Family Planning

We are against abortion yet we eat a lot of fetus and babies.

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(Below: Fried one day old chicks that Filipinos eat with gusto. Above: Fried...hmmm...Let your imagination run wild! )

The Philippines is one of the last countries that take the Roman Catholic Church’s edict against artificial family planning seriously. Although this is the official R.C.’s stand, enlightened countries have since then considered this teaching as archaic as the Church’s teaching about limbo (glad to hear that limbo has officially been abandoned by the R.C. in its cannon of traditional teachings). Even some priests and R.C church leader especially those who are working among the poor see the folly of the edict against artificial birth control method.

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In the Philippines the official stand of the R.C. is to ban the use of artificial method because it is anti-life. I saw a TV program featuring Chinese Catholics talking about how life is important to the Chinese. According to one of the guests, the Chinese counts conception as the start of their birthday. This meant that when a baby is born they are already a year old. This is how important life is to the Chinese. And this coincides or is in consonance with the church’s teachings on the sanctity of life. Why is it that I am not convinced with this intercultural parallelism? This belief is good. But ask any Chinese from the mainland to the islands to the ex-pats if this belief on conception as already the birthday justifies wanton, rampant, irresponsible, libido driven, pornography inspired, gin and alcohol powered and rampant sex as a catharsis for whatever pressure the…blah, blah, blah, population explosion. The Chinese are the epitome of family planning, artificial, natural and even abortional! China is the champion of the one child policy. If they were as pro lifers as this TV guest said they are, the Chinese would have revolted but they didn’t, why? Because they saw the utility and the benefit of the policy and now they are reaping its reward.

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Right perspective is what is needed here. If the R.C. recognize natural birth control as morally and theologically acceptable what’s barring them from accepting artificial method? If it’s a question of intention there’s no difference between the artificial and the natural method of family planning! I have nothing against the Roman Catholics. I consider them Christians and brothers in Christ; it’s just that their interpretation of the order to multiply and to subdue the earth must now be viewed in the light that the earth has already been subdued and is now dying and it is now time for repairing and maintaining the sustainability of the planet.

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This Noahnine order is/was one of theological justification for the exploitation and the destruction of nature especially among the protestant nations. Now theologians are seeing the point of pantheism (God is everything) and panenetheism (God is in everything) and why this view is not only theologically viable and morally tenable but it is now a theological necessity in order for people of the planet to realize that in destroying nature they are destroying creation and part of the creator the same way a part of the sculptor is destroyed when one of his/her sculptor is destroyed.

Creation may not be God, God may not be in everything but the relationship between creator and creature is real that they cannot be separated essentially.

Now, how does this translate to population explosion? Uncontrolled population is now the major cause of stress on the planet. I saw Al Gore’s "Global Warming" and even if what he is saying is only a tenth of the truth, it is still worrisome.

Hey, we got to do something!