Jakubczyk on Common Sense

Applying faith and reason to ideas, issues and events in today's world

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

from the desk of the late Fr. Paul Marx, OSB

Fr. Paul Marx recently passed away after a full and vigorous life defending faith, family and the Church. He was known as the Apostle for the pro life Movement. He knew no borders and took his message of life everywhere throughout the world. Human Life International and the Population Research Institute are thankful for his years of service to both organizations.

He was a friend and we will miss him, although we cannot be jealous of whose company he is most likely keeping at the present. Here is a short article he penned years ago.

Prophecies of Humanae Vitae

by Fr. Paul Marx, OSB

On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae re-affirmed the Catholic teaching on life, love and human sexuality. In that document, he listed the consequences of life lived outside Catholic teaching.

He predicted that:

Contraception would lead to conjugal infidelity.

Contraceptive practice would lead to a “general lowering of morality.”

Contraception would lead men to cease respecting women in their totality and would cause them to treat women as “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment” rather than as cherished partners.

And finally, widespread acceptance of contraception by couples would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.

In other words, Pope Paul VI predicted that contraception would evolve from “a lifestyle choice” into a weapon of mass destruction. How dreadfully his prophecy has been vindicated by population control and coercive sterilization programs, fertility reduction quotas and the promotion of abortion literally everywhere in the world.

Contraception's destruction of the integrity of the marital act—as unitive and procreative—has dire consequences for society and for our souls. Contraception, in other words, is a rejection of God's view of reality. It is a wedge driven into the most intimate sphere of communion known to man outside of the Holy Sacrament of the Mass. It is a degrading poison that withers life and love both in marriage and in society.

By breaking the natural and divinely ordained connection between sex and procreation, women and men—but especially men—would focus on the hedonistic possibilities of sex. People would cease seeing sex as something that was intrinsically linked to new life and to the sacrament of marriage.

Does anyone doubt that this is where we find ourselves today?

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A new arrival

 

Grampa, Gramma and Elizabeth 5

My wife Petra and I are holding our little granddaughter, Elizabeth Jewel, born this past weekend.  One is reminded of the amazing love of God when one holds a precious infant who was created to love and be loved.