Professor Matthew Connelly (Columbia University) recently presented a radio documentary about the population control movement, “Controlling People”, on the BBC, in three episodes.
The story of a radical social-engineering campaign that began with high-sounding ideals and why it didn’t work.
Part One: The “religion” of Malthusian ideology: The self-interested Western desire to keep down rising populations in the Third World: population-control ideology spread by men in wealthy countries.
Part Two: The Indian Emergency: Mass sterilization camps in India in the 1970s operated on eight million people, induced by payments and imposed with government pressure and, later, force. Social scientist Steven Mosher, then a supporter of population control, tells about the methods of the one-child policy in China: government lock-up and coerced abortion. But the rise of working women led to delayed marriage and reduced fertility on its own.
Part Three: Continuing Incomprehension. Fertility rates are falling, but the population-control ideology of the 1970s remains, targeting the poor with sterilization. A surrogacy program in India exploits the needs of the poor to satisfy the wishes of Western couples. “The disappearing female child” targeted by sex-selection abortion and infanticide. The continuing conflict among pop-controllers between advocates of sterilization and contraception.
I should note that there are some biases in the presentation: Professor Connelly frames the conflict as merely one between somewhat arrogant proponents of sterilization and more liberal supporters of voluntary contraception, and he treats voices of opposition to abortion and contraception as a “fanatical” religious element. Still, the presentation of the history and the issues is worthwhile.
If they’d write in decent Latin, things would be different!
The noted Latinist (and noted quirky personality) Fr. Reginald Foster, O.C.D., appeared in his regular feature on Vatican Radio (podcast link) Friday. Since Pope Benedict is making a state visit to Germany soon, the interviewer Sr. Veronica asked Fr. Foster to describe a famous battle between the Germans and the Roman Empire.
After describing the results of the battle (“the Germans beat the pants off of them”), he went on with some funny remarks about the expressiveness of Latin:
“You can say everything marvelously: except this kind of jargon, this philosophical jargon that’s going around, like how the politicians here in Italy talk, you know that kind of stuff — ugh, that’s terrible, I mean ‘la realizzazione della programma… da questo piano di lavoro’ – agh, shut up! …
“If the encyclicals were written in Latin, … you couldn’t do this, because Latin doesn’t allow you, y’know, just to blah blah blah, you just can’t blah in Latin, which is what they’re doing, you see, so they write it — and the worst is in, well, French, Italian, you see — and it just kind of dribbles on and on, and I’m supposed to put this dribble, dribble, and dribble into Latin! …
“They say this crummy thing in Italian, and I said, I can say this infinitely better in Latin, and people would agree! … At least your sentences are clear and concise, and solid as a rock, whereas these other people are dribbling, dribbling around, and blah blah blah blah — you don’t know what they’re talking about…. If they would write in decent Latin, things would be different, but they refuse!”
“Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church”
I just finished reading the anthology Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church: Reflections on Recent Developments, edited by Stephen Cavanaugh (Ignatius Press).
The collection of essays is an orientation to the “Anglican Use” phenomenon by some of its leading advocates: the book covers its origins and development, its current status and possible future, with helpful articles about liturgy, ecumenism, and the experience of entering into full communion with the Catholic Church.
I’m particularly grateful for the articles on liturgy. Brother John-Bede Pauley, OSB’s essay on the monastic character in Anglican liturgy is a help in understanding what the “Anglican patrimony” means as a gift to the Church. Prof. Hans-Jürgen Feulner’s introduction to comparative liturgy and its use in studying the development of rites and texts indicates the sort of studies the Church will need in order to develop a set of rites for the new Anglican Ordinariates. These will need to be suitable for the Ordinariates in various countries, and thus will have to improve on the current Book of Divine Worship, developed hastily in the 1980s for “Anglican-use” congregations in the US; it drew heavily on texts of that era: the U.S. Episcopalian 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the 1975 ICEL Roman Missal (soon to become obsolete).
“Germany’s records of repression”
The archives of East Germany’s “Stasi” (State Security) tell the story of decades of atrocities by the Communist state, but under the German amnesty law, most of its perpetrators will never be brought to justice. What does remain is to tell the truth. A half-hour documentary is available on-line:
Donal Foley’s powerful case against Medjugorje
I finished reading religion writer Donal Foley’s updated book on the Medjugorje phenomenon today; it’s called Medjugorje Revisited and I recommend it to everyone concerned about the affair.
Compared with the vast array of books promoting the shady apparition, there is only a handful of critical works. And I do mean vast: a list made in 2004 counts 646 works favorable to the alleged visions and messages. Offhand, I can think of just 13 critical books, and even after a little web-searching, I’ve only brought the count up to 14.
But no matter: while the stream of favorable propaganda flows on, and the production of boringly predictable “messages” is endless, Foley’s thorough research in Medjugorje Revisited is enough to expose the lies and deviations for what they are.
He walks through the case patiently, taking up topics as if they were exhibits in a gallery, presented in chronological order. Several of the early chapters are devoted to what the visionaries said in June 1981, when their interviews with Fr. Jozo Zovko were tape-recorded. This is material few of the promoters’ books ever deal with.
In that first week, the phenomenon was radically different from what it became later. At that time, the visions took place on the Podbrdo hillside, not in the parish church and not at sites on the visionaries’ speaking tours. Back then, the entity they saw had not given them any message to take to the world or even to the parish: in fact, Fr. Zovko made a public statement to that effect on the sixth day of the visions.
Moreover, when the seer Vicka asked the apparition what the “Gospa” wanted to happen on the Podbrdo hillside, the Vision “didn’t know”. Fr. Zovko responded to this: “What kind of Gospa is it who doesn’t know? Then she is smaller than a child.”
Such an answer — “I don’t know” — is absurd for Our Lady, who sometimes makes herself known on earth through marvels, but only for a reason. In the historic apparitions approved by the Church, there is a mission, a purpose, a divine plan. But at Medjugorje in June of 1981, there was an aimless “Gospa” making pointless appearances. This is not of God.
Image via Wikipedia
It’s impressive to see how much more material Donal has assembled and examined in just the past five years since he published his previous work on the subject. The new edition has grown about 40% and it now has almost 700 footnotes. Although I try to follow the case closely, it included quite a lot of material that was new to me!
The book is available direct from Foley‘s little publishing house or on-line from the big bookseller.
If you want to sort out what happened at Medjugorje, this book is essential.
