It’s so obvious but so often overlooked. I refer to the correlation beetween birth rate and religious faith. Those with no faith tend to have no children. It is equally obvious though equally often overlooked that the absence of faith is connected to the presence of pride. Pride means putting ourselves first. Pride is selfishness – and selfishness has no time for selflessness, especially the selflessness demanded by the demands of parenthood. These obvious but overlooked facts are discussed with eloquence by Austin Ruse in today’s Crisis. Specifically Ruse highlights the correlation between the rise of atheism and the drop in birth rates. Those who answer “none” in surveys asking for religious affiliation or belief are far more likely to answer “none” in surveys asking for the number of children they have. In healthier days, nuns had none; now it’s the “Nones” who have none! Cutting to the chase, this means that the culture of death is killing itself. It has no future. It is dying through the suicidal sin of pride. It has no future. The future belongs to those who have children. This is good news for the New Year!
Here’s the link to Austin Ruse’s article:
There is a bit of a problem here. In the past only about two or three children made it to adulthood and childbearing age, whereas today virtually every child does.
It was only once medicine became effective in the 19th century that large families in which the children mostly lived to have large families of their own increasingly became the norm. Populations grew rapidly, especially in places like North America and southern Africa and Australia where there was a positive incentive to have plenty of children (I’m sticking to the Western world for the purposes of this discussion).
Don’t get me wrong. A large family is a blessing and the Church has laid down pretty stringent rules as to what extent one may space and limit the number of children one has. One of them is poverty, or the inability to take care of another child, the family finances being unable to cope. Today it is unlikely one will starve if one has eight or ten children, and in places where one does starve, starvation happens whether one has a large family or not. So for the average Westerner, poverty (real poverty, mind) is not an excuse.
The point, though, is that should everyone follow the Catholic lead and have large families, the time will come when overpopulation becomes a serious issue. When that occurs, what does the Church say should happen next? Who decides to what extent families should be limited in size? There are all sorts of wrong answers to this question.
PS: Rereading your post I realise my reply was a bit off topic.