Doom and Gloom

For some reason, of late I've been thinking a lot about the over kill of the media with regards to what they judge to be pending disasters.

Throughout my life, I have heard many. I suspect they will ring bells with many.

Remember the "Swine Flu" epidemic? I'm pretty sure I remember being told it would be as bad as the Spanish Flu pandemic of the 1918-1919. The Spanish Flu killed millions of people throughout the world.

Do you know anyone who even caught Swine Flu?

When AIDS was first detected, we were told it would be pandemic. It isn't. It does create many casualties in certain areas, but this does not match the dire warnings of the early years.

There's also Asian Flu, and Avian Flu, SARS, Purple Loosestrife...

While driving this summer, I noticed the loosestrife. It's rather pretty. But I was also seeing lots of tansy, mullein, bulrushes and other wild plants. It's been 12 years since we were warned that Purple Loosetrife would take over our wetland.

The list goes on. Global warming is the one that gets me now. Early predictions should have had us all resorting to air conditioning by now. Hasn't happened. More and more is being said by scientists who do not hold to the "party line" we've been fed. The brainwashing our kids have received at school is sickening. While in grade seven, one of my children was told, along with other blue eyed children, that she would contract skin cancer. Not may contract. Another child of ours was shown, at school by a substitute teacher, Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth". Those on the other side of the issue (and there is another side!) do not get the air time. What fear mongering!

I think the real inconvenient truth is the fact that some predictions have proven accurate, and yet have been ignored. They have not come from a politically correct source.

Early in the 20th Century, GK Chesterton, notable convert to Catholicism predicted that we would see attacks on morality.

Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical in 1937 called "Mit Brennender Sorge" (With Burning Sorrow). In a world where, even more than today, documents from Rome were nearly always in Latin, the fact that this one was in German indicates the urgency of the topic. The document was written in an attempt to warn the German people of the dangers of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. We all know what happened after that!

Pope Paul VI wrote an encyclical called "Humanae Vitae" in 1968. This much scoffed at document reiterated the teaching of the Catholic Church with regards to human life and its creation. He reminded the world that there were dangers inherent in the adoption of artificial birth control. He warned that widespread use would lead to a culture where life was not highly valued, where women would be more likely to be disrespected and promiscuity would arise.

Well? Now, one night stands are not unusual at all. The news is just starting to surface that women in particular are not benefitting from "friends with benefits"-type arrangements. That women who are celibate can feel very good about themselves is just counterintuitive in this society. And men who are celibate? Utterly preposterous that they can be normal individuals! That couples who do not contracept do not necessarily have a dozen kids, is not believed. Sadly, what seems to be harder to believe is that couples who DO have a dozen kids wanted, or even planned, every single one of them!

And this does not even touch on the abortion issue.

The Catholic Church, and even notable members thereof foresaw all of this. And more. Popes have foreseen the errors of modern life. Pope Benedict recently reminded us to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us. Funny, this is far from being a new teaching for the Church.

Who needs ecologists?

God Bless