“Only a man of faith can understand the present world situation; he alone appreciates that it is not the clash of conflicting political systems, but a moral judgment on the way men think and live.”
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
In last Sunday’s gospel Jesus proclaimed that He is the vine and we are the branches. In Him is Life and cut off from Him, we lack vitality and the very essence of life which is the love of God and the willingness to make a gift of ourselves for the love of another. After all, God created us gratuitously, infusing in us a divine spark which enables us to think and to love. Apart from God, we rely on ourselves and are deprived of the truth of all existence. Separated from God we are apt to pursue our selfish impulses, and be deceived by our own emotions and the lies and deceptions which appeal to our instincts and selfish desires. Over time, our impulses take control of our lives and we become blind to the light of truth, mistakenly choosing the false hope of happiness in the pursuit of personal freedom and happiness.
Coincidentally, Sunday morning the vice president of the United States proclaimed his support for gay marriage, indicating that, although he is Catholic, his position on the issue has evolved. When questioned about this change, he credited a popular sit-com, “Will and Grace” for his enlightened view of homosexuality. Apparently the vice president takes his moral guidance from Hollywood, rather than his church. It’s interesting that the name of the show is also two terms that are so important to our discovery of the real truth about life. Our will, and the grace of God. While the show may have portrayed homosexuality as harmless and attractive, it belies the fact that it violates natural law, as revealed in the truth of our bodies. By asserting our “will” and rejecting the “grace” of God we fail to recognize the truth of our bodies and the truth about homosexuality. The gay rights agenda is about more than simply granting legal rights and status to homosexuals, it redefines marriage which is the sacred union of man and woman for the purpose of creating a family and the continuation of our species. Gay marriages cannot produce new life, and in fact they are more likely to result in emotional and physical harm. Nor is gay marriage the proper setting to raise children, whose gender identity is likely to be confused.
On Monday this week, the Secretary of Education also announced his support for gay marriage and explained that it is the position of the current administration that the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed. The president has already directed the Attorney General to prepare legal action for just that purpose. It’s no wonder that marriage rates are at an all time low in the world and in our country, and that birth rates have plummeted. Despite the fact that the future of the world and of our nation depend on families and children, we continue to deconstruct marriage while holding up the paramount importance of personal freedom to pursue happiness by any means, even when those means are contrary to human nature, common sense and the common good.
We are methodically cutting ourselves off from the source of life and of love. We are like branches without a vine and we bear little or no fruit. The great historian Arnold Toynbee studied twenty-one civilizations which have vanished and concluded that sixteen of them collapsed from within because their society decayed and lost its moral compass. Nations are not murdered, more often than not, they commit suicide. When marriage and families are discouraged and children are regarded as a threat to personal freedom, the vitality of a nation is destroyed. Our president recently commented that if one of his daughters went the prom and made a bad decision, he would not want her “punished with a baby.” In his view, babies are a punishment. No wonder he defines “women’s health” as prevention of fertility and the avoidance of children, even if it means taking birth control pills that contain class one carcinogens.
Last weekend also saw the election of socialists in Greece and France. Both leaders were swept into office by an overwhelming majority of dissident voters who are angry about the loss of government sponsored social benefits. The new president of France has promised to lower the retirement age back to 60. The current retirement age of 62 was one of the “austerity measures” taken by the former president, in an effort to slow down government spending. The Greek electorate are even more fired up and refuse to accept similar austerity measures, despite having taken 200 billion euros in bailout money from Germany and Denmark where the retirement age is 67. They apparently intend to default on this debt and will probably pull our of the European Union as a result. At the root of these problems is not just the failure of tax and spend ideology, but the rapid decline in birthrates which has resulted in fewer workers and a steadily growing elderly population which cannot be supported by a smaller tax base.
This is the same direction America is headed as long as we continue to downplay marriage and family. Last week the unemployment rate dropped to 8.2%, despite employment declining. It dropped because the number of people in the workforce is lower (the denominator), compared to the number actually employed. The 50 million children whose lives were ended by abortion are missing from the workforce, and the parents who aborted them are now approaching retirement age, wondering who’s going to pay the taxes to support their Medicare expenses and social security payments.
Before dropping out of the presidential race, Rick Santorum promised to make family and life issues his number one domestic priority. He knows what so many of us seem to have overlooked: the vitality of our nation, its economy, and its future depends on families. There will be not be enough families and children if marriage is deconstructed into a civil accommodation for the purpose of personal convenience and pleasure, rather than the sacred institution for the fulfillment of our destiny as men and women created to live the very love of God by participating in the creation of new life. The love of God and the sacrifices demanded by marriage and parenthood are the true source of happiness. This is how we remain connected to the vine of life.
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