A4 - Wednesday, July 25, 1984 - North Shore News

~ Strictly personal

by Bob Hunter

OPE JOHN PAUL II will be arriving on
our doorstep in the wake of the Interna-
tional Conference on Population, which will

be happening in Mexico City even as the pontuff
hops across Canada to say mass to maybe half a
million people in Abbotsford.

That the Pope ts a celibate
at a moment in time when the
earth’s population stands at
4.8 billion, threatening to rise
to 11 billhlon before some sort
of catastrophic collapse oc-
curs, sayS reams about the
central dilemma of our
modern world.

Can our responsibility to
the human being who exists
today remain hmited only to
the living, or must we begin
to take responsibility for
those who must surely suffer
tomorrow if we don’t
seriously learn to ‘‘cull the
human herd’’?

Why make any. bones
about it? If you talk about
abortion, you talk about cull-
ing. There is no nicer word
for it. But so be it.

If we don’t control our
numbers, the situation our
children and = grandchildren
face becomes a nightmare,
getting worse through the
generations, not better.

The Bishop of Rome
stands clearly opposed to
birth control and particularly
abortion. He cites teachings
that come from a nomadic
era when there were only a
total of 200 million humans
on earth, while in this day
and age another millon
hungry mouths arrive in our
midst every FIVE days’!

I'm a lapsed Catholic
myself, something I take no
particular pride in, since |
have family and a number of
fmnends who go to church |
respect totally their right to
hold the beliefs they do

I think | even understand
why they stick to. their
behefs

Whatever a historian might
say about the internal politics
of the Vatican over the cen
turies, and whatever the cor
rupting effects of greal power
wielded over superstitious
people in ancient and not so
ancient times, the church,
after all, recognizes in each
human being a soul

This is a great thing to
know maybe even greater

to teach. So 1 don’t knock the
essence of the church. And
certainly don't deny the ex-
istence of God — or at least
some intelligence behind the
universe.

What did Einstein say?
Light is the shadow of God

In Canada, nearly half the
population — some = say
shghtly more than half — are
listed as Roman Catholics.
Keep in mind this statistic no
doubt includes people like
me, who haven’t been excom-
municated. We just haven't
gone to mass for a long, long
ume.

In British Columbia, for
some reason, the figures are
quite different than the na-
tional scene. Here, only
about 19 per cent are
Catholics, if that.

There have been grumbl-
ings from Protestant groups,
naturally, that the federal
government has no business
shelling out $17.8 millon to
truck the Holy Father across
the country

Yet that's not fair The
Pope ts the head of the
world’s smallest state — the
Vatican — and, as a signator
to various international
agreements, Canada is bound
to guarantee his protection
In law, he is called, in fact. a
‘*protected person.’

The cost of protecting him
happens to be over $1.5
millon a day, but that’s not
the Pope's fault Or
Ottawa's

Besides, the word ‘'Protes-
tant’? was what protesters
were called at the time of the
Reformation

So I'm defending the nght
of Canadian bishops to invite
John Paul And I'm also con-
ceding that the’ federal
government has no choice
but to shell out. At any rate,
politically, with half the
voters wanting the Pope to
come, what party in its right
mind would say no?

Cuiven all this, it seems to
me that since itis the practis-
ing Cathohes who invited

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him, itis time they stood up
to be counted on a tew vital
questions

No one doubts the
church's awesome influence,
especially in the developing
world. There is clearly a pro-
found responsibility
that influence wisely.

It seems to me, given the
controversial nature of some

{oO use

of the current Pope’s
teachings, local practising
Catholics — people who

obstensibly accept the Pope
as the direct inheritor of the
mantle of the leading disciple
of Christ — should be ex-
plaining these views to those

of us with doubts, not just
advertising commemorative
plates.

What about abortion?

What about overpopulation?
We'll continue

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