We give a lot of credit these days to the American soccer mom, that domestic multitasker extraordinaire, but on Sunday the Roman Catholic Church recognized a woman who raised a family so large it could have made up a whole soccer team by itself. The Vatican praised Eurosia Fabris as "a dazzling model of holiness" and beatified her, making her a candidate for sainthood. It seems well deserved. In my book, any parent who can successfully bring up 11 children without using cages or a tranquilizer gun is absolutely saint material. And "Mamma Rosa," as she was known, did her parenting in late 19th century northern Italy, so she worked her motherly magic without the benefit of Sesame Street, Ritalin or a Toyota mini-van.
The ceremony surrounding her beatification was deeply disturbing, however, because it took place in the context of a Vatican campaign to encourage more people to have large families. The virtues of Mamma Rosa notwithstanding, the world needs more large families like the pope needs a hole in the head. And considering what Benedict XVI has said on the subject, I wonder if there is already a hole or some other defect in the papal cranium. His holiness has declared "there is no future without children," which is either patently obvious or simply false depending on one’s ontological viewpoint. Either way it is not a helpful remark because it obtusely fails to address the dire facts that threaten the long-term future of the human race: The world’s population is 6.47 billion and rising, our resources are limited, and more than half of us live in abject poverty.
As isolated as he is from the brutal realities of overpopulation, it’s easy enough for Benedict to call for bigger and bigger broods of children. There’s no danger of famine or drought striking Vatican City, and all those vows of celibacy must tend to keep the infant mortality rate low in the pontiff’s gilded enclave. But the influence of the Vatican extends far and wide, and Benedict’s voice is especially powerful in the struggling nations where people rely on Catholic missionaries for assistance with food, health care and education. The message broadcast from St. Peter’s Square on Sunday was that God wants people to continue to have lots and lots of children. Two of Mamma Rosa’s eleven kids were adopted, but the Vatican intentionallyblurred the distinction, as if to suggest the ability to make babies and the ability to nurture them are equally virtuous. This is one of the weakest links in the logic chain of Catholic ideology: Superabundant human reproduction and the betterment of the human condition are mutually contradictory goals.
Few will argue with the general assertion that human life is sacred. The difficulty arises when society attempts to reach a consensus on specific questions. Does life begin at conception? At the end of the first trimester? At birth? The church’s position is that the very idea of life is sacred – not only is it wrong to end a life in the process of developing in the womb (aborting a fetus), but it is wrong to prevent a life from being conceived in the first place. The clash of the idea of abundant life and the reality of overpopulation is plain to see in places such as Uganda, where 97 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day, the income level defined by the World Bank as the poverty line. We’re all aware of the myriad social problems that go hand in hand with poverty of that magnitude: Malnutrition, lack of potable water, illiteracy, health threats such as HIV/AIDS, economic exploitation of laborers and the suppression of women’s rights are just a few near the top of the list. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s population growth takes place in the developing world, and rampant human reproduction is arguably the most significant obstacle to solving to the developing world’s greatest difficulties.
To its credit, the Catholic Church has a long, noble tradition of sponsoring orphanages and other humanitarian services, but its stance against birth control makes it more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. The church’s principle of affirming the idea of life at all costs, like many principles of many religions, is based on an outdated worldview. When the words "be fruitful and multiply" were written so many millennia ago, human multiplication was a good thing. Men wanted as many children – especially sons – as their wives could bear. A large family was (and still is, in many cultures) a status symbol, a source of labor and a guarantee of security in old age. But even before the world’s population started to spike with advances in medicine in the 18th century and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th, division (of power and resources) was as much a part of the human social fabric as multiplication.And now, when the global population has tripled in less than a century, we must seriously address the dangers of dwindling resources and promote safe, inexpensive birth control worldwide.
The cynic in me wonders if the Vatican’s promotion of "fruitfulness" is truly based on the Gospel or if it is motivated by the church’s desire to ensure a steady flow of faithful in the developing world. The Vatican’s influence has waned in most of Europe and much of the developed world, and in the last two hundred years we’ve seen its influence grow in impoverished nations. The Catholic spiritual mission flourishes best in places where its humanitarian mission is needed – in societies where the enlightenment of secular education has yet to kill God. The needs for food and clean water always trump the desire for intellectual emancipation.
One of the most common arguments against birth control and abortion is that when a pregnancy is prevented or terminated, one cannot know if it means the loss of a potential person who could one day make great contributions to the world; Albert Einstein is the most frequently cited individual. In 1879, the year Einstein was born, the world’s population was only 1.5 billion. By the logic of this argument, in the present world of four times that many individuals, we should expect four times as many characters of Einstein’s caliber in the world. More births means more chances for greatness, n’cest pas? Unfortunately, no. That’s not the case because population growth is slowest in nations that can best afford to produce and cultivate brilliant minds. It is exploding in countries that can barely afford to feed, clothe or shelter their citizens.
There is some good news. Despite the ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Paris and Schenectady, humanitarian groups have reported that overall warfare seems to be on the decrease worldwide. And some statisticians predict world population growth will slow and reach a plateau sometime in the next hundred years, capping the total number of living persons at around 8 or 9 billion. But we must ponder all the hunger, pain and suffering that will be experienced in those years leading up to the magical point of Zero Population Growth.
Pope Benedict has said large families like Mamma Rosa’s are instrumental to fostering "faith, courage and optimism" in society. World leaders need all three of these qualities to avoid looking the truth in the eye. Unless the Catholic Church is prepared to show us some amazing tricks with loaves and fishes – not to mention fuels, medicines, building materials, etc. – it should encourage the meekto use birth control. There’s only so much inheritable earth to go around.
