Something Fishy? Why is THIS Missing from Pope Francis’ Environmental Encyclical?

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Image Shutterstock

I was not one of the many Catholics dreading the publication of Laudato Si.  I teach a college course on Catholic Social Teaching and stewardship of the environment is one of the major themes of this great and influential body of work.  As Catholics, we believe that when the Word of God became flesh, all of creation was raised to a new dignity in Christ.  Human beings do not own the world, we are merely stewards of it.  It is an established point of Catholic social doctrine that all of us have a grave moral duty to do what we can to leave this planet in better shape than we found it. As Pope Francis inspiringly notes, honoring God’s creation is  an important way that God’s people give praise to him.

Wanted:  Strong Catholic Voice

In light of this, I was genuinely looking forward to reading what Pope Francis had to say on this important issue.  In all the debate about environmental policy, strong Catholic moral leadership has been conspicuous by its absence.  In this regard, Pope Francis does not disappoint.  He does a wonderful job recognizing the common errors that many secular environmentalists make–from worshiping the earth as a deity to misguided efforts to “save” the planet through abortion and population control and many others–and makes many excellent, practical points about how people can promote an approach to environmental stewardship that improves the life of the planet while simultaneously improving the lot of the poor.

Something Fishy:  A Curious Absence

That said, as a frequent writer on issues related to sexuality, there was one thing I was seriously disappointed to not find in the document; namely, any reference to the serious problem of water pollution caused by the build-up of contraceptive hormones in the water supply resulting in health problems for both wildlife and, potentially, people.  This is not a small issue, nor is it a fringe “Catholic” issue.

For instance, in March of 2015, The Washington Post published an article titled, Fish Don’t Want Birth Control, but Scientists Say They Get it from Your Pill.  Here’s a snippet.

Your birth control pill is affecting more than just your body. Flushed down toilets, poured down sinks and excreted in urine, a chemical component in the pill wafts into sewage systems and ends up in various waterways where it collects in fairly heavy doses. That’s where fish soak it up.  A recent survey by the U.S. Geological Survey found that fish exposed to a synthetic hormone called 17a-ethinylestradiol, or EE2, produced offspring that struggled to fertilize eggs. The grandchildren of the originally exposed fish suffered a 30 percent decrease in their fertilization rate. The authors mulled the impact of what they discovered and decided it wasn’t good.

The WaPo article echoes many points raised in a 2012  article by the science portal LiveScience titled, Water Pollution Caused by Birth Control Poses Dilemma.  More frightening still, an article appearing around the same time in The Daily Mail cited similar problems in European waterways, and further suggested that artificial hormones in the water supply could be having a negative impact on human male sperm count–which has lowered, on average, by 25% in the last 20 years.

No Easy Answers

 The problem, of course, is that current approaches to water treatment cannot remove these chemicals from our drinking water leading many environmental experts to express potential concerns about human health risks to long term exposure.  Scientific American published a Q&A article that cautiously validated many of these concerns and discussed the challenges of removing artificial reproductive hormones from drinking water.

Additionally, there are no simple–or even affordable–solutions for how water treatment plants could rise to this challenge.  In fact, purifying the water supply of these chemicals could prove to be so expensive that Forbes Magazine ran an article in 2012 arguing that Women on Contraceptive Pill Should Pay $1500 a Year More Tax 

Missed Opportunity

When a pope releases a document, inevitably people in every corner pick it apart for how it did or did not treat their pet issue, and readers might well accuse me of doing exactly this, but I would argue that it is a serious missed opportunity for the Church that a Catholic document on the environment would fail to mention a serious environmental issue that the Church is uniquely–and almost singly–positioned to address.  Catholic social teaching is not a collection of random concepts.  It is a whole, a “seamless garment” if you will.  To have not included this insight–even in passing–about the negative impact artificial contraception is having on the environment is to have missed an important chance to emphasize the coherence of the Church’s moral theology as it applies to both personal and environmental morality.

None of this is, of course, to suggest that Pope Francis is soft on the Church’s stand on contraception.  In fact, he is on record as being a strong defender of the Church’s teachings on this issue and has even praised Pope Paul VI’s promulgation of Humanae Vitae as “courageous.”   Nevertheless, despite the fact that Laudato Si is an excellent and inspiring document overall, it it hard to not to argue that Pope Francis, the Church’s first fisher of men, missed the boat at least on this particular point.

The Truth Will Out

Although this issue did not get a mention in Laudato Si, I would encourage my fellow Catholics to take this opportunity  afforded by the incredible press being generated by this document to highlight yet another reason of why the Church has stood fast in its opposition to the Pill.  The more time passes, the more creation bears witness to the prophetic voice of Humane Vitae.  The Pill is bad medicine.  It is bad for women’s health.  It is bad for relationships.  And it is bad for the environment.   To learn more about how the Catholic vision of love can help you live a more passionate marriage AND empower you to save the planet, check out Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

Danger! Hormonal Contraception Use Doubles Risk of Brain Tumor in 15-49 Year-olds.

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Researchers in Denmark have discovered that there is both a moderate increased risk of developing glioma (a type of brain tumor) among women who engage in shorter-term use of hormonal

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

contraceptives and a two-fold risk of developing glioma among 15-49 year olds who use oral contraceptives for 5+ years.

Every use of hormonal contraceptive was associated with an OR of 1.5 (95% CI: 1.2-2.0) and the OR increased with duration of use (long-term, ≥5 years: OR, 1.9; 95% CI: 1.2–2.9). The association between long-term hormonal contraceptive use and glioma risk was most pronounced for progestagen-only therapy (OR, 2.4; 95% CI: 1.1–5.1), especially when this regimen constituted the sole hormonal contraceptive therapy (OR, 4.1; 95% CI: 0.8–20.8). READ MORE

So many women are so careful about what they eat and how they exercise only to undo all that effort by poisoning themselves with oral contraceptives.  For more information on safe, healthy, effective methods of natural family planning, check out the USCCB’s NFP info page.  And check out Holy Sex! A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving for answers to your questions about NFP and how it can benefit your health and marriage.

Update from the Hutch: Pope Francis Praises Large Families

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For all the cyber sturm und drang yesterday surrounding Pope Francis comment that Catholics don’t have to reproduce like rabbits to be faithful to the Church, many people forget that only a couple of short weeks before,

Image credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

(yes, I know, a millennium in the news cycle), at the meeting of the National Association of Large Families, Pope Francis said some very supportive things about parents who are heroically generous in the service of life.

The presence of large families is a hope for society….Dear parents, I am grateful to you for the example of love towards life, that you preserve from conception to natural end, despite all the difficulties and burdens of life, and that unfortunately, the public institutions do not always help you….Therefore, I hope, also thinking of the low birth rate that has long been in Italy, for a greater focus on policy and administrators on a public level, in order to give due support to these families. Each family is a cell of society, but large families are a more rich cell, more vibrant, and the State has an interest in investing in it.  READ THE WHOLE SPEECH HERE.

But…wait!  Pope Francis couldn’t possibly be holding two equally important yet somewhat distinct thoughts in his head at the same exact time, could he?!?  That would be MADNESSS, I tell you!  MADNESS!

Ah, but the Catholic way, young padawan.  The Catholic way that is.

For more information about discerning God’s plan for your family size, check out, Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing,Infallible Loving.   

The Crux of the Matter: Catholics and Contraception–A Challenge to Margery Eagan.

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Over at Crux News the other day, Margery Eagan posted a column indicating that she was “devastated” that Pope Francis crushed her hopes for reform on pelvic issues by affirming Pope Paul VI’s

Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used with permission.

courage in promoting Humanae Vitae.  A snippet: “Although he has not lived it himself, I had thought he understood something about good people living real lives in real marriages. I had thought he even understood something about the beauty of sex in marriage, the need for sex in marriage.  I was wrong.”

She goes on to share how shocked she was by Pope Francis’ backward attitudes about contraception.  Doesn’t he know that contraception is the key to a healthy romantic sex life (she’s apparently unaware that the pill kills libido)?  Doesn’t he understand that the pill has led to freedom for women (because she is apparently unaware of the inequality of the hookup culture that is so damaging to women)?  Doesn’t he know that contraception is the key to ending poverty and  world hunger (because condoms are both  so tasty and the progressive Catholic part of a complete breakfast)?!?   In other words, the typical “let them eat condoms” faux-social-justice, feelings-before-faith, stuff one often hears.

 

Who People Like Eagan Are Hurting…

 

Because it’s such well-trod terrain, I wouldn’t normally bother to address her column except that people like Eagan really don’t understand how many people they are hurting, not really because of the confusion they spread–there’s already so much confusion on these points that one person’s drivel will ultimately come out in the wash–but because of the fact that their constant agitation gets in the way of the Church ever being more pastoral on these topics.  What do I mean?

 

Well, we all know that the Church does not oppose family planning.  In fact, she proposes a very reliable  means of avoiding pregnancy through Natural Family Planning.  In fact, as I recently noted, even CNN is taking note of the rising, popular interest in NFP.  The problem is that NFP can be difficult to practice. Not so much because it is all that complicated–it isn’t and it’s getting easier all the time. Rather,  it necessarily involves some degree of sacrifice and self-discipline and couples can struggle to understand how to deal effectively with the tension and frustration that can result from periodic abstinence.  And this is where people like Egan are–albeit unintentionally, I’m sure–a real obstacle to the pastoral efforts of the Church to couples.

 

Even if, as writers like Eagan would have you believe,  only about 3% of Catholics practice NFP, that means there would be more NFP-Catholics in the US alone than there are Episcopalians (1.8 million vs. 2.3 million respectively).   The Church really needs to do a better job supporting those Catholics who are trying with all their might, and against significant cultural pressure,  to live faithfully, but it can’t.  Why?  Because the second it tries to be more pastoral at all, the Egans of the world hijack that effort and say, “See!  The Church is FINALLY admitting it’s wrong!”  At which point the Church has to stop what it’s doing and patiently explain, yet again, that “No Virginia, there is no doctrinal revolution.” and “Yes, Virginia, the Pope is still Catholic (and in other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead).”

 

The Inconvenient Catholics

 

Any institution only has so many resources.  Because of the advocacy of folks like Eagan, the Church has to spend all of its energy defending itself against willful stupidity, leaving it with precious little energy to do anything useful on this front for the honest-to-goodness, flesh and blood, real-life couples that are striving to serve as a witness to the world that the Church does, in fact, actually know what it’s talking about.  Too often, writers  like Eagan, give the impression that they would rather deny these couples’ inconvenient existence–or at least discount their honest experience (as she does in her rather dismissive follow-up column).

 

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on Margery (bless her heart). After all, in her follow-up column she did plug my book, Holy Sex!  (which her colleague, John Allen, said read like, “Dr. Ruth meets St Thomas Aquinas) as well as Patrick Coffin’s Sex Au Naturel . Granted, she references them in a  tongue-in-cheek, “I wouldn’t read this crap, but you can,” sort-of way, but a mention is a mention and I thank her.

 

But after thinking on it for a few days, I decided to respond to her columns on this topic because, unlike Eagan, I actually spend my days in the trenches working with Catholics who really are trying, with all their hearts, to be what they genuinely believe Christ is calling them to be.  Couples who have invited Christ to be the Lord of every part of their lives, including their bodies and the most intimate parts of their marriage.  They do it out of love and they do it with a real heart of sacrifice and faith. I see how much these couples would really benefit from just a little more support from the very Church whose ideals they’re trying to live up to and I see how impossible it is for the Church to provide that support because its emotional and pedagogical resources are being taxed by the histrionics of the Egans of this world.  I, for one, am more than a little tired of watching those faithful couples go it alone so that Margery & Co. can feel affirmed in their okayness.

 

A Challenge to Margery Egan

 

In her follow-up column, Eagan calls herself as a “journalist.”  Indeed, from her bio,  it appears that she has some actual experience here. I would like to invite her to make good on that claim.  I’ve never gone to J-school, but as I understand it, a journalist is supposed to at least offer the pretense of being unbiased and go through the motions of becoming informed, something Eagan hasn’t bothered to do in either of these two pieces I’ve referenced.  If she really wants to be a journalist and contribute to authentic dialog, I challenge her to actually talk  to the faithful Catholics I know who are living the truth of the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics.  I challenge her to read the books she links with one hand but patronizingly dismisses with the other.  You want dialog?  Let’s dialog.  I have no interest in changing your mind, Margery.  That’s the Holy Spirit’s job.  But I am interested in challenging your self-righteous desire to wish Catholics like me and the people I serve out of existence.  We’re here.  We’re sincere.  Get used to it.  If you’re honestly interested in following Pope Francis example of encounter, here’s where you can find me.

 

And for anyone interested in discovering how the Church’s wisdom on love, sex, and marriage can help you take your relationship to the next level, check out, Holy Sex! The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving,   For Better…FOREVER!  The Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage and Just Married:  The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage.

 

Why Doesn’t the Catholic Church Just Get with the Times?

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Contraception, abortion, women’s ordination, gay marriage.  These represent just a few of the issues the Church is regularly criticized for being on the “wrong side” of.

So, why can’t the Church change?

Today’s episode of More2Life Radio was titled, “Stand Your Ground.”  We looked at the challenge of knowing when we need to draw a line in the sand and when we need to be more flexible.  Part of that discussion involved an interview with Bishop Jeffrey Montforton of Steubenville (former rector of Detroit’s Sacred Heart Seminary) about why the Church can’t just modernize.

The answer to both questions (when do we change and when can the Church change) is really the same.    It all comes down to knowing who you are.  As a Church or as individuals, you can change the things that don’t jeopardize the core of your mission–the heart of your identity–but you can’t change the things that do or you cease to exist in any meaningful way.

Catholics have been given a special gift.  God has shared with us, directly, his truth, his vision of what the world was intended to be and is destined to become again.  He has communicated to us what he intended the world to look like from the beginning of time and he has tasked us with the mission of doing whatever we can to make the world fall more in line with that vision.  In other words, it is not the Catholic Church’s mission to look more like the world.  It is the Catholic Church’s job to make the world look more like the Catholic Church–a community of love dedicated to using our time, treasure, talent and selves to work for the good of others and, in the process, become the best version of ourselves.

We can’t fulfill that mission if we accommodate to the culture.   True, we can change things that aren’t at the center of that blueprint for building the Kingdom that God has given us.  We can move some furniture around.  We can change some words here and there as long as we don’t tamper with the meaning behind those words.  But we can’t be a prophetic sign of what the world is supposed to be by allowing ourselves to become what the world already is!

But, of course, there are objections to this.  I can think of two huge ones off-hand.

1.  Oh, Sure!  The world should look just like the Church!?!  You mean we should all be pedophiles?

Answer:  I’m glad you brought that up.  This is a perfect example of how the Church accommodated to the world.  Seriously, what’s more worldly than committing sexual sin and covering it up?  In fact, the reason the world is so angry at the Church for the scandal is because it didn’t behave like Church.  The world WANTS there to be a sign of goodness in the world (the world hates it, but wants it all the same–like kids and rules).  The world NEEDS a sign of grace in the world and for the world to think that the Church isn’t a sign of grace is infuriating to the world.  The relationship between the world and the Church is like the relationship between an abusive husband and his wife; the more the wife tries to accommodate to her abusive husbands expectations, the more the abusive husband comes to hate the woman.  Only when she stands up to his abuse is there any hope.

2.  But Catholicism is just one brand of Christianity.  Lots of other Christians have modernized their teaching.

Answer:  Yes, well, that’s what happens to the branches that fall off the tree.  Jesus Christ created a Church (Matt 16:18) and entrusted to that Church the vision of what the world should look like.  It is the Church’s job to pass that vision–that Tradition (capital T)– from one generation to the next.  Apostolic succession is the means of transmitting that vision.  Those Churches that preserve Apostolic Succession maintain the Tradition, the vision of what the world must become.  Those Christian and Christian-flavored sects that cut themselves off of the apostolic vine lose the Tradition and end up taking their cues more from the world than from Christ’s original vision.  At best, the messages of these various latter-day Christian sects represent  the seeds sown on rocky soil.  Their work sprouts buds that quickly die if they are not transplanted into more fertile soil (Matt 13).  In fact, we see exactly this.  Sociologists of religion show that there is immense turnover in Evangelical mega-churches.  Their gospel-lite message attracts new seekers but their disconnection from the vine causes the new shoots to starve and die.    And that’s the best case scenario.   At worst, these sects sow weeds that threaten to choke out the vision, weeds that will be gathered up with the wheat but then burned on the last day (Matt 13:24-30).

Belief in the Sun-god.

In his encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis quotes St. Justin Martyr as saying that “no one ever gave his life because of his belief in the Sun.”   That’s because worship of the sun-god was a secular religion.  It didn’t exist to challenge the culture.  It existed to give people a safe way to vent their spiritual feelings. That vision of church is what most people imagine church to be even today.    That has never been the mission of the Catholic Church. To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, if that’s all church is then to hell with it.   We exist to hold up the truth.  To be a sign for the Truth and, if necessary, to be willing to die to defend that Truth.

The Church cannot change because if it changes it ceases to be Church and becomes an exercise in what Cardinal Ratzinger once referred to as “spiritual auto-eroticism.” God know, no one needs more of that.

The Right Question

When we encounter some teaching that offends us, annoys us, irritates us; some teaching that the Church stubbornly insists it can’t change and makes us say, “Why doesn’t the Church change that already?”  it is best to recognize that the better question is, “Why is this teaching so central to God’s vision of what the world must become and, having discovered that, how can I get on board and do my part in promoting that vision?”

We do not ask how we can change the Church.  We ask how the Church can change us.

 

 

The Pill Makes You Hate Sex and Want to Leave Your Milquetoast Man.

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New research by the Royal Society says that women taking oral contraceptives, “scored lower on measures of sexual satisfaction and partner attraction, experienced increasing sexual dissatisfaction during the relationship, and were more likely to be the one to initiate an eventual separation if it occurred.”

The study did also suggest that the same contracepting women were more likely to be satisfied with the non-sexual aspects of their relationships, but the researchers note that this is because the pill causes women to be attracted to lower testosterone men who lack passion and drive leading to a lower potential for conflict.

Superficially, it might appear that, despite the dissatisfaction in the romantic relationship,  the increased satisfaction experienced in non-sexual interactions would make oral contraceptive’s effect on overall relational happiness a wash, but I can tell you from professional experience that it is easier to teach a manly man to wash a dish than it is to teach a milquetoast man to be passionate.

So, ladies, if you want passion and partnership, you might want to rethink that resistance to doing Natural Family Planning (or rethink marrying that man who resists NFP).   Here’s where you can learn more about how NFP can work for you.

To get more out of your sexual relationship with your spouse, check out Holy Sex! The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.