Towards a Holistic Culture of Life--Part 1

“It is very different from the serenity of spirit to be found in parents who are surrounded by a rich abundance of young lives. The joy that comes from the plentiful blessings of God breaks out in a thousand different ways and there is no fear that it will end. The brows of these fathers and mothers may be burdened with cares, but there is never a trace of that inner shadow that betrays anxiety of conscience or fear of an irreparable return to loneliness, their youth never seems to fade away, as long as the sweet fragrance of a crib remains in the home, as long as the walls of the house echo to the silvery voices of children and grandchildren.”

--Blessed Pope Pius XII, “Allocution to the Italian Association of Large Families”, 1958

On a flight to the East Coast I recently took for a military course, a conspicuous number of small children were on board, absent my own toddler. Among the many preternatural gifts bestowed upon new parents, I believe one of them is an inner radar that acutely detects the presence of other children. On this trip, no innate parental radar was needed, as a couple of the small children announced their presence in vociferous fashion. Air travel being the devil’s preferred method of transportation, the shrieks of these poor children served to vocalize the inner anguish of all passengers. Most bore the noise with a vexed but resigned patience and did little or nothing to betray their sentiments. However, one boomer-aged couple sitting kitty-corner in front of me, so aggrieved by the perfectly natural reaction of healthy and functional children, had to signal their perturbation to all those around them. Sticking their fingers in their ears garishly with elbows flared out for as long as cries were heard, they proceeded to shake their heads and visibly sigh; only removing fingers from their ears to dutifully lower their masks and take sips of ginger ale and bites of pretzels. This demonstrable lack of character and patience was vastly shriller and more tiresome than any noise made by any child on that flight. 

The sound of a child’s cry in certain public settings can sometimes serve as a kind of audio Rorschach test. To one, it may be the sound of communal vigor, innocence, or the animated hope for the future and the perpetuation of man’s venture towards destiny. A saying goes in some establishments of faith: “If there are no babies crying, the church is dying.” To another, a child’s cry may be a piercing intrusion into the quiet despair of adult life, an annoyance, the disturbance of tranquility or solemnity, or the sound of a dismal future imperiled by the bogeymen of overpopulation and climate change. Disregarding the fact that we live in the most peaceful, prosperous, and scientifically advanced age in the history of humankind, our faithless cultural milieu has conditioned us to view the adventure brought on by the arrival and presence of new life with trepidation and cynicism. Decades of barren ruination brought about by abortion, diminishing fertility rates, the increased use of artificial contraception, the siren song of careerism, the illusive “need” for both parents to maintain employment, and the correlative breakdown of the family has left us selfish and irascible. Like the couple on the plane with fingers jammed into our ears ostentatiously, we are the masters of our will and our environment, upon which no child shall impinge. 

The parties responsible for the depreciation of children in society are many and diverse and tragically, Christians bear much culpability. The devotees to a God who places special emphasis on children and child-like faith have all too often purchased wholesale the lies of a worldview that appraises children as dispensable or subordinate to other pursuits. While abortion may still live in the dark fringes of Christian approbation, the deliberate use of artificial contraception to subvert the natural order and the prioritizing of child-rearing beneath superficial pursuits of career and frivolity is often espoused. Faithful Christians must not align their reasoning on this matter with that of the secular humanist. Such is the danger of a moral epistemology that relies solely on scripture to form the basis of its judgment. Birth control, while not categorically condemned in the Bible texts, contravenes the historical and ancient Christian witness as well as the dictates of natural law and is right to be condemned as a violation of the divine law. Concurrently with God’s first blessing upon man came His edict to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). Being made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27) sanctions participation in his creative nature, to willingly forsake that is to deny that blessing and God’s very imperative. 

Both the chemical and cultural impingement of convenience and selfishness into the natural order provides fertile ground for the horrific evil of abortion. The fact that you can window dress the justification of the murderous act of elective abortion with the same flawed logic many Christians use to justify artificial birth control and a posture closed to life should be more than enough for paused concern. Human nature and the divine law bears witness against the error of birth control, and resoundingly exhorts an openness to life.

One of the tragedies wrought by the prevalent use of artificial contraception and the shift in mentality regarding children is a fundamental collapse of the ontological understanding of what constitutes a family. What has arisen is a cheap cosplay of family life, a distorted alternate reality where adults shacking up without vows play-act marriage, dogs replace children, and the definition of family becomes malleable and subject to the whims of a self-seeking and indulgent culture. Sacrifice and daily mortification are inherent and essential to the Christian life, without which one cannot attain the beatific vision. Thus, in marriage as well, one cannot live out the fullness of their vocation without it. And what bigger sacrifice is there than the giving of oneself to the development and sanctification of your progeny, participating in the creative nature of God and extending and disseminating His goodness to future generations. 

Another malady brought about by these errors of our time is arrested development among adults, e.g. fully grown men and women taking trips to Disneyland alone, a cultural obsession with childish accoutrements and interests, the indulgence of teenage-level hormones and sophomoric promiscuity, etc. The irony being that such a pathetic attempt to hold fast to one’s fleeting youth only highlights the stark onset of age without maturation, much like a middle-aged aunt’s lower back tattoo unconcealed by her crop top. Conversely, what truly allows the continual flourishing of youth in adults is children. A 38-year-old man in a movie theater watching a Disney movie alone is creepy; a 38-year-old father with his young daughter in the same movie theater is adorable. For fruitful parents, to harken back to Pope Pius XII’s address at the onset, “their youth never seems to fade away”.  

Nobody of goodwill or sound mind can deny the challenges of having and raising children. That debate has been settled from time immemorial. But we must not be deceived into thinking that the conditions for fruitfulness must be ideal. Children are a rich blessing in all circumstances, and a wide scale embrace of such an understanding is essential in subverting the culture of death. With the same graciousness and magnanimity of our Lord, we must suffer the children in all arenas and in every walk of life. The ideal arena for the raising of children is where love, grace, and selfless sacrifice abound. There is no moral obligation to provide a 3,000 square foot home for one’s family, or to drive a shiny new car, but one does have a moral obligation to humble oneself before the moral demands of natural and divine law, and to provide spiritually and materially (in that order) for the gifts of life that may (God willing) come from fidelity to the first obligation. 

Fewer births and artificial contraception, contrary to popular conception, will not abate the culture of death but are rather part and parcel of its whole. The opposing virtues of humility and magnanimous submission will help foster a holistic culture of life. One cannot truly advocate for life in the social and political sphere while denying its possibility in the private sphere for the dictates of comfort. This is backwards. Again, the words of Blessed Pius XII are apropos: 

God is not going to ask men for an accounting of the general destiny of mankind; that is His business; but He will demand an accounting of the single acts that they have deliberately performed in accordance with or against the dictates of conscience.

So let us all of goodwill and hearty faith let our attitude towards life be shaped by the supreme life-giver, and cast-off fear, cynicism, and self-indulgent pursuits. Reject the barrenness of modernity, destined for expiration, and embrace the fruitfulness and vigor of a sacred tradition destined to venture forth in perpetuity.