POPULATION CONTROL experts say there are too many people in the world. They say there is not enough food, shelter, jobs, clean air, open space, etc. for so many billions and that if we don’t do something to prevent more births, terrible things will happen. The evidence of demographic winter, not plenty, does not divert these alarming prophecies. These experts want the planet far less crowded.

Are there too many people? Is the world too crowded? It’s a fair question. Possibly you have wondered yourself.

But when it comes to world population, there is only one issue — one burning issue — that is decisive, and it has nothing to do with food or environmental issues. We only need to answer this question: Are there too many people for God to love? If there are too many people for God to love, if He does not create each and every person in His image, then the population controllers would be absolutely right in suggesting limits.

Perhaps you have been walking down a crowded street or been in a busy airport or packed stadium, and honestly wondered about this too. Looking at all the many people coming and going, perhaps you have grown fatigued of human beings. “Enough, already!”  Perhaps you have thought that it is simply impossible for God not to feel the same fatigue and for Him to love every single person individually. It is certainly impossible for us. 

Unfortunately, by studying statistics or our own abilities, we cannot arrive at an answer. We need a scientist of God’s love to give us the answer.

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was just that kind of scientist. The French bishop, who came from an aristocratic family with a father who was not enthused about his becoming a priest, possessed such learning  that he was eventually declared a Doctor of the Universal Church. But he also possessed a beautiful simplicity, which helped him to study the evidence of God’s love that is not in books.

In his Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales wrote:

The Heart of God is so abundant in love and its goodness is so infinite that all can possess it, without anyone’s share diminishing. Infinite Goodness cannot be exhausted, even if it fills all the souls in the world. God does not pour a smaller quantity of His love into a soul because He pours out His love into an infinity of others; the power of His love is not diminished by the multitude of rays that He spreads abroad, but remain ever overflowing with its immensity.

God knocks on the door of every heart. Open the door and you will begin to see the limitlessness of His love. Keep it open and you will cease to wonder whether there could ever be enough for billions. The saint continues:

Ah, my God! How frequently we should put the query to our soul: Is it possible that I have been loved, and so tenderly loved by my Saviour, that He was pleased to think of me in particular, and ion all those little occurrences by which He has drawn me to Him? How much should we appreciate them, and how carefully turn them to our profit!

(Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4; Ch. 14; O. V, p. 215) 

Population control experts suffer from a serious limitation. Their hearts are not as large as the heart of God. They are like a farmer who plants seeds and has no consciousness that the sun is responsible for their growth into mature plants. The population controllers live and thrive in the light of Divine Love — they wouldn’t exist without it — and yet they don’t know it, or refuse to know it.

To say there are too many people in the world is to say there is too much God. And that is impossible.

This great God, Who is uniquely good, is correct in desiring our whole heart. Ours is only a little heart, and it cannot sufficiently return the love due to the Divine Goodness…However, God does not love us out of self-interest but for our good. Our love is useless to Him, but it brings us great profit! If it pleases Him, it is because it is profitable to us. (T.L.G. Book 10, Ch. 13; O. V. p. 209)

God loves us for our own good, not for His good. It is arduous work, the whole goal of the spiritual life, to respond to the abundance of this divine light. Here is a very good compilation of the words of the great saint, whose feast day is today, to help along the way. A free reading of this book is available here.

Saints, not statisticians and demographers, can tell us whether there are too many people or not. (more…)

ZIPPY CATHOLIC, a blogger who was tragically killed in a car accident last fall, left behind an impressive work on the subject of interest-bearing loans.

In Usury FAQ, or, Money on the Pill, he explained what is, and what is not, immoral in the realm of lending. It is a thoughtful piece, followed by interesting discussion in the comments section. He explains, for instance, why credit card debt is wrong (for the lender, not the borrower), but a home mortgage is not necessarily.

Understanding usury requires an understanding of how the nature of some contracts differs, fundamentally and categorically, from the nature of others. Usury is not a matter of the same kind of contract differing only by ‘excessive interest’. Usurious contracts constitute a kind of contract which is intrinsically immoral by its very nature.  This FAQ is intended to help people understand what usury is – and is not – and answer many of the questions which naturally arise.

(more…)

CHUCK BALDWIN sums up on the second anniversary of Trump's presidency: Sadly, a host of Trump’s supporters continue to be bamboozled by the elaborate psyops misinformation (translated: propaganda) entity known as QAnon, which keeps reassuring the Trump faithful that he is covertly waging war against the globalist insiders and that any day now the curtain is going to collapse on the swamp creatures. It’s all a hoax to give Trump cover—and more time. If the nomination of William Barr as America’s next “Top Cop” doesn’t awaken the “Always Trumpers,” there is absolutely no hope for them. Even worse is the fact that the longer Christians and conservatives continue to make excuses for Trump’s lies and deceptions, there is less and less hope for America.  

  I AM QUOTING AGAIN from Oliver Heydorn's excellent analysis of modern democracies as seen through the works of the British thinker Clifford Hugh Douglas:     Let us take as an axiom that whenever and insofar as policy is being imposed on people, whether it be through naked force or deception, we cannot speak of democracy in any meaningful sense. Insofar as the populations living under conventional ‘democracies’ have been subjected to anti-social political polices sponsored by the credit monopoly, it must be admitted that conventional ‘democracies’ are actually, to a greater or lesser extent, de facto if not de jure financial dictatorships, i.e., plutocratic tyrannies. On this view, conventional ‘democracy’ is a not merely faulty, it is also a swindle; the regimes under which we live in the West are best described as financially based plutocracies camouflaged as liberal democracies, or ‘pluto-democracies’:     “... the aims of national Governments are by no means the same things as the aims of the majority of individuals in the countries they are supposed to represent. ... these Governments are far more responsive to influence from financial sources than they are to popular influence. We might even go so far as to say that modern Government is quite insensible to popular influence, and that no serious change in policy is effected by a change from one party to another. This is certainly true where the subject in which such influence might desire to be exercised…

"IF ONE WISHES to do full justice to reality – regardless of the topic that is being investigated - it is of the gravest importance to neither underestimate nor overestimate the phenomenon in question. Accordingly, whenever this particular question of ‘conspiracy’ becomes the subject of reflection, the thoughtful individual will seek to follow a sensible middle-path in accordance with the available evidence and in full knowledge of his cognitive limitations. This will allow him to scrupulously avoid the error of those who become irrationally suspicious, i.e., paranoid, while, at the same time, avoiding the mistake of those who, by preferring to be complacently sceptical, refuse to call a spade a spade. To deny the reality and indeed even the possibility of conspiracy as an explanatory factor behind much of our socially-induced discontent is just as irrational, therefore, as to think that every negative thing that occurs in the world must be due to a conspiracy." --- Oliver Heydorn

FROM Silas Walter Adams's 1958 book The Legalized Crime of Banking and a Constitutional Remedy: Stop and find your place in our present economic system - that is, are you a beneficiary; or, are you a victim? Are you a gainer; or, are you a loser? If you work for a living, with hands and/or head, or both; or, work for others for pay, you are a loser, the heaviest of all losers! You toil to provide man all his material wants, or to serve him, and you are paid with a cheap, inflated 25-cent dollar, which we persistently call a 100-cent dollar — a private dollar created by a private corporation. If you have earned your money either by producing something, working for yourself or as an employee, or in serving others, and through thrift and economy you have stored it away for the rainy day; or, if an honest man and would not take anything from another that you did not give in return an equal value of goods and/or service, you are doubly a loser; for the bankers’ constant stream of created new dollars pouring into circulation cheapens your dollar, and lowers its buying power. You get only a pound of coffee today for the same money you could buy four pounds of coffee in the thirties. If you are on a pension, or living on your life’s saving, even on the coupons you have been clipping from World War…

PETER STEINFELS, former religion writer for The New York Times, calls Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's highly-publicized grand jury report of last August on sex abuse in the Catholic Church "grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust." He objects to the report's charge that the Church had ignored abuse cases. "This ugly, indiscriminate, and inflammatory charge, unsubstantiated by the report's own evidence, to say nothing of the evidence the report ignores, is truly unworthy of a judicial body responsible for impartial justice." See more at The Media Report.

  TODAY is the 70th birthday of  the writer Lawrence Auster, who died in 2013 of pancreatic cancer and whose writings on modern America are still avidly followed. This blog would not have been possible without his encouragement. Here is an excerpt from his entry, "The Breakdown of Western Form:" In today’s New York City ... you will walk into a retail store or a hair-cutting salon, and not only will there be loud black funk music blasting from speakers in the ceiling from morn till night, with its interminable, melody-less, rhythmless, lyric-less (and identical in every song), “oh ooo ohh, ooh, hoh baby, woohoo, uhh, uhh, Woohoo WoohuahAHahAAA, yeah-huh, baby oh yeah”, but the radio reception is so bad it’s all static. I’m talking about loud static, filling the establishment from powerful speakers. When you ask the employees to adjust the tuning of the radio station or to turn the volume down, they will do so, but there seems to be absolutely no consciousness on their part that there was anything inappropriate about this horrible noise. There is a shocking insensibility in young people today, a complete acceptance of noise and disorder in one’s environment. It reminds me of India, where villagers love to have all-night festivals with electronic speakers turned up to the max, where people in cities are surrounded by unbelievable, all-encompassing noise and disorder and are not disturbed by it at all. In one sense, this is an impressive quality,…

   SURE on This Shining Night, performed here by the Minnesota Choral Artists, is a choral work by Morten Lauridsen based on the 1938 poem by James Agee: Sure on This Shining Night James Agee Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground. The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health. High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole. Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder Wandering far alone Of shadows on the stars.

WHILE I can’t recommend everything Michael Hoffman writes, this commentary on the Covington Catholic incident is good. (I have mainly stayed away from the media storm about this incident. Don’t let the “Masters of Discourse” tell you how to spend your time.):

The Cryptocracy manipulates people of color to serve as golem in the United States, disseminating a view of American history that portrays the majority of whites as whip-wielding tormentors of colored people in bondage, when the truth is that the vast majority of whites in early America were, as Congressman David Wilmot termed them, “the sons of toil.” Many arrived in this country in chattel bondage, not dainty “indentured servitude.”

The clandestine objective of crowding whites into ever more narrow psychological categories of self-abnegation and erasure, is to inflame them into lashing out desperately with inchoate violence that can be exploited to further justify ever greater encroachment by the government on our immemorial rights, and the escalation of increasingly intense negative caricatures of conservative white people issuing from the salons of Hollywood and New York.  (more…)

FROM the book Sins of the Tongue by Fr. Belet, (Kindle version here) of the Diocese of Basle; Translated from the French, 1870 ed.:

In 1617 someone published a volume entitled, The Horseman’s Book: The Art of Riding, treating the use of bridles, whips, guides, and so on. Such a title is of a nature to give rise to sad thoughts. We have learned how to make bits, bridles, halters and pincers, and how to adapt them to a horse’s head or mouth; we have learned the art of directing these animals at will by means of a small bit. But we possess a tongue so ill-tempered that no bridle can curb it: this raging beast resists bits, halters and pincers alike, knocking down every obstacle in its path. It wants to be as free as a horse in the wild. Let us see what Saint James has to say on the subject: “We put bits into horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we control their whole body also. But no man can tame the tongue.” (1) Jas. 3:3-8]

Without a doubt, the most poisonous tongue of all is the backbiter’s. It spits its deadly venom to the four winds. It is an evil known throughout the earth. One can never stigmatize and deplore it enough.

Therefore, we shall now study the nature of this evil, its various species, and the gravity of the evils it breeds. (more…)

IN THE 19th-century, women did not especially denigrate femininity. They did not seek masculinity in all things or think modesty embarrassing. They were not, till the latter years of the century, infected with feminist-style self-loathing. Though Victorian society was not perfect at all, nor even the ideal, women were not plagued by envy of men.

The rich tradition of doll-playing of that era illustrates these historic attitudes. The doll was highly valued as a plaything for the young girl. Godey’s Lady’s Book of 1869, quoting Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, wrote of this approval, overstating a bit the case for the doll: “A doll is one of the most imperious wants, and at the same time one of the most delicious instincts, of feminine childhood… The first child is a continuation of the last doll. A little girl without a doll is nearly as unhappy and quite as impossible as a wife without children.”

After the Civil War, many well-to-do American homes spared no expense in providing daughters with dolls that came with elaborate wardrobes, including not just ornate dresses, but tiny gloves, lorgnettes, purses, earrings, bracelets, petticoats and even toothbrushes. These were the American Girl dolls of the day.  A current exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum titled “Little Ladies: Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal,” running until March 3, displays samples of the best dolls from that era. Standing in plexiglass cases surrounded by their miniature accessories and adorned in highly-ornate and colorful silks, linens, furs, and wools, they are captivating objects.

It was interesting to note in the textual commentary of the exhibit and in remarks by visitors and the curator, the cognitive dissonance such an exhibit, with what one reviewer called its “darker implications,” causes in women today. No one could deny the beauty of these clothes, with such rich colors and ornamentation, or the very high level of craftsmanship.

But they represent oppressive patriarchy. They represent “indoctrination.” How then can they be enjoyed, even on a purely aesthetic level?

The answer is to take in the aesthetic experience while shaking your head, snickering and condescendingly reminding yourself that things are much better today. (more…)

JOSEPH H. writes:

I came across two tweets this morning that deserve mention. First, an old standard:

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12 King James Version (KJV)

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than the titanic age-old struggle of Good vs. Evil and until and unless one recognizes this one does not possess the cognitive tools to begin to apprehend the nature of our current travails.  (more…)

PLANNED PARENTHOOD aborted 332,757 children last year and received $564 million from taxpayers. On this, the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, some important history of what led to the decriminalization of murder from Dr. Thomas Droleskey at Christ or Chaos:

Roe v. Wade did not “start” the genocide of the preborn in this country that has taken over fifty million innocent human lives since 1965. The move for the decriminalization of surgical baby-killing began at the state level (so much for demigod of states’ rights) as pro-abortion leaders such as Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a founder of the National Repeal of Abortion Laws (now called NARAL-Pro Choice), and Lawrence Lader and William Baird, among others used the existence of various “exceptions” in abortion legislation then on the books as the means of “liberalizing” “access” to baby-killing for all women in all circumstances. The move for decriminalized baby-killing under cover of law started at the state level, moving into the Federal court system only when pro-death advocates believed that it was propitious for them to challenge the laws of those states which prohibited or restricted “access” to baby-killing.

It is useful to review some of the history of decriminalizing surgical baby-killing under cover of civil law prior to Roe v. Wade. Those who contend that the “people” in the various states have the “right” to determine whether to permit or prohibit surgical baby-killing would have no problem with the pre-Roe legislation, nor would they be bothered by the fact that many states have “trigger laws” in effect to “protect” baby-killing in the event that Roe v. Wade is reversed at some point by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. (more…)

  NO ONE believes in the Greek gods anymore. Gaia, the earth mother who gave birth to Uranus, the sky deity with whom she later conceived the Titans and a whole pantheon of passionately warring and amorous divinities -- any adult today who accepted this as true history or theology would not be taken seriously. Can you imagine a student at Princeton, say, seriously maintaining that Zeus is real? Agreement is universal: these gods do not govern our world. According to Hesiod, the famous ancient poet and chronicler of the gods: [Gaia] lay with Heaven and bore deep swirling Oceanus, Coeus, and Crius and Hyperion and Ipateus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos (Cronus) the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire. The stories of the Greek gods contain psychological insights and intuitions about the creation of the universe, the immortality of man and the existence of warring supernatural beings. But no one worships these gods anymore or appeals to them for assistance. It's interesting to speculate as to what the Greeks of ancient times would think of us, if they could come back to life. What would they think of our creation story? In the Greek stories, supernatural beings created man and gave him a soul. In other words, something created something. In the Darwinian account, which is the reigning creation story, nothing created something. The idea that Zeus sent Prometheus to earth…

  I WAS recently talking to a woman in her thirties. Bright, talented, pretty and friendly, she has a beautiful, three-year-old son -- a little boy with an angelic glow that attracts everyone in the room. She has a husband who makes a good living and adores her. Her successful career she has interrupted but she could resume it at any time. I asked her if she was hoping to have more children. She said without hesitation that no, she was not. She was done and would be returning to full-time employment this fall. She would have no more children. She had never been enthusiastic about becoming a mother, she said, and only had one child reluctantly. (You would never know this by her affectionate behavior toward her son.) Even when she was a girl, she said, she knew she wasn't cut out for motherhood. It wasn't for her. Now for a college-miseducated woman who lives in a big city today to say she is not cut out for motherhood --- that's almost like a person raised in a tribe in the Amazon rainforest saying he was never cut out to be a software engineer. I was not surprised at her statement. "You know, you don't have to like motherhood in order to be a mother,"  I said. "You can even be a good mother and not like it. It's a job." She was taken aback. "Oh, I never heard that before,"…

  "TODAY'S governments, more than just big, have taken on the overbearing configuration of Behemoth Government, over-bloated, top-heavy, inefficient, unapproachable, unaccountable, inhumane and cruelly unjust. Unaccountable, that is, to the people it governs but not to the hidden powers that secretly control it. This trend is the product of the prevailing attitude, itself based on the slippery footing of modern principles, which have men automatically turning to the highest and most distant reaches of authority to do for them what they are able and morally obliged to either do for themselves or to commission the smallest and most localized institutions to do for them. The Church looks upon this attitude -- and the criminal system it has spawned -- with profound disfavor. 'Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can accomplish, so too it is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance or right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.'" [Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno]  --- Hugh Akins

  WHAT magic is there in the rule of six that compels the snowflake to conform so rigidly to its laws? Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator. These are the words of Wilson A. Bentley, a self-taught Vermont farmer who from early childhood was fascinated by the crystalline structure of snow and was the first person to photograph the snowflake. Born in 1865 and educated by his mother, he taught himself the craft of microphotography so that he could document the snow crystals that fell outside his home in the rural town of Jericho, which typically received about 120 inches of snowfall a year. Bentley would gather snow on a black wooden tray, removing the excess with a feather duster. He then separated the crystals with the filament of a broom. Having attached a microscope, his only serious piece of scientific equipment, to a bellows camera, he glued the snowflakes to microscopic slides and photographed them inside in an unheated room, with light from a window for illumination. He washed his negatives in a nearby brook. He eventually amassed more than 5,000 microphotographs, starting with his first, made in 1885 when he was 20 years old. They appeared along with his explanatory articles in journals and in a book, Snow Crystals, published the year of his death in 1931. He wrote in his later years: For something over a quarter of a century I have been studying [the snow crystal] and the work has proved to be wonderfully fascinating, for each favorable snowfall,…