World overpopulation

Tell the Pope.

How many kids has the Pope got?

How many kids have you got, soon, and why are you only now considering it?
Overpopulation has been talked about since the 60s as far as I am aware, and probably even before that. So why has it only now come to your notice?

I think that it is time to take stock of where the world is at as far as my family is concerned

I have never really taken much time to consider the issue of world overpopulation until now. My own time has come

This is a cryptic comment soontobe, would you like to elaborate?

I'm sure you got what I meant, durham

Oi is obvious that soon meant she has more time to so spider things like this these days. As we all have.

The lack of comprehension on Gransnet is staggering.

There is a lot of information about global population here. Rate of growth is falling steadily.

Spiders?

Ah! You mean the web.

The Catholic church does not ban contraception. You have to be able to justify it to your own conscience and so to God. The mistake, like many in all religions, has been made in transit from the top decision maker to the person on the ground implementing that decision.

I was told this by a very traditional Catholic Bishop and a Catholic Monseigneur.

I agree with you soon. But I still urged my DD to try "just once more " for a little girl. It's very hard to understand that it might be your own family who are helping to over-populate the world. You always think it's the others.

I don't immigration has anything to do with over population. That is a different thing altogether.

On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial.

You are very brave Jinglebf. I wouldn't dare have that conversation with DD2( two gorgeous boys)#notmyplace.
DH says if we all stuck to one child to replace each parent we wouldn't have an overpopulation problem.

I'm only telling you what a bishop and a monseigneur told me.

www.worldometers.info/world-population/

It's quite scary watching the numbers tick.how can we feed them all?

soon by what criteria is the world over-populated?

The Church has a traditional guideline for determining the morality of such an action. It is called “the principle of double effect.” This applies to actions where two effects will follow, one bad and the other good. In order for a person to perform such an action, four conditions must be present:

1. The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.

2. The agent (person performing the act) may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it. The bad effect is sincerely not intended.

3. The good effect must be produced directly from the action, not the bad effect.

4. The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for allowing the bad effect.

The sum of these is that the good effect of an action is what is directly willed and the bad effect is an unintended by-product of the action.

The Church says that you shouldn't take the pill simply to prevent pregnancy but accepts there are other reasons why it may be taken. According to the Bishop and Monseigneur I and most mothers fit these rules because:

1/2. The act was for the good of others (my existing children). It wasn't that I didn't want more children. In an ideal world I would have had more but I just couldn't afford it.

3/4. If I'd had more children then my existing children would have suffered. We were already very poor and they did without things that other children took for granted. Increasing the size of our family would have made that even worse.

This argument could be used for the majority of mothers in the developing and developed world.

I'm not justifying the Church's stance. I'm simply pointing out that contraception is allowed.

When a few individuals own sums that equal the wealth of a some countries, I believe it is not so much over population that is the issue but the obscenely disproportionate distribution of wealth and resources that exists in the world.

I also agree, though, that women should be able to limit the number of children they have if they so wish, without interference from any individual, government, pressure group or religion.

It has been found that well educated women in developing countries are more likely to have smaller families and I believe that education and a widening out of opportunities for women is the way forward.

It has only now come to my notice for 3 reasons really.

I dont think the world has been overpopulated until about now in my opinion.
1. When no country on earth is willing to take migrants, then may be that is the point at which the world is full up.
Naively, I was expecting a country or countries to come forward, and none have? Not one?

2. My own children are now married/getting married, so it then has forced me to take a look/take stock of this issue.

3. The threads on gransnet, on the one hand saying "share share", but on the other hand complaining about food banks/soup kitchens/canteens/lack of benefits.

Looking at the link in the op, and others on google, I am not so sure that we are super wealthy, but even super wealthy countries are not offering to take on more people.

For what it is worth
When my husband and I got married, I searched the Bible for anything which said that contraception was not allowed. But I couldnt find anything at all. So we used contrception.
Whereas,[not sure this is relevant or not], I know that my grandparents did not practice contraception. I dont know why. They and I are not Catholic. Nor on my husband's side.

I have just googled how many Catholics there are in the world, and am very surprised if not staggered to find that the answer is 1.2 billion.

I agree with your point Eloethan about wealth distribution. To a point I suppose, it has always existed. I cant see it changing anytime soon. We are at where we are at.

What was the outcome, jingl? Did you get your little girl? (Off thread, but feeling nosey).

I think I mentioned an article in the immigrant thread about the fact that all the "feed the world" efforts from the west are interfering with the Nature's own population control method - famine. So the populations of African countries are growing when they should be shrinking.
Another main area of population growth - Muslim countries. Predicted to be nearly as many as Christians by 2050. Religious Muslims don't practise birth control.
So it's difficult to "do something about it" without being accused of ethnic cleansing.