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"12. According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown." Gaudium

87 ...a decision concerning the number of children they will have depends on the right judgment of the parents " Sounds like family planning to me, a subject near and dear to the heart of the International Parenthood Planning NGO.

Sorry, but the document was a nod to the world, not the call for the world to come to Christ. We can't play along with them comparing notes on what we might have in common with our opposition.

What the Church must do is preach Christ crucified, that no one will ever spend eternity with God unless they come into the Church and do penance.

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I wasn't trying to treat Gaudium, but to contextualize the Kissinger Report. I think Gaudium problematic, but it can and should be read through the lens of sec. 22. As for the statements you quote, they square nicely with Genesis 1/Psalm 8 and with Humanae vitae. And 'comparing notes'? The fathers (Augustine especially) did this to very good effect. Understand what you criticize and your critique will go deeper; that's the rule of thumb.

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Thanks, Douglas. Understanding is different from softening. Catholics prior to the 1950's never heard the question, "How many children are you going to have." Since V-II and HV, parents get to choose. Does this include zero? The primary end of marriage is no longer known.

If this kind of population control within a family is permissible, even a "right", then we have lost the war against the Kissingers, Rockefellers, and Sangers. Of course we can bray all day that external coercion, tainted vaccines, etc., are really really bad. But no one believes anymore that limiting family population is an offense against God (I'm not speaking of grave extenuating circumstances, but the norm), but rather, it is virtuous.

The Church will be impotent until She restores the doctrine of the primary end of marriage.

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According to Augustine, marriage has three ends: proles, fides, et sacramentum. Refusal of proles (reproduction) altogether, where proles is possible, is a refusal of marriage itself. But intelligent intervention in the matter of proles belongs to the human being by nature as a rational agent. Limiting family size, if the means of limitation and the reasons for limitation are moral licit, is not an offence against God. Indeed, to say that they are is to risk such an offence.

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We must always acknowledge the exceptions, as I did.

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Note nssm was written by a Republican administration, just as 2008 was laid victim by Republican administration just as coviet was brought about by President warp speed. Could it be that all of these Rockefeller Republicans could actually be Democrats planted to make conservatives feel more comfortable with what were actually totalitarian measures?

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