Life in the Rear-view Mirror

The Church's Role

In the last chapter I discussed how world population has exploded during my lifetime and identified several factors that have contributed to it. In this chapter I examine one of those factors – the church and religion.

It’s an undeniable fact that fertility rates are highest in the poorest countries of the world. It’s also no coincidence that the same countries have the largest number of religious people. International polls have shown this correlation to be true time and again. In some countries, located mostly in South America and Africa, the number of people professing to be religious is above 90%. They are the ones that obey the church’s dictums with blind faith, whether or not they make sense. For this reason, the Church’s policy against contraception has contributed significantly to the world’s overpopulation problem. Unlike the abortion issue, which has moral and ethical aspects, contraception has none of these. The Church has absolutely no right to dictate the sex life of free people. Yet, this ill-founded, and immoral, policy has not only contributed to the population explosion, but also to the spread of the HIV virus in poor countries, particularly in Africa.

I was born in the country that is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, and in a town that was 100% catholic. Like everyone else in town, I was baptized soon after my birth. Child mortality was relatively high in those days, and there was tremendous pressure on families to baptize their newborns soon after birth, for fear that the devil would take their souls if they died without receiving the sacrament. So, within a few weeks of birth, I became a catholic. Of course, I didn’t know what was happening; and before I knew what was going on, I had already received my first communion, was confirmed into the faith, and was married by a catholic priest. Then, my turn came to do onto others as had been done onto me. My three daughters were baptized, received first communion and confirmed, before they too knew what was going on.

However, by this point the Catholic Church had come into the spotlight for all sorts of abuses, and it made me think about religion in a way that I had never done before. It was an agonizing period in my life, but after years of contemplation, I realized that it was not what it was purported to be, and I left it!

Three things tormented me about this monolithic institution. The first was the molestation of innocent children, and the fact that it was covered up without doing anything about the problem. That is, the church had become corrupt, dishonest, and couldn’t own up to their failings. They did, and continue to do, without remorse, the exact opposite of what they preach.

The second was the banning of condoms to prevent the spread of aids, particularly in African countries, where it was rampant. In doing so, the Pope, as head of the Catholic Church, condemned millions of children to death, or a life of misery and suffering.

The third was the church’s uncompromising stand against abortion, for any reason. As the father of three daughters, I found this edict very disturbing. I thought the church came down very hard on abortion. It was hell-bent on taking away the hard-fought gains that women had made during the feminist revolution.

The abortion issue was the most difficult of the three because it’s a moral and ethical one, and it falls in the realm of religion. It’s reasonable to say that abortion, the death of a human embryo, is immoral and bad because in an ideal world it shouldn’t happen. But in the real world there are many valid reasons why it should, and needs to happen. Nevertheless, the church steadfastly refuses to acknowledge them. While it’s reasonable for the church to consider abortion immoral, it’s irrational for it to condone equally immoral activities, such as genocide and millions of children dying every year for lack of water and food. In 1994, Rwanda suffered the worst genocide since World War II. More than 60% of Rwandans were Catholic, and almost 99% were Christian. Those persecuted took refuge in churches, but none were spared. In some cases, the priests tried to stop the atrocities, but in others they were complicit. Moreover, the Vatican, with its immense power over its own churches, and not insignificant political power, was silent, despite the fact that those committing the atrocities were also Catholics. Were these not also children of God?