Our Sunday Visitor: Fuzziness over faith identity among reasons for falling marriage numbers

Later marriage, growing acceptance of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births, and a diminished sense of religious identity are all possible factors in the decline in Catholic marriages that U.S. dioceses report.

In brief, the situation looks like this.

U.S. Catholic dioceses reported 426,000 Catholic marriages in 1970 but only about 212,000 in 2006, a decline of 214,000. In these years, there also was a 50 percent drop in the number of marriages annually per 1,000 adult American women.

As Catholic marriage in the United States headed down, Catholic population headed up. While the number of marriages yearly was falling by more than 200,000 in four decades, the number of Catholics increased more than 19 million, from 48 million in 1970 to 67 million last year.

As might have been predicted, along with the falloff in Catholic marriages, infant baptisms have started to decline. In 1995, more than 1 million babies were baptized in Catholic rites in the United States. The figure 10 years later was 943,000 – a drop of some 60,000. Similarly, for the country as a whole, the birth rate fell from 24.1 per 1,000 of population in 1950 to 14 per 1,000 in 2004.

There appear to be several explanations for these developments. They include later marriage, growing acceptance of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births, and a diminished sense of religious identity among many Catholics and other Americans. Socioeconomic factors also play a role, with better-educated people more likely to marry now than those with less education, although for both groups the never-married figure has shot up since 1980.

Out of wedlock

Whatever combination of factors accounts for what’s happened, the numbers are startling in themselves. The statistics given here are drawn from government sources and, for the Catholic sector, from figures reported annually by dioceses to the Official Catholic Directory. The Catholic figures do not distinguish marriages between two Catholics from religiously mixed marriages recognized by the church.

That the divorce rate is rising in the United States has been a well-known phenomenon for years. The incidence of divorce in America started climbing in the 1920s, with the rate peaking at 5.3 per 1,000 Americans in 1981; it currently stands at about 3.6 per 1,000. Catholic annulments rose from 338 to 50,000 between 1968 and 2002.

Until recently, however, the falloff in the number and rate of marriages has been less widely recognized. Now that is changing as the numbers paint an increasingly disturbing picture.

As noted, one factor in what is happening is that today’s Americans marry later than their parents and grandparents did. The median age for first marriage was 23 for men and 20 for women in 1950, but by 2004 it was 27 for men and 26 for women.

Along with marrying later, Americans now are much more likely to cohabitate – either before marrying or instead of marrying.

Thus in 1960 married couple households were 74 percent of all U.S. households and non-married couple households only 0.8 percent – a mere 439,000 in all. By 2005 the percentage of married couple households had fallen to 51 percent, while unmarried couple households were 4.9 million – 4.3 percent of all households.

If cohabitation has become more common, so have pregnancy and birth among the unmarried, with out-of-wedlock births accounting for 40 percent of all births in the United States in 2004. And while out-of-wedlock births have long been associated with teenage mothers, the number of such births to mothers 17 or younger fell that year while the number to women in their 20s rose.

Identity crisis

Another part of the picture concerns shifts in religious attitudes toward marriage combined with fuzziness about religious identity among many. That includes an unknown but presumably large number of Catholics who now either marry in civil ceremonies or in non-Catholic rituals not recognized by the church.

Substantial evidence for such changes, both research-based and anecdotal, now exists. Over the last 25 years, for instance, a team of sociologists sponsored by the National Catholic Reporter has periodically asked a sample of American Catholics whether it’s possible to be a “good Catholic” while rejecting various Catholic beliefs and practices.

One of the questions in that category which the researchers have regularly asked is whether people can be good Catholics “without their marriage being approved by the Catholic Church.” In 1981, just over half of the respondents – 51 percent – answered “yes;” in 1993, it was 61 percent; in 1999, 68 percent; and in 2005, 67 percent.

A smorgasbord approach to religious aspects of getting married also seems to be spreading.

“While clergy still perform most weddings,” the Washington Post reported last year, “the ceremonies are straying ever farther from tradition. … The religious heritage may be the bride’s, the groom’s or some interfaith stew.” To illustrate, the newspaper quoted a woman preparing for such a wedding who remarked of the groom, “I think he’s a Lutheran,” while adding, “I’m a Baptist, technically.”

Religious groups haven’t hit on any uniform approach to stemming the decline of marriage, but the U.S. bishops, alarmed by what’s been going on, have made marriage and family life the top priority of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the next several years. This apparently will involve writing a new collective pastoral letter on marriage and adopting a program of some sort.

But like others who are troubled by what’s happening to marriage, the bishops are bucking powerful social trends that are apparently far from playing themselves out.

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Russell Shaw is a contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor.

GLOBAL WARMING – FEAR MONGERING

Dear Fellow Americans,

Global warming is a concept predicated upon certain computer-programmed atmospheric parameters that tend to diminish the complexity of Earth eco-system inner-workings. "Global warming" is not a concept that originated from human analytical scientific thinking but is an interpretation of certain data from a computer program. And it is not right that a whole propaganda-agenda of fear be generated in every nation which, as it breeds extremism, would endanger continuum economic prosperity, even here, at home. For, regulatory measures being sought from national governments would impinge upon innovations by free enterprise, consumer product and reality-based production methods by private industry. We can be sensitive to a clean environment vision without holding to the “global warming bandwagon." The problem is particulate emissions and not the gases themselves, for particulate emissions (e.g., quantities in PPB’s or “parts per billion) return to earth as “acid rain,” for example; and, in addition, they contribute to cancer, lung disease and respiratory problems. There is no scientific evidence for the computer-program generated “problem;” still, corporate industries have to be socially responsible and must abide by the requirements of Clean Air Acts regarding atmospheric smokestack emissions, hazardous waste control, and comprehensive potable water protection.

I have read a scientific research report by OISM - OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE - PETITION PROJECT at oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm. This is the most scientific reading I have had on this subject which elucidated how one must approach all discussions of "global warming," – very cautiously, very prudently. I did not even know how this debate began and where the term came from. And OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE scientists explain, "Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy." It's no less than "weather forecasting" with the same machines from which our nightly weather news come, e.g., "50% chance of showers." The climate always changes from season to season. Let me emphasize this: The human body is the climax of all the complex laws of physics, chemistry and biology and is the most efficient organic system in the Universe. And human beings exhale Carbon Dioxide as a natural by-product of biological metabolism, namely respiration. How can Carbon Dioxide then present a danger to us or the atmosphere?

In the same vein, all efficiently burnt carbon-based fossil fuels, like petroleum and coal, result in emissions of Carbon Dioxide and Water. So why is there a cry regarding "Carbon Dioxide emissions?" Is it because industrial smokestack emissions are not absorbed by the atmosphere, and do not degrade into basic chemical elements? Do they just accumulate and hover above the breathable atmosphere? Questions then are, does Earth temperature really increase because of that? What quantity or volume does it take in order for this to occur? Unfortunately, the on-going debate is mainly ideological with pressure groups taking the lead rather than earth scientists explaining the details of scientific principles involved. But the Great Flood of the times of Noah recorded in the Holy Bible, an account also reported almost in every culture on the Earth, did occur. Human recorded history is replete with natural catastrophes, from floods, to tornadoes, to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Vesuvius erupted in Italy and buried a whole city in ashes. And there had been no industrial revolution then, thus, no smokestack gas emissions. Freezing and thawing are routine geo-physical events due to solar activity and seasonal variations.

The research project at OISM did conclude that changes in Earth temperature are due to Solar activity and not to human hydrocarbon use, which only dates back to the 1880's - about 128 years of fossil fuel exploitation (1880-2009). The USA is older than that. We began in 1776! And emissions come from major industrially developed nations, a minimum number, comprising The United States of America, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, and more recently, India and China, rather than from all nations of the Earth. Most of the "global warming trumpeters" abide by the Theory of Evolution and believe the Universe is billions of years old; then how could just 128 years of variegated human industrial activity provoke such catastrophic temperature consequences? Is this scientifically possible? Goes “out of the window” the concept of so-called “adaptation!” There is no evidence it is. However, "acid rain" is real, objectively concrete and provable with evidence of tree damage, for example, because the particulates traveling in smokestack gas emissions are trapped by cloud formations that then liquefy and fall down as “acid rain water.”

Scientists must enter the dialogue to prove whether the problem of “global warming” is real. These problems must be scientifically understood if a scientific solution is being sought. Cannot emission-trapped particulates be filtered out before emission release into the atmosphere? Government administrators deserve to know the root-source and cause of national debates so that they are not deceived into investing resources, manpower, hard-earned taxpayers’ money, in the pursuit of "solutions" that are originally based on flawed hypothesis and false assumptions - from an electronic computing machine. After reading the material published by OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE on its website, analyzing and evaluating it, I concluded that all this "hoopla" about "global warming" is due to a weather-forecasting computer program and not to reality-connected, true-to-Earth sciences and solar system scientifically proven facts. The electronic machine cannot think, it cannot anticipate or weigh, prioritize or factor pertinent variables, but only performs as programmed; it is rather "number-friendly" but is not an analytical thinker.

Research must be conducted to find out what happens to industrial by-products such as dioxin, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide molecules - do they degrade into atmospheric composition gases? Do they remain within the different atmospheric layers until absorbed, yet without decaying back to atomic elements? Is non-absorption why they continue to hover below cloud-cover, as particulates there-in return to the soil as "acid rain?" For example, logging and deforestation must be accompanied by a program of tree replanting. Plants and trees are renewable resources - farmers know. Corporate industries are accountable and responsible for atmospheric emissions also in accordance with international laws, treaties, and Clean Air Acts. But scientists ought to be doing the thinking, rather than let the interpretation of an electronic climate program generate fear-of-living on the Earth, as is this demagogy being perpetrated by the "global warming" progagandists. The greater question is, given that industrial producers are using petroleum-based processes – carbon-based fuels - can emission compositions be different from what they are now? And if not, what can be done to clean them up of particulates before atmospheric release? And are CO2 emissions dangerous by nature or is it due to the accumulation, non-absorption and non-degradability thereof?

Thank you for allowing me to share these concerns with you. God abundantly bless you in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Sincerely,

Leo Emmanuel Lochard, BA, MA, Certified Teacher, State of Illinois, USA

Leo Emmanuel Lochard | 3/25/2009

STEM CELLS – FRAUD & HOAX

Dear Christian Friends,

By the stroke of the pen on an Executive Order, President Obama has reversed the ban on fetal stem cell research. I don’t believe we should lose hope and conclude it’s a foregone conclusion that researchers will continue to abort human babies for the purpose of extracting their embryonic cells for implant into adult brains whose owners suffer from Altzeimer’s or some other disease. There are ways such “research” can be stopped even if Congress fails to act against the President’s misjudgment.

When researchers talk about “stem cell treatment,” we must understand what they are doing, how they intend to do it and what their expected results are.

When asked to explain how the process would work, proponents of stem cell treatment are at a loss. Reasons are, first, they don’t know; second, there is nothing to know, since it would not work as intended. The logic upon which the research is based is flawed and expected conclusions false. In short, it amounts to infanticide, and body-part “can-nibalism” – like the Air Force that takes parts from one airplane on the ground to install them on other planes still flying.

The activity of stem cell treatment proponents is not bio-medical science but is anchored in greed and godless lawlessness. It is imbued with selfishness and heartless callousness towards unborn babies who will be murdered in order that a few human “scavengers” can survive. To hear them speak on television programs or to read their apparent pleas to let the “research” continue amounts to validating the cries of hyenas on a rampage for prey.

First of all, these embryonic stem cells belong to unique, already procreated, formed-in-the-womb human beings whose embryonic development to maturity has been stopped, interrupted and discontinued due to external intrusion by laboratory technicians. These so-called embryonic stem cells are already predisposed, pre-designed, pre-purposed to differentiate and specialize into body organs and parts that belong to a specific human being. Just because the baby’s development in the womb has been stopped at a specific time, i.e., embryonic or fetal stage, just because there is dislocation from purposed locus of maturity, do not entail a change in genetic design or imprinting. The cells, from the standpoint of biological development and maturity are already pre-destined to differentiate and specialize into that specific human being whom the sperm and the egg have had already formed into existence, regardless of age. Dislocation from that specific human being and transplantation into an Altzeimer’s patient’s brain do not change the genetic predestination and individuation of those cells.

Thus, were those cells allowed to mature, they would be organs and body parts belonging to the specific baby formed by the sperm and the egg, before the baby was murdered prematurely, whether at the embryonic age (3 days old in the womb), or fetal development age (2 months old in the womb). This genetic specificity and unique individuation will not change just because the cells are dislocated and transplanted in another body; and no biological or chemical process will take place in the patient’s brain that will effect a change in his own neurons. They might as well take the baby’s toes and do the same with them – transplanting one body part from one human being into another. This demonstrates how flawed their logic is and how false their conclusions are from these unscientific assumptions. The only reason these cells are called “stem cells” is because at that age (not “stage”), i.e., the embryonic, they are not yet formed or differentiated into body parts, such as the eyes, the mouth, the feet, or specialized into organs, such as the heart, the liver etc… They pretend to forget that the sperm and the egg from which this unique human being is being procreated form only one genotype, one human being with a specific genome and no other. And these cells are not “stem cells” from the standpoint of biology but only from the perspective of human beings who have already committed murder and must justify their acts by identifying “cells” with their victim’s age in the womb, i.e., embryo – stem cell. But at the age of un-arrested and uninterrupted development, e.g., 5 months old in the womb, the baby is a “fetus.” Why? The baby was not murdered; cells too young to form body parts and organs, now, are maturing through the development process into their specific genetic predestination and bio-organic individuation. Consequently, so-called “stem cell treatment” is selfish self-deception and godless self-delusion. These babies are dying needlessly and murder is being rewarded with media hoopla and taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

Please do not lose courage, nor despair. It is not too late to stop them. We need to spread the truth with scientists who will listen to biologically sound scientific knowledge, citizens and public officials who will then take constructive action before this gruesome undertaking is launched on this land against the most defenseless victims amongst us, unborn babies.

Thank you. God bless you Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Leo Emmanuel Lochard, BA, MA, Certified Teacher, State of Illinois , USA

Leo Emmanuel Lochard | 3/25/2009

THE “PIPEDREAM” OF “GENETIC ENGINEERING”

Dear fellow Americans:

You’ve heard, for example, that scientists will be able to “make babies no demand,” that parents could require a baby with a specific eye color or hair color, a specific height, or a specific skin tone. Truly and scientifically speaking, it’s not as simple as you hear it in the media. Now consider these scientific facts.

Conception happens when the male sperm meets and merges with the female egg. That’s also called “fertilization.” The male sperm is already set – gene specificity from a sexually mature male whose genes have already specialized and differentiated into specific body parts and specific organs. Likewise, the female egg is already set – gene specificity. Now then, how could scientists intervene to change the very way in which the human baby develops at the exact second the male sperm and the female egg form the embryo’s specific organ(s) or body part(s)?

First of all, in the Petri-dish, the embryo without the woman’s womb and placenta will not continue to grow and develop beyond a specific “fertilization size.” At that age, (not stage), the embryo is so small, and genes not “coupling” yet, that no surgical operation or gene manipulation can take place. For the sperm and the egg are still retaining their “gene packages,” each of which, is released for “coupling,” at predetermined, set, specific times.

That means the “fertilized embryo” or “conceived human being” has to be transplanted and transferred into the woman’s womb immediately to then continue to grow within the placenta.

In addition, gene specialization and differentiation for specific body parts and organs do not occur at the same time. Each body part or organ develops depending upon the age of the embryo. Scientists would have to intervene to manipulate “gene coupling” between sperm-genes and egg-genes at the exact second a body part is being formed. But the problem is: the embryo or fetus is securely ensconced into his or her mother’s placenta in her womb and cannot be taken out to be experimented upon and put back into the womb inside the placenta again. The amniotic fluid inside the placenta has a specific temperature and pressure – (it’s also called “the bag of waters)” – and would begin to leak profusely, thus endangering the life of the developing embryo\fetus\baby.

Once the amniotic sac is broken, birth has to take place. Nine-month development is the normal expected time for delivery of the baby. There cannot be multiple surgical operations to manipulate “gene coupling,” lest both the mother and the baby die. And scientists cannot cut into the placenta to leak amniotic fluid continuously to operate on the embryo or the fetus. Some organs are formed in days, others in weeks, yet others in months. For after a specific number of months, the baby will have had completely developed and all “sperm and egg gene couplings” done permanently, with continued growth for 9-month maturity remaining.

In addition, Petri-dish or “in-vitro fertilization” has to undergo multiple trials until one of the “fertilized eggs” attaches to the woman’s womb for continuum development until maturity. Scientists generally know the time at which a baby in the womb starts developing certain body parts or organs. The fact to remember is that scientists cannot do anything in the Petri-dish – for, once fertilized, the sperm and the egg must be inserted in the woman’s womb immediately, or else they die.

Therefore, what the scientists are doing in the media with their announcements is to give Americans false “hope,” as they continue to collect government and foundation grants – hard-earned taxpayers’ money. The whole thing is like the hoax called “stem cell research.” It amounts to outright fraud. But worse, it’s a godless agenda in attempts to control human population from birth to death, and at the same time, re-foment interests in eugenics in order to divide the peoples of the Earth for rekindled genocide.

Do not remain on the sidelines as observers only. Let your voices rise in protest against these gruesome experiments on human beings that are being funded by our government with our own tax money. Organize meetings, write, meet with your Senators and Congressmen and disseminate what you know.

You notice, the media is always making announcements but no medical doctor(s) or scientist(s) there ever explain in detail what they are really doing in their laboratories. They need to answer these questions. We deserve to know the truth.

God bless you in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

Sincerely,

Leo Emmanuel Lochard,BA, MA, Certified Teacher, State of Illinois, USA

Leo Emmanuel Lochard | 3/25/2009

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