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Entry: The Empty Manger Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_empty_manger#12589 Post contents: 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. Sent at: 2008 08 30