A Radical Thought!

Proverbs 14:28

In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined.

In the past century or so, something happened.  The above verse stopped being common wisdom and instead, a small oligarchy of a few rich people (primarily in the US and Europe) began to say to places like Africa, Asia, and Latin America, “There’s just enough of us, but way too many of you poor brown-skinned people.”  In the process, they pointed to highly scientific proof from people like Thomas Malthus, who began predicting in the late 18th century that huge famines were just around the corner and that overpopulation was going to destroy the world.  Malthus’ world-destroying famines never appeared.  First the 19th, then the 20th, and now the 21st century dawn and still there has been no catastrophic population bomb exploding, even though world population is billions more than it was in Malthus’ day.  Yet, despite this, the ideologues whose principal creed is “People are the problem” continue to have unquestioned authority and everybody is certain that a family which celebrates and welcomes children is a threat and a problem.  What nobody seems to notice is that it is the US and Europe (whose people have bought the ideology and who suffer declining birth rates) that consumes all the resources in narcissistic Baby Boomer self-absorption, not in feeding “too many” children.  One almost gets the impression the Population Bomb is bogus and the old biblical wisdom which celebrates people as the glory of King Jesus rather than regards them as a threat to the comforts of the rich is a truer wisdom than the agitprop of the Cairo and Beijing conferences.  Today, thank God for people and consider the possibility that ideology, not people, is the problem.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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