This error probably can be attributed to that genius of iconography, St. Francis of Assisi, who began the creche. We forget that he also began the Stations of the Cross.
Now some theology: Christmas is very much an adult holy day.
1. The creche is to remind us of our sin, thus removing and Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian heresy. The NT source for the creche is Luke, who is taking his cue from Isaiah’s very first prophesy, 1: 2-4. The dumbest animals in the barnyard know who their Lord is; we don’t. Most of us city slickers, we miss the real purport of the creche. We also don’t know that barns are full of animal droppings, as are our souls.
2. Christmas is the pre-eminent Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity. When did we know and experience God as One? At the burning bush. When did we know and experience Him as Son? Take a look at 1st Corinthians 10:4. Paul rushes right by a profound truth, probably because his congregation knew it already: The Son was always there, always in the world, always active (just not incarnate). We came to know Him and experience Him as Son first at Christmas, and this is the real depth of Christmas’ meaning. The connection with Easter must not be forgotten. The Eastern Church gets it right: The Incarnation is already Redemptive. He is always the Crucified One (as He is always the Resurrected One. And when did we come to know and experience God as Holy Spirit? At Pentecost (at least in Luke’s version; John on Easter Sunday [“receive the Holy Spirit”]). And when did we know and experience Him as Father? We haven’t yet. The Son and The Holy Spirit have told us about Him. It is the joy of the blessed souls in Heaven to experience Him as Father.
3. Now back to where Mr. Zmirak’s article started, The Holy Infant. The best Christmas sermon that I ever heard was in two sentences: “How great is God, worthy to be adored! How small is God, able to be loved.”
When y’all are in Rome, go to the Church of Santa Maria Aracoeli to see the Holy Infant image. And y’all be sure to celebrate Holy Week, the Easter Triduum, and Easter Week with just as much intensity. (Bring back the Tenebrae from the Extraordinary Form! Good Friday Processions! The Three Hours devotions and The Seven Last Words! A reverent Easter Vigil, the first “Midnight Mass”! – the Christian version [and a vastly improved version] of the Eleusian Mysteries. And the Easter Bunny doesn’t bother me. Then let’s throw in Easter cards, Easter door and house decorations; and an iconography of light and water, lamb and lily. The folks in Taranto and Seville gave got it right.)
A Merry Christmas to everyone!
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By all means we should “preach to all nations.” Will that be best accomplished by inviting in other nations to occupy our lands and impose sharia--which forbids the preaching of the Gospel? Has Mr. Higdon read about the increasing persecution of Christians in Turkey--the murder of priests, the laws forbidding the repair of churches, etc.? Want a measure of how Christianity fares under Islamic occupation? There are now fewer than 10,000 Christians in Constantinople.
As for population… it isn’t sinful to wonder how quickly it is prudent for the population to grow--or to limit the influx of foreigners into one’s country, to make it easier for Americans to have decent-sized families. Meanwhile, the Church should be much more proactive and evangelical about teaching Natural Family Planning in poor countries--a non-coercive, morally neutral method of family planning that allows people to consult the virtue of prudence in matters of fertility, as in every other matter. If the Church doesn’t, the eugenics crowd WILL fill the gap with evil, coercive methods.
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Zmirak,
very good article.
Sid,
you’re absolutely right about Easter being thre first and most important Christian feast. That’s something we should always bearin mind. In another note, I wonder what’s the limit of your intelectual pursuits, from Burke, Joseph De Maistre and Donoso Cortes through Carlism to Eastern theology, you sound too cosmopolitan to be an American conservative (not to criticize conservative Americans but they seldom take interest in anything beyond the frontiers of their own county).
Merry X-mas to all you on the conservative front!
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I dont know why people argue over skin color and cultural origin.
What defines man is his ability to think.
When I read genesis and experience it, is that Life, all life, began with the first thought. And if you are able to really use your mind, you will find your DNA still holds that first thought.
And the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
And that is where our first thought begins.
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And let me tell you about creation and evolution, and this will ring true in your mind, and soul, because its wisdom.
Creation runs in reverse. Man was created as a whole and because he was created as a whole, without evolution, so did God create the things that crawl and that fly before man. So it had to be.
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[1]you sound too cosmopolitan to be an American conservative ([2]not to criticize conservative Americans but they seldom take interest in anything beyond the frontiers of their own county).
Yes to both. I’d go a step further and argue that we really don’t have conservatism in the American political tradition. Most American “conservatives” are in fact what Europeans would call “liberals”. Our “Neoconservatives” are neither neo nor conservative, but instead what the English would call “Whigs”. Their Parteiprogramm has been around since 1688. And conservative it ain’t. Our “Old Right” were really libertarians who didn’t smoke pot. Heck, they probably didn’t even drink booze.
Paul Gottfried has something to say about the absence of Real Conservatism in his new book, which I begin Wednesday.
And I still pray that Boyd Cathey will write something for us about Carlism’s chief points. Half the problem, Paul, is that Gringos don’t don’t do too swift with foreign languages, and most of Real Conservatism is in German, French, and Spanish, myself ignorant of the last.
To stay on the article’s topic (sort of): We in America also don’t have “Christian Democracy”, by which I mean the application of Catholic Social Teaching, starting with Leo XIII—a tradition, by the way, that the French Legitimists pioneered. And they were conservative.
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I see what you mean, Sid, Americans have a good tradition of libertarians ("liberals" in the european acceptation), but not real conservatism.
After reading one of your writebacks where you praised Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democracy I’m looking for a good biography of Adenauer, can you recommend any?
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I wonder why the conservative writers
at Takimag are always moaning and crying
about the demise of Europe, that is supposedly going to be swamped by the Muslim hoards.
In the country that has the most Muslims as a percentage, France, they are only 7 percent. In most countries like England and Germany, they are in the range of 2 percent. In Italy, they are below 1 percent. This by the way comes from the most accurate source available, the CIA factbook. Some may consider those percentages to be catastrophic (I do not), but let’s compare this to US immigration, where the European ethnicity makes up less than 65 percent of the general population, which is projected to be reduced to a minority by 2040 if current immigration levels continue.
I always find it funny how Americans find ways of lamenting Europe’s demise through immigration-- a fear I do not share whatsoever. One wonders why they don’t apply these same xenophobic standards to their own country, sincer they would find the situation is more dire for them.
Add to this the problems the US will face in terms of peak-oil and the coming collapse of the banking industry in your country. Well Europe is doing fine in comparison.
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THE SHORT ANSWER
The best available in English is probably
Schwarz, Hans-Peter, Konrad Adenauer: a German politician and statesman in a period of war, revolution, and Reconstruction, Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995ff;
v. 1. From the German Empire to the Federal Republic, 1876-1952.
v. 2. The Statesman: 1952-1967.
I welcome the recommendations of others.
THE LONG ANSWER
Paul, it’s probably way too early for a good biography of Adenauer. Heck, it’s too early even for one of Bismarck, whose achievement are in question, as I shall discuss later. And we’re still waiting for at least an honest one of Dishonest Abe, Woodrow the Worst, and The Great Satan (FDR).
There are several books out there about Adenauer in German that are excessively adulatory and hagiographic. Even saints aren’t plaster saints, and the rest of us, even our best men like Adenauer, are too full of flaws. The historian is obliged to tell of of these flaws. “No man is a hero to his valet” said that incarnation of St. Joan of Arc, the 20th C’s greatest man, who saved his country not once but three times from utter disaster and shame, gave it its best constitution to date, and who had the charism of prophecy, Charles de Gaulle,—and a man sorely in need of a generous helping of humble pie. Ditto Winnie, who in addition often showed very poor judgement (sorry, John Lukacs).
Also, 30 Years’ Rule or no regarding documents, we still don’t have available all the documents from the 1950s, some doubtless gathering dust in KGB files. One German historian I know found in the Eisenhower library in Kansas documents demonstrating that the Russians, in 1956, offered to do to Germany what was done to Austria: unite the four zones into a neutral country. Adenauer wouldn’t hear of it. (good for him!)
Lots of Ossies and Berliners used to have nothing but hatred for Adenauer because of his own hatred for Prussia. Even back in the 20s, he wanted a Western Rheinland Union and reconciliation with France. (He was right, in my judgement.) Whether Adenauer is still so hated by Ossies I can’t say.
The historical background of the man is generally lacking to Anglophones. Last time I checked, I know of no good study of the Kulturkampf between Prussia, later the Reich, and the Catholic Church. Adenauer, we forget, was a major political figure in the late Kaiserzeit and even more so in the Weimar Republic.
Schwarz largely avoids these pitfalls. He will do until our grandchildren have a more Olympic perspective.
For now:
The other great German, The Prince von Bismarck, was in my humble opinion, a bust. Look who ol’ Otto’s enemies were:
1. The Catholics,
2. The Liberals (in the European sense of the word), and
3. The Socialists
Well, in 1949, these three enemies of Bismarck gathered in Bonn—the CDU/CSU, the FDP, and the SPD respectively --under Konrad the Great’s leadership, undid the mess of Bismarck. and did a better job of constituting Germany.
Compare Otto’s bust with Konrad’s Triumphs:
(1) the reconciliation with France, a breach as old as the Treaty of Verdun (AD 843),
(2) the founding of Germany’s first good regime, with a constitution better than the USA’s (states’ rights secure), with a very healthy and vigorous economy, thanks in no small part to that other great man, Erhard (it took Middle Europe a century to recover economically and culturally from the 30 Years War. It took West Germany 15 years to recover economically [culturally is another matter]).
(3) the founding of a Uniting Europe with the Treaty of Rome.
(4) The anchoring of Germany solidly into Western Europe and the Atlantic world.
(5) The banishment of the “far Right” and the marginalization (at least until the 60s) of the “Far Left”
(6) the reconcilation with Jews and the State of Israel
(7)the treaty with the Soviet Union and the return (after 10 years) of German POWs
(8)And the development of Christian Democracy: a free market economy, but also “Capitalism with a human face”, and a Christian democracy that gladly reached out to Protestants (something that didn’t happen in The Orange Netherlands until the 1990s, or so I’m told).
No small achievement. Because democracy usually produces midgets, we ought to applaud the few giants who appear. Also the 20th and the 21 Centuries (to date) have given us pygmies (at least in politics). Those great knights, tall in the saddle, De Gaulle and Adenauer, were men of the 19th Century, a better day and age.
Thanks for asking. Sorry for so long a writeback; I don’t have time to make it short.
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Beautiful, John Z, and mostly true and wise.
Here are just a few quibbles, and as I admire you and your writing so much, it’s a good exercise for me to consider your occasional mistakes sometimes; even Francis of Assisi made some blunders and occasionally was willfully blinkered. So:
“This tiny stranger, who shares with them some chromosomes...”
As Jesus shared chromosomes with all descendants of Adam, that should be a reminder of the poverty of eugenics and of the temptations to confuse race with being born of the spirit. The Holy Spirit has no DNA.
“They abandon the cultural richness and beauty of cities, and take to the desert—willingly inhabiting the soulless “sprawl” which consumes ever more of our landscape every year.”
Sorry but I see absolutely no virtue or even the slightest dignity in anyone’s collaboration in the rape of the land. Those ghastly suburban developments and McMansions have nothing to do with defense of Christianity, and everything to do with a profane contempt for the ancient blessing of the land.
“And for what? To shield their offspring from chaos, crime, and corruption.”
Those aren’t the only reasons, and it’s very dubious whether they’re the principal reasons. The White Flight to suburbia - the abandonment of America’s cities which began in the 1950s - was inspired largely by wanting to get away from “the niggers”, and one could argue that the proximate cause of the chaos, crime and corruption of America’s cities was the consequent to the choices of Whites, through their irresponsible abandonment of the cities, and the chaos and crime broke out later (yes, largely among Blacks) because of the economic violence done to the cities by White Flight. Furthermore, most of the Blacks who moved into America’s major cities WERE Christians, so you can’t say “White Flight” was intended principally as a way of preserving Christianity.
And I can’t resist taunting JZ a wee bit,
in a friendly way, about this line:
“Any healthy creature or culture shows two signs of life: It reproduces itself, and it fights off intruders.”
Yep. Just like England fought off the attempted intrusion of the King of Spain and the Pope in 1588. ;-)
And finally, a serious theological quibble with this:
“The family he fathered with that blood, the Church...”
Nope. Shedding of blood does not create life; shedding blood can only save life.
The Church was fathered by God the Father, through the Holy Spirit. Christ is not our Father; Christ is the Son of the Father, and confusing Christ’s blood with an agent of “fatherhood” confuses the identities of the Holy Trinity.
But all that said, Merry Christmas, John Zmirak. I’m having one shot of Irish whisky just to toast you and your extraordinary command of the written word
(and exposition of the Word) in English; as one wag said (was it Yeats or Joyce?), “first the English invented the language, and then the Irish taught them how to use it.”
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Natural Family Planning is Evil
http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/Natural_Family_Planning.html
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Dear Peter,
Thanks for posting, on Christmas Day, a link to a tiny, schismatic and heretical organization which denounces every pope since Pius XII as an heretical imposter, condemns all non-Catholics (and the HUGE majority of Catholics) to hellfire, and presumes to reject what even Pius XI and Pius XII accepted--NFP. And a merry, merry Christmas to you, too!
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slightly OT here but has anyone read “The Nazarene” by shalom asch? It’s a book about jesus written by a jewish author / activist during the nazi era. It’s edgy but really good so far. it was apparently so controversial when it came out that other jewish authors wrote entire books abuot how awful it was. It’s written from the point of view of one of Pilates minions and is harshly anti semetic in places. If you don’t mind going out on a limb and aren’t easily offended I’d recommend it regardless of your faith or lack therof
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Mr. Zmirak, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas with your family as I had with mine. Our small party last night included two pregnant women, one of them bearing twins. I was rather disappointed at how quickly the joyful exhuberance of your original article changed to a sour note as soon as I suggested that high fertility among foreigners is a good thing and that there is no contradiction between having children of your own and welcoming immigrants. I don’t see how immigrants coming to the US (or Europe) makes it more difficult for the natives to procreate. And you seem to think that the Church shares the same objectives as Planned Parenthood in poor countries, to reduce the fertility of the poor, and differ only in method. This is insulting both to the poor and to the Church. Africa, the poorest and aside from Australia, the continent with lowest population density, needs more people, not fewer. It is not the job of the Church either to teach or even promote NFP, but only to provide the necessary moral guidance to those who do.
And yes, I am familiar with persecution of Christians in Turkey, a country which does not have sharia law, and (for example) India, which also does not have sharia law or is even predominantly Moslem, but where a dozen or so Christian churches were burned on Christmas. I could name several other examples of countries where the Church is persecuted. Should the Church give up on all of them? Did it give up on Rome after the persecutions of Nero and Diocletian? Has it given up on Mexico, El Salvador and Columbia after the murder of bishops, priests, nuns and Christian lay people in those countries? Should I give up on the US and abandon my position as an RCIA catechist due to the terrorism inflicted on Christian missionaries a couple of weeks ago in Colorado? I don’t plan to.
And as far as repelling the Turks from the gates, I suspect that many countries are a lot more concerned with the Americans showing up at their gates. It’s not Turkey which is giving the rest of the world the choice between accepting cultural polution and commercial domination peacefully or facing death and destruction at the hands of the most powerful military known to history.
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Dear Mr. Higdon,
I have no personal stake in reducing the fertility of people in foreign countries. I wish them prosperity and peace, and if they can afford to support their kids I wish them large and prosperous households. However, to the degree to which those countries cannot support their children, and they come to America, we have a right to judge, prudentially, whether it’s a good thing for our country and its families to admit them. As to how the arrival of large numbers of immigrants affects native fertility… I’d ask you to look at any of the abundant studies published by the Center for Immigration Studies on how the large scale influx of high-school dropouts affects the tax burdens and wages of American families. Who pays for those 20 or more different bilingual programs mandated in public schools in California? How can young American males with only a high school education marry and form families when their wages have stayed flat for 30 years--thanks to the influx of ever more low-skill labor, driving down wages? It isn’t the American elites who suffer from this competition, or from the social pathologies that accompany corporate America’s shameless grab for cheap labor. It’s the American poor and working class. Read George Borjas on this subject (http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/back504.html) and let me know what you think.
And yes, it IS the Church’s pastoral duty to provide people with the licit means to apply the virtue of prudence--particularly when they are inundated with propaganda for illicit means. That is why Mother Teresa’s nuns--whom told me this personally at one of the many pro-life conferences I’ve attended--teach NFP to peasants in Central America.
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Nope. Shedding of blood does not create life; shedding blood can only save life.
Mr. Ball.
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From “The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church” (http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html)
The Church - instituted by Christ Jesus
763 It was the Son’s task to accomplish the Father’s plan of salvation in the fullness of time. Its accomplishment was the reason for his being sent.160 “The Lord Jesus inaugurated his Church by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Reign of God, promised over the ages in the scriptures."161 To fulfill the Father’s will, Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. The Church “is the Reign of Christ already present in mystery."162
764 “This Kingdom shines out before men in the word, in the works and in the presence of Christ."163 To welcome Jesus’ word is to welcome “the Kingdom itself."164 The seed and beginning of the Kingdom are the “little flock” of those whom Jesus came to gather around him, the flock whose shepherd he is.165 They form Jesus’ true family.166 To those whom he thus gathered around him, he taught a new “way of acting” and a prayer of their own.167
765 The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head.168 Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem.169 The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christ’s mission and his power, but also in his lot.170 By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his Church.
766 The Church is born primarily of Christ’s total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the cross. “The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus."171 “For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the ‘wondrous sacrament of the whole Church.’"172 As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross.17
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How disappointing that Zmirak would franchise
the nativity to spout AGES old Catholic vitriol
against the Muslim.
Perhaps the new Bishop of Texas will agitate for
a holy war against the flood of muslim immigants
here in the Southwest.
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Have a child into what? All the love a parent could give, all the power of tradition and faith, all of it could never compete against television and its force-fed diet of modernity.
In 1991, Richard Linklater proclaimed Generation X - my generation - with the statement “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”. If the west needs my blood in order to survive, tough. It can provide me a woman worth marrying and a decent environment in which to raise children according to the traditions of Christendom and western civilization, or it can go fuck itself.
Let Islam swallow it, or let it sink into the weeds, or, well, whatever. We all make our choices, and then we live with the consequences. And if there are no consequences then from whence will any lesson be learned? The west will die because it deserves to, and because that’s what it’s chosen. A million and a half abortions a year means you get swallowed up by another civilization willing to use demographics - “The Poor Man’s Nuke”, as Gary Brecher so aptly put it - to claim the future for itself.
You made your choices. Why should I save you from their consequences?
I’ve withdrawn in disgust. If you need a solution, figure it out for yourself. I just don’t care anymore.
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tiny, schismatic and heretical organization
It doesn’t stay tiny. After all, they oppose NFP, and will have larger families than you. Therefore, they will have the same advantage you have over the liberals.
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A great essay, especially the point that healthy cultures fight off intruders and repopulate themselves.
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Re: Peter
Yes, but it will stay schismatic and heretical, which is the only thing that matters. What’s more, and this is actually something sad which all “Red State” triumphalists must keep in mind--not all the children of large families keep their parents’ faith and fertility. The Italians who today have 1.2 kids are the grandchildren of those who had 10 kids. To some degree, stereotyped recollections of the difficulties of large families probably fuel the absurdly small families of today. I think that as these cultural memories fade, a natural desire to reproduce oneself is kicking in--hence the mini-baby boom in France and Sweden. Give the Europeans time without sharia, and that will happen all over the place. Give our poor mother Continent time, and she will recover… God willing.
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@ I Am Not Spartacus:
Thank you for those instructive citations from the RC catechism. For the most part I agree with the passages you cited, but the fact that I have reservations about the catechism’s interpretation of the Gospel is exactly why my conscience forbids me to partake in RC sacraments. Still, I think we have more beliefs in common than not.
To me, reposing my faith and my conscience in a book with enumerated points of doctrine (ie, the RC catechism), resembles the ways of the Pharisees a bit too much for my conscience to accept. But that’s just me, and that’s why - for now and until I am persuaded otherwise - I must confess that I am a Protestant. And again I ask the devout Catholics here at least to respect the fact that I am respecting THEIR faith by refraining from being a “cafeteria Catholic.”
One more thing I want to share: I have received a Christmas greeting - not a secular one, but one which included reference to the birth of Jesus - from one of my friends who is a prominent Javanese Professor of Religion, and a devout Muslim. And he ain’t immigrating anywhere. Agreed, Muslim immigration to Western countries ought to be subject to careful restrictions, but let’s all please remember that not all who profess Islam are enemies of Christendom. Yes, let’s “keep it (Islam) over there” for the most part - but then remember that we can still be friends with many Muslims who remain “over there”.
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To me, reposing my faith and my conscience in a book with enumerated points of doctrine (ie, the RC catechism), resembles the ways of the Pharisees a bit too much for my conscience to accept
Mr. Ball. Believe it or not I do appreciate you refusing the Sacraments due to your beliefs. That is the way a real man acts.
I really am irked when by brethren continue to receive the Sacraments when they clearly do not believe in the Creedal Doctrines they profess at each Mass.
And I do admit I have the habit of just cutting & pasting when it comes to Doctrinal disputes because me Mom, the Church, is succinct and precise when it comes to such matters.
I suppose I could post me own Doctrinal explications (or worse, post my own theological ideas or ideas about ecclesiastical history as definitive, as some others do) but I think Catechism citations are a better way to get the point across.
As to what I do being Pharisaical, I could agree, if the Pharisees in question were the ones working on behalf of legitimate authority - Jesus.
Of course there were Pharisees who faithfully followed Jesus and later converted but I do not think that is what you meant :)
In any event, I do appreciate your ideas and action and I never ignore what you write.You are an interesting and muscular read even when you are wrong.
Have a Blessed Christmastide, brother.
FWIW, me brother-in-law is moving to Australia later this year, so, y’all have another bright strong-willed man on your side :)
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Mr. Zmirak, I read the link you posted and frankly I lack the access to statistical studies, the economic skills and the time to critique it. But even if we stipulate it is true, it is quite a leap to say that it explains declining fertility in America’s working classes. What then would explain the declining fertility in the rest of the world and in all classes, most pronounced in the wealthier nations and classes? We are dealing here with a worldwide phenomenon. It is fashionable but absurd to blame everything on immigrants. When people say they can’t afford kids, they usually mean that there are a lot of toys and gadgets that they want to acquire first, not to mention the second car, the vacation home, etc.
As far as nuns teaching NFP is concerned, it is certainly undesirable although it may be necessary if there are no married couples qualified to do it. We do not ordain priests or consecrate religious with a vow of celibacy to teach sexual techniques to the laity. The involvement of nuns in this should be ended as soon as there are a sufficient number of married lay instructors. To make a comparison, many parishes have social dances or even social dance clubs. From the standpoint of moral supervision of the activity, this is a good idea. But we do not expect priests and nuns to be dance instructors.
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@ Mr “I am Spartacus”, who wrote to me:
“In any event, I do appreciate your ideas and action and I never ignore what you write.You are an interesting and muscular read even when you are wrong.
Have a Blessed Christmastide, brother.
FWIW, me brother-in-law is moving to Australia later this year, so, y’all have another bright strong-willed man on your side :)”
...in reply, I say:
Good on ya, “I am Not Spartacus”, and your brother-in-law will always be welcome to have a few drinks with me in Perth! He can get my email address from FJ Sarto, if he’s courageous enough to meet me in person and (over many drinks and stories and songs) hear me (and most of my Australian compatriots) tell him how and why it WAS bloody necessary for the English-speaking-peoples (including Australia) to fight Hitler to the death.
That’s how almost 100 percent of real Aussies think, about WW II. And so do I, as a newly adopted Australian patriot (but as a grandson of Britain, I’m not so “new” as an Australian patriot, after all. My Scottish cousin, Piper Laidlaw, won the VC in WW I...)
So there ya go, Mr “I am Spartacus.”
Go ahead and put your brother-in-law in touch with me here in Oz, the Lucky Country! :-) :-) :-)
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John,
A brilliant piece, old friend. Good on you!
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