The John-Henry Westen Show - December 30, 2022


Pope Francis EXPOSED - Part 3： Large Pro-Life Families Are Not Safe

Topics
loneliness epidemic in old age
Hosted by
John-Henry Westen
Mentioned
Pope Francis Pope Paul VI Paul Ehrlich Zachariah Diane Federico Lombardi Sabbath John Paul II Amoris Laetitia Humanae Vitae Jerry Brown Der Spiegel Pius XII Lambeth Casti Canubi Archbishop Charles Chaput Marcelo Sanchez Sarondo Lise Van Susteren Clemens Tesch-Römer Cronica Annunciada and 27 more
Pope Francis EXPOSED - Part 2： Italian Abortionist Praised by Francis & Praise for Pro-LGBT Cardinal Does Catholic Doctrine Say You Will NOT be FAT in Heaven!？

Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

148.14

Word count

5,246

Sentence count

283

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In order to be a good Catholic, we have to be like rabbits. Pope Francis once said that Catholics should not have large families because they are "like rabbits." This was said during a Q&A session on the Pope's return from his flight from Rome on January 19th, 2015.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:02:02.400 Do you remember when Pope Francis cut up large families?
00:02:08.320 Well, he did.
00:02:09.140 Do you remember when Pope Francis promoted contraception?
00:02:14.780 Well, he did.
00:02:16.380 Those things sound totally unbelievable,
00:02:18.880 but we're going to give you the evidence for it right here and right now.
00:02:22.980 This is the John Henry Weston Show.
00:02:24.800 Stay tuned.
00:02:25.280 Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:02:36.400 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:02:40.460 Amen.
00:02:42.260 So, one of the most disturbing things that happened early on in the pontificate of Pope Francis
00:02:47.080 was a seeming jibe at large families.
00:02:51.600 And this hurt people very, very much.
00:02:55.960 It's hard even to imagine a Pope doing this,
00:02:58.720 so just watch the evidence for yourself.
00:03:03.740 The very first command God gave to man at his creation recorded in Genesis 128 was this.
00:03:10.740 And God blessed them, saying,
00:03:12.400 Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
00:03:16.220 Rule over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air
00:03:18.700 and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
00:03:21.460 God is the author of life.
00:03:23.260 As the scriptures teach, he opens the womb.
00:03:26.160 As we read in Genesis 29,
00:03:28.140 and we see again in the account of Abraham and Sarah, the parents of Isaac,
00:03:32.000 and also Zachary and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist in the New Testament.
00:03:35.580 Children are a blessing, and in appropriation, parents cooperate with God in creating new
00:03:42.460 souls for heaven, and it's a glorious teaching.
00:03:45.360 This constant teaching of the church is what led to one of the greatest compliments to motherhood
00:03:50.660 ever penned, that by Cardinal Joseph Monsenti, the great apostle against communism.
00:03:56.060 Cardinal Monsenti said, and I quote,
00:03:58.500 The most important person on earth is a mother.
00:04:02.260 She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral.
00:04:05.700 She need not.
00:04:06.920 She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral,
00:04:10.420 dwelling for an immortal soul,
00:04:12.640 the tiny perfection of her baby's body.
00:04:15.660 Even the angels have not been given such a grace.
00:04:19.000 What is more glorious than this, to be a mother, end quote.
00:04:25.140 So, to get back to Pope Francis, have a look at this video of what he said,
00:04:30.240 transmitted by news services all over the world.
00:04:37.160 Some think that, excuse me if I use this word, 0.91
00:04:40.620 that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits. 0.95
00:04:44.460 No.
00:04:45.960 Responsible paternity, that is clear.
00:04:49.000 This was said during a Q&A session on the Pope's return flight from Rome,
00:04:55.500 from the Philippines, on January 19th, 2015.
00:04:58.540 The journalist asked the Pope about the church's teaching on contraception
00:05:01.920 in light of the large number of children in the Philippines,
00:05:04.420 which some believe have resulted in severe poverty.
00:05:07.420 The Pope began his answer, noting that it's important to have three children
00:05:10.780 in order to sustain the population.
00:05:14.140 So watch this extended clip with subtitles,
00:05:17.160 so you can see his emphasis, which actually makes clear his meaning.
00:05:20.620 The one that always uses the Church, also I, is paternity responsibility. 0.70
00:05:26.860 How do you do this?
00:05:30.740 How do you do this?
00:05:31.240 With the dialogue with each person, with each other, with each other,
00:05:35.240 with each other, on the next behavioral basis,
00:05:36.240 has decided that as the
00:06:02.600 I give you the tools to be responsible, some believe that, excuse me the word, that to be good catechers we have to be like dogs, no?
00:06:24.600 No, paternity responsibility.
00:06:32.600 He had really a mental contortion, suggesting that the Pope was just saying that having a large number of children by c-sections is irresponsible, as he said,
00:06:40.600 but somehow wasn't suggesting that having a large number of children itself was irresponsible.
00:06:45.600 But as you saw yourself, that explanation does not fit the context nor the content of the Pope's remarks.
00:06:52.600 But more than that, it's contradicted by the witness of the new push to have fewer children coming from the Vatican under Pope Francis.
00:07:00.600 It was at a 2017 Vatican conference where a Vatican bishop, who's a close advisor to the Pope, called for education for women so they'd have one or two children rather than seven or more.
00:07:13.600 That sounds incredible.
00:07:15.600 It was Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sarondo, who hails from Pope Francis' homeland of Argentina.
00:07:21.600 And he's the chancellor, actually, of the two academies, Vatican academies, the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy for Sciences.
00:07:32.600 And I know it sounds hard to believe that he said this, but I want you to listen to it yourself because he's speaking at the Vatican in English, albeit broken English.
00:07:42.600 The idea of the church that we need education because it's not only the ends of the marriage is not only to have children, but to educate the children and also the person to have children, the woman and the man.
00:08:05.600 And many, many priests say to me that the great solution for the question of procreation is the education of the woman.
00:08:18.600 Because when we have education, we don't have children. We don't have seven children. Maybe we have one children, two children, no more.
00:08:26.600 That's unbelievable coming from a Vatican bishop. And this is the head of two Vatican academies.
00:08:44.600 Bishop Sarondo has invited many other speakers to the Vatican who advocate having fewer children.
00:08:50.600 Watch Professor Wan Tse-li, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, speaking at the 2017 Vatican Conference, rejoicing over the massive decline in the numbers of elementary school children due to population decline over 20 years.
00:09:05.600 You see, if you just follow the religious belief or philosophical thinking, you said the population were to go down. In Taiwan, it's amazing. When I went back in 1994, 400,000 students entered elementary school. This year, it's only 200,000. We're done by a factor, too.
00:09:32.600 And if you think that's bad, it just gets worse.
00:09:35.600 The Vatican has brought in a laundry list of population control activists, many of whom include abortion as an appropriate means of population control.
00:09:43.600 The Vatican has invited population control advocate Jeffrey Sachs to the Vatican to speak on numerous occasions.
00:09:50.600 He called legalizing abortion a cost-effective way to eliminate unwanted children when contraception fails.
00:09:57.600 That was in his 2008 book Commonwealth Economics for a crowded planet.
00:10:02.600 The Vatican invited John Bongartz, the vice president of the pro-abortion population control, pushing Population Council to speak at their biological extinction conference.
00:10:11.600 The Vatican even invited the likes of California Governor Jerry Brown, one of the most pro-abortion governors in the United States, to speak.
00:10:19.600 Brown, in a 2010 campaign speech, said he'd been, and I quote, an uncompromising champion of a woman's right to choose and would continue to do so if elected governor, end quote.
00:10:33.600 I could go on and on with scandalous speakers invited to the Vatican, such as pro-abortion UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Professor Scott Peters, a member of the US House of Representatives, who actually in 2013 co-sponsored one of the most pro-abortion bills in US history, eliminating all limitations on abortion.
00:10:51.600 There was also Professor Lise Van Susteren, who in her 2005 run for the US Senate voiced staunch support for abortion and homosexual marriage.
00:11:00.600 There was also California State Senator Kevin DeLeon, who revels in his 100% pro-abortion voting record from Planned Parenthood.
00:11:09.600 But even more outrageous than all of them was the invite to speak for the so-called Father of the Population Control Movement, Paul Ehrlich, who penned the 1968 scaremongering book, The Population Bomb.
00:11:22.600 LifeSite News actually delivered a petition of more than 10,000 signatures asking the Pope to rescind Ehrlich's invitation, but he spoke nevertheless at the Vatican on February 27, 2017.
00:11:36.600 The biggest problem we face is continual expansion of the human enterprise.
00:11:42.600 You know, I would love to see hundreds of trillions of human beings live over the next few million years, rather than see if we can cram 11 billion in by 2010, 2110, and then let the whole thing go down the drain.
00:11:59.600 I mean, the sustainability is talked about a lot, but a lot of people talk about things like sustainable growth.
00:12:06.600 Perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell.
00:12:11.600 And we really have to look at the size of the human enterprise and think about why we're doing these things.
00:12:20.600 Ehrlich champions sex-selective abortion as well as mass-forced sterilization as legitimate methods to curb population control.
00:12:29.600 He did this in his book, The Population Bomb, Ecoscience, Population Resources, Environment, on page 837.
00:12:35.600 As he said, and I quote, he has said,
00:12:39.600 nobody in my view has the right to have 12 children or even three unless the second pregnancy is twins, end quote.
00:12:48.600 Ehrlich has been inimical to the Catholic Church and her teachings on life, especially under the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
00:12:57.600 In 2014, he wrote that the Catholic Church's moral teachings are, quote, just as unethical as a terrorist act.
00:13:06.600 Not surprisingly, though, Ehrlich is fond of Pope Francis.
00:13:10.600 He actually told Lifesight in an interview, and I quote,
00:13:13.600 I'm thrilled with the new Pope moving the Church in the right direction, end quote.
00:13:18.600 Cardinal Raymond Burke reacted to Ehrlich speaking at the Vatican, saying it's simply a scandal.
00:13:23.600 He said, and I quote,
00:13:24.600 I'm scandalized by it, and I don't see how any good Catholic wouldn't be scandalized by that. 1.00
00:13:29.600 I just don't understand it.
00:13:31.600 In reality, the world is experiencing a population implosion, a demographic winter, if you will.
00:13:38.600 Due to their population control measures, China and India have a massive 70 million woman deficit.
00:13:44.600 That's 70 million men without wives. 0.92
00:13:47.600 That's the equivalent of the whole population of the UK or of France, with all men and no women at all. 0.90
00:13:54.600 Imagine the risks that poses.
00:13:57.600 Already, various nations are reporting an epidemic of loneliness.
00:14:01.600 The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that gerontology researchers have linked the epidemic of loneliness among the elderly to a contraceptive mentality.
00:14:10.600 They said, and I quote,
00:14:11.600 The fact that more and more people are opting not to have children threatens to worsen the isolation experienced by older people.
00:14:19.600 Indeed, childlessness significantly increases the risk of loneliness, end quote.
00:14:24.600 That's from the German Center of Gerontology, director Clemens Tesch-Römer.
00:14:29.600 And in Germany, over 20% of the people aged over 70 have regular contact with only one person or none.
00:14:36.600 Over two million Germans aged over 80 live alone.
00:14:40.600 One in four receives a visit less than once a month from friends and acquaintances,
00:14:46.600 and nearly one in ten is not visited by anyone anymore.
00:14:51.600 Der Spiegel reported that in 2013 already.
00:14:54.600 According to the New York Times, 4,000 elderly Japanese now die alone every week.
00:15:00.600 And every year there are news stories in Japan of people who die alone in their homes.
00:15:04.600 Often their deaths go unnoticed and unremarked for weeks or months.
00:15:08.600 Rent and utility payments silently flowing out of the deceased person's bank account until finally neighbors complain about a bad smell.
00:15:15.600 There's actually now a Japanese business whose business is to clean apartments after the corpses of lonelies are discovered in them.
00:15:25.600 There's also the Islamic takeover. 0.97
00:15:28.600 And I quote,
00:15:30.600 If you want to see the face of Europe in a hundred years, barring a miracle, look to the faces of young Muslim immigrants, end quote. 1.00
00:15:38.600 That was said by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput at a 2017 Napa Institute conference.
00:15:44.600 Islam, he said, has a future because Islam believes in children.
00:15:51.600 Finally, with our anti-natalist culture, we are also depriving young married couples of the few years they have to beget children.
00:16:00.600 That short space of time, some 20 years, flies by, as we know, once we reach middle age.
00:16:06.600 So many young people realize today, only after it's too late, the joy of having children, of having many children.
00:16:13.600 God is indeed the author of life.
00:16:16.600 It's indeed a command to be fruitful and multiply, but it's also a blessing.
00:16:20.600 I'd like to conclude this episode of the John Henry Weston Show with a personal testimony because this issue is so close to home for my wife and I.
00:16:30.600 I pray this testimony demonstrates for you, as it does for us, that God opens the womb, that God loves large families, and that he indeed gives children as a blessing to be lovingly received and will give you the needed grace to raise your children as citizens for heaven.
00:16:48.600 So, my wife and I are the parents of eight living children, but my wife conceived 11 children and lost three to miscarriage.
00:16:58.600 The first child who died, Stefano, was miscarried on my wife's birthday, and she felt God had forgotten about her, especially since she lost a child on her birthday.
00:17:07.600 We learned of the death of the second child we lost, Bernadette, on another day when gifts are received, rather than taken away, our 16th wedding anniversary.
00:17:18.600 Likewise, we learned of the death of the third child, Jesse Emanuel, on Christmas Eve, when our family normally celebrates Christmas and gift-giving.
00:17:28.600 By this point, my wife expressed to God that all these gifts were taken from her on days that she should be receiving gifts.
00:17:35.600 Had he indeed forgotten her?
00:17:38.600 So, my wife begged God that within a year she would be able to have another child and that this child should live.
00:17:44.600 And one year later, we found ourselves hosting a New Year's Eve party attended by six couples, some of our closest friends, actually.
00:17:52.600 And at the party, five of the women were newly pregnant.
00:17:56.600 And unbeknownst to me, that was a very heavy burden on my wife, and so she went away privately and wept.
00:18:03.600 You forgot somebody, Lord, she prayed silently through her tears.
00:18:07.600 You've given the gift of life to all those beautiful daughters of yours out there, but you've forgotten one.
00:18:12.600 You forgot me.
00:18:14.600 And a few weeks later, we actually learned that she too was with child.
00:18:19.600 And although we did not know it, at the time she was pregnant at that New Year's Eve party as well.
00:18:24.600 Having had three miscarriages in a row, ultrasounds were very routine.
00:18:29.600 And one of them showed that the child was a boy.
00:18:32.600 And then we were actually perplexed.
00:18:34.600 You see, we already had five boys and a family tradition of giving each child three names.
00:18:42.600 So we had already used up 15 boy names.
00:18:45.600 And so after a while, my wife suggested that we name the baby Zachariah.
00:18:50.600 But I preferred the English version Zachary, and we could not agree.
00:18:55.600 So we debated back and forth for some time.
00:18:57.600 Now, one of my wife's friends called my wife to relay a dream that she had.
00:19:04.600 She said, Diane, don't worry.
00:19:06.600 She dreamt that our baby was born alive, but also that Diane and I were arguing about the name of the baby.
00:19:13.600 John Henry was insisting the name should be Zachary, and you were saying Zachariah, she said.
00:19:19.600 Yet, we had not told anybody about the debate over the names.
00:19:24.600 Diane and I felt the dream was a kind of heavenly confirmation that Zachariah, or Zachary, was to be the name God intended for the child.
00:19:33.600 It was then that Diane decided to investigate the meaning of the name Zachary or Zachariah.
00:19:39.600 As she Googled the name, tears began to stream down her face, as the meaning of the name appeared on the screen.
00:19:46.600 Zachariah means the Lord remembers.
00:19:50.600 Her prayer, Lord, have you forgotten me, was indeed answered.
00:19:57.600 Just a quick note before we return.
00:19:59.600 If you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's coverage of the latest life, family, and culture news, subscribe to one of our many newsletters by going to lifesitenews.com slash subscribe.
00:20:09.600 And if you'd like to help us bring our truth-telling coverage to millions around the world, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation at give.lifesitenews.com.
00:20:19.600 And now, back to the video.
00:20:24.600 And wouldn't it be really, really weird if that same pope who cut up large families also went against the church's perennial teaching against contraception?
00:20:35.600 It's, by John Paul's account, an intrinsic evil.
00:20:39.600 That means an evil that can never, ever be done under any circumstances for any excuse whatsoever.
00:20:45.600 And yet, here's what Pope Francis had to say on the question.
00:20:48.600 In a March 2014 interview with Corriera de la Serra, Francis said that the question of birth control must be answered not by, quote, changing the doctrine, but by, quote, making pastoral ministry take into account the situations which it is possible for people to do.
00:21:08.600 Speaking of Paul VI's humani vitae, Pope Francis said, Paul VI himself, at the end, recommended to confessors much mercy and attention to concrete situations, end quote.
00:21:21.600 During a November 2015 press conference on his return flight from Africa, Pope Francis was asked, and I quote,
00:21:28.600 Is it not time for the church to change its position on the matter, to allow the use of condoms to prevent more infections?
00:21:36.600 In his response, Pope Francis stated, and I quote,
00:21:39.600 Yes, it is one of the methods.
00:21:42.600 The moral of the church on this point is found here faced with a perplexity.
00:21:48.600 The fifth or the sixth commandment defend life or that sexual relations are open to life, end quote.
00:21:55.600 He continued with these quotes.
00:21:57.600 But this isn't the problem.
00:21:59.600 The problem is bigger.
00:22:00.600 A little later he said, this question makes me think the one they asked Jesus.
00:22:05.600 Tell me teacher, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
00:22:08.600 Is it obligatory to heal?
00:22:10.600 The question, is doing this lawful?
00:22:13.600 A little bit later he added to this response.
00:22:16.600 But malnutrition, development of the person, slave labor, the lack of drinking water, these are the problems.
00:22:23.600 Let's not talk about can one use the type of patch or that for a small wound.
00:22:30.600 The serious wound is social injustice, environmental injustice.
00:22:34.600 A little later he added, I think the trafficking of arms, when these problems are no longer there, I think then we can ask the question, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
00:22:44.600 Because if the trafficking of arms continues, wars are the biggest cause of mortality.
00:22:50.600 And he said, I would say not to think about whether it's lawful or not to heal on the Sabbath.
00:22:56.600 I would say to humanity, make justice.
00:22:59.600 And when all are cured, when there's no more injustice, then we can talk about the Sabbath.
00:23:05.600 There are more recent examples as well.
00:23:08.600 In April 2018, an Argentinian religious sister, acclaimed for her work against trafficking and exploitation of children, said publicly that Pope Francis told her that responsible parenthood requires contraception in some cases.
00:23:24.600 In an interview with the Argentinian radio program, Cronica Annunciada, Carmelite missionary sister, Martha Poloni, said Pope Francis, quote, told me three words, end quote, about the need for responsible parenthood among the poor rural women, quote, condoms, transitory and reversible.
00:23:45.600 Sister Poloni, who is opposed to abortion, said that the Pope told her various forms of contraception could be permissible to prevent poor women from choosing abortion.
00:23:56.600 She included condoms, a diaphragm, and as a last resort, which is what we advise for rural women that we serve because I have a foundation for the peasantry, tuba ligation, end quote. 1.00
00:24:09.600 And she said again, if there is sex education and state responsibility to care for women in poverty, we do not need to decriminalize abortion because it will not be necessary to have an abortion, end quote.
00:24:21.600 That was the superior of the Carmelite missionaries.
00:24:24.600 The Vatican neither confirmed nor denied the Pope's comments to Sister Poloni.
00:24:30.600 In fact, LifeSite News contacted Vatican spokesman Greg Burke for comment, but received no response.
00:24:36.600 But the most devastating contradiction of the Church's teaching came in 2016, when on his February return flight from Mexico, the Pope was asked by one reporter whether the Church can, I quote,
00:24:51.600 take into consideration the concept of the lesser of two evils, end quote, and he was talking about when it comes to the question of presenting pregnancy or to avoid transmission of the AIDS virus.
00:25:03.600 Well, the Pope opened his answer by categorically condemning abortion as a solution to the Zika virus.
00:25:10.600 But on the question of avoiding pregnancy, he added, and I quote,
00:25:14.600 We are speaking in terms of the conflict between the fifth and the sixth commandment.
00:25:19.600 The great Paul VI, in the difficult situation in Africa, permitted sisters to use contraception for cases of rape, end quote. 0.92
00:25:27.600 He said, and I quote again, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil, end quote.
00:25:33.600 And he said again, quote, in certain cases, as in this one, such as the one I mentioned of blessed Paul VI, it was clear.
00:25:42.600 Now, the Pope's answer in the apparent parallel he drew between the case of the nun's use of contraception and the case of the use of contraception in cases of Zika virus has widely led to the interpretation that the Pope was approving the use of contraception in some cases.
00:25:59.600 In fact, many of the media went to Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi for clarification.
00:26:04.600 And on February 19th, he affirmed in fact that the Holy Father was indeed speaking of condoms and contraceptives.
00:26:10.600 And he said couples could rightly, and I quote, avoid pregnancy, end quote, in the wake of the Zika virus scare.
00:26:18.600 Father Lombardi told Vatican Radio that the contraceptive or condom in particular cases of emergency or gravity could be the object of discernment in serious cases of conscience.
00:26:29.600 This is what the Pope said, end quote.
00:26:32.600 According to Father Lombardi, the Pope spoke of, quote, the possibility of taking recourse to contraception or condoms in cases of emergency or special situations.
00:26:43.600 He is not saying that this is a possibility is accepted without discernment.
00:26:47.600 Indeed, he said clearly that it can be considered in cases of special urgency, end quote.
00:26:54.600 As LifeSite writer Matthew Hoffman pointed out, this appears to be an almost perfect contradiction to Paul VI.
00:27:01.600 In fact, Humanae Vitae seemed to perfectly anticipate the arguments made by Pope Francis.
00:27:07.600 Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, end quote.
00:27:18.600 A little bit later on in Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI said,
00:27:21.600 Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good,
00:27:30.600 it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it.
00:27:36.600 In other words, to intend directly something which is of its very nature contradicts the moral order,
00:27:43.600 and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual or family or society in general.
00:27:53.600 Although Paul VI recognized the lesser of evils might be tolerated for the sake of avoiding greater evils,
00:28:02.600 he expressly condemned the notion that one could morally defend an act of contraception which he calls intrinsically wrong.
00:28:12.600 By claiming that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, this appears to be the precise reasoning of Pope Francis.
00:28:21.600 The Holy Bible itself indicates that God hates contraception.
00:28:27.600 As the encyclical Casti Konubi says, God, and I quote,
00:28:31.600 regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death.
00:28:38.600 As St. Augustine notes, and I quote,
00:28:41.600 intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented.
00:28:49.600 Onan, the son of Judah, did this and the Lord killed him for it. 0.73
00:28:54.600 End quote.
00:28:55.600 The rejection of God's command to be fruitful and multiply the very first command given in the scriptures to mankind in Genesis 1.28.
00:29:03.600 In our current day, this can be seen as the heart of the attack on marriage and the family.
00:29:10.600 The late Cardinal Kefara revealed at our Rome Life Forum a couple of years ago now that this attack is actually the fulfillment of the prophecy of Our Lady of Fatima about the, and I quote,
00:29:23.600 final battle between our Lord and the reign of Satan.
00:29:26.600 Humanae Vitae warned of many of the consequences of the acceptance of contraception in ways which make it look like a prophetic document today.
00:29:35.600 The encyclical warned of four resulting trends.
00:29:40.600 A general lowering of moral standards throughout society, a rise in infidelity, a lessening of respect for women by men, and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
00:29:52.600 Of course, these things have all happened.
00:29:54.600 A general lowering of moral standards is painfully obvious today.
00:29:59.600 Paul VI warned, and I quote, another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman,
00:30:11.600 and disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, end quote.
00:30:20.600 Compare that to when the Anglican Church at the Lambeth Conference in 1930 gave a very tentative, shy kind of approval to contraception.
00:30:32.600 When the Anglicans first approved contraception in 1930 at the Lambeth Conference,
00:30:37.600 it was done with words and sentiments actually very similar to the justifications for second marriage without annulment provided in Amoris Laetitia.
00:30:46.600 At the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican leadership didn't just plainly say contraception is now permitted.
00:30:53.600 They actually pointed to hard cases and employed many heart-rending justifications to get what was the first breach against openness to life in the Christian world.
00:31:03.600 And I quote from it, where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles, said the Lambeth statement.
00:31:16.600 It continued this way, and I quote,
00:31:19.600 The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse as far as may be necessary, in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:31:31.600 Nevertheless, in those cases where there is such clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles.
00:31:54.600 The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception and control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience. End quote.
00:32:07.600 Wow, doesn't that sound familiar for all those who have read Amoris Laetitia?
00:32:12.600 But nonetheless, despite all of the Christian-sounding justifications presented at the Lambeth Conference, the Catholic Church at the time pronounced its judgment on the Anglican decision in Pope Pius XI's encyclical Casti Canubi.
00:32:29.600 Pope Pius XI lambasted the Lambeth Conference approval of contraception. Even though he didn't name the Anglicans, he made it eminently clear to whom he was referring.
00:32:41.600 In paragraph 56 of Casti Canubi, the Pope described the Lambeth decision as, and I quote,
00:32:48.600 openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition for, and I quote again, another doctrine which constitutes moral ruin. 0.96
00:32:59.600 Now, the decision, he said, the Pope said, defiled the chastity of marriage with a, quote again, foul stain.
00:33:07.600 Pope Pius' conclusion on the point bears repeating for all of us to hear, and even more urgently today than it was necessary in his time.
00:33:18.600 He said, and I quote, this is in Casti Canubi again,
00:33:22.600 Remember, at LifeSite News, we're about caritas in veritate, the love in truth.
00:33:47.780 Do you love Pope Francis enough to pray and fast for him to end the confusion that he has caused?
00:33:53.780 Will you write to him and beg him to end this confusion?
00:33:58.780 For his sake, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of your children and grandchildren, it's the charitable thing to do.
00:34:08.780 This is why at LifeSite News, we have been so concerned about the situation in the Church.
00:34:13.780 While we've been begging cardinals and bishops and priests to confront what's going on in the Church today, to take a stand, to resist Pope Francis.
00:34:25.780 Just as biblically it was done by St. Paul, he resisted St. Peter to his face.
00:34:32.780 We are way beyond the need to resist, so we must do it ourselves, because we don't see many of the cardinals and bishops standing up to defend the faith.
00:34:44.780 It's your and my responsibility, dear friends, dear Catholics.
00:34:48.780 That's why we pray every day for the conversion of Pope Francis.
00:34:53.780 For LifeSite News, I'm John Henry Weston, and may God bless you.
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