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Putin Continues to Conduct His War in a Reactive Way

Paul Craig Roberts

Russian strikes are reactions to Kiev’s initiatives. They are not part of a proactive offensive strategy. Putin says so himself. Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy facilities forced him to retaliate. The Russian Defense Ministry described the attacks as retaliatory. Putin apparently doesn’t grasp that Russia is at war far beyond a “limited military operation” and that his failure to bring it to a quick end has resulted in an ever-widening war that is spinning out of control. The Kremlin’s lack of realism boggles the mind.

https://www.rt.com/russia/595781-putin-explains-strikes-on-ukrainian-energy-sites/

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240411/russian-armed-forces-launch-massive-strike-on-ukraines-fuel-and-energy-facilities—mod-1117865865.html

The Corrupt or Incompetent Rutgers University Administration Backs Away from Its Covid Vax Mandate

https://www.globalresearch.ca/rutgers-unexpectedly-drops-student-vaxx-requirement-litigation-proceeds/5854399

What you don’t know but need to know

Trust in government is completely unwarranted.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/04/no_author/how-our-government-medical-institutions-and-universities-kill-us/

Is immigration why employment reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) continue defying mainstream economists’ estimates? Many are asking this question as the U.S. experiences a flood of immigrants across the southern border. Concurrently, many young college graduates continue to complain about the inability to receive a job offer. As noted recently by CNBC:

The job market looks solid on paper. According to government data, U.S. employers added 2.7 million people to their payrolls in 2023. Unemployment hit a 54-year low of 3.4% in January 2023 and ticked up just slightly to 3.7% by December.

But active job seekers say the labor market feels more difficult than ever. A 2023 survey from staffing agency Insight Global found that recently unemployed full-time workers had applied to an average of 30 jobs only to receive an average of four callbacks or responses.”

These stories are not unique. If you Google “Can’t find a job,” you will get many article links. Yet employment reports have been exceedingly strong for the past several months. In March, the U.S. economy added 303,000 jobs, exceeding every economist’s estimate by four standard deviations. In terms of statistics, a single four-standard deviation event should be rare. Three months in a row is a near statistical impossibility.

Despite weakness in manufacturing and services, with many companies recently announcing layoffs, we have near-record-low jobless claims and employment. According to official government data, the economy has rarely been more robust.

Such a situation begs an obvious question: How are college graduates struggling to find employment while the labor market remains so strong?

We may find the answer in immigration.

Immigrations Impact By The Numbers

A recent study by Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson at the Brookings Institution found that illegal immigrants in the country helped boost the labor market, steering the economy from a downturn. Data from the Congressional Budget Office shows a massive uptick of 2.4 million “other immigrants” who don’t fall into the category of lawful immigrants or those on temporary visas. The chart below shows how this figure has spiked from a level of less than 500,000 at the beginning of the 2020s.

The most significant change relative to the past stems from CBO’s other non-immigrant category, which includes immigrants with a nonlegal or pending status.

“We indicate our estimates of ‘likely stayers’ by diamonds in Figure 2. In FY 2023, almost a million people encountered at the border were given a ‘notice to appear,’ meaning they have permission to petition a court for asylum or other immigration relief. Most of these individuals are waiting in the U.S. for the asylum court queue, which has over a million case backlog. In addition, over 800,000 have been granted humanitarian parole (mostly immigrants from Ukraine, Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela). These 1.8 million ‘likely stayers’ in FY 2023 may or may not remain in the U.S. permanently, but most are currently living in the U.S. and participating in the economy. CBO estimates that there were 2 million such entries over the calendar year 2023, which is consistent with higher encounters at the end of the calendar year.”

According to the CBO’s estimates for 2023, the categories of lawful permanent resident migration, INA non-immigrant, and other non-immigrant equated to 3.3 million net entries. However, the number is likely much higher than estimates, subject to uncertainty about unencountered border crossings, visa overstays, and “got-aways.”

As such, this influx of immigrants has significantly added to payroll growth and has accounted for the uptick in economic growth starting in 2022. While the uptick in border encounters began in earnest in 2021, as the current Administration repealed previous border security actions, there is a “lag effect” of immigration on economic growth.

However, not all jobs are created equal.

Immigration’s Impact On Job Availability

Since 1980, the U.S. economy has shifted from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-oriented one. The reason is that the “cost of labor” in the U.S. to manufacture goods is too high. Domestic workers want high wages, benefits, paid vacations, personal time off, etc. On top of that are the numerous regulations on businesses from OSHA to Sarbanes-Oxley, FDA, EPA, and many others. All those additional costs are a factor in producing goods or services. Therefore, corporations must offshore production to countries with lower labor costs and higher production rates to manufacture goods competitively.

In other words, for U.S. consumers to “afford” the latest flat-screen television, iPhone, or computer, manufacturers must “export” inflation (the cost of labor and production) to import “deflation” (cheaper goods.) There is no better example of this than a previous interview with Greg Hays of Carrier Industries. Following the 2016 election, President Trump pushed for reshoring U.S. manufacturing. Carrier Industries was one of the first to respond. Mr. Hays discussed the reasoning for moving a plant from Mexico to Indiana.

“So what’s good about Mexico? We have a very talented workforce in Mexico. Wages are obviously significantly lower. About 80% lower on average. But absenteeism runs about 1%. Turnover runs about 2%. Very, very dedicated workforce. Which is much higher versus America. And I think that’s just part of these — the jobs, again, are not jobs on an assembly line that [Americans] really find all that attractive over the long term.“

The need to lower costs by finding cheaper and plentiful sources of labor continues. While employment continues to increase, the bulk of the jobs created are in areas with lower wages and skill requirements.

As noted by CNBC:

“The continued rebound of these jobs, along with strong months for sectors like construction, could be a sign that immigration is helping the labor market grow without putting too much upward pressure on wages.”

This is a crucial point. If there is strong employment growth, wages should increase commensurately as the demand for labor increases. However, that isn’t happening, as the cost of labor is suppressed by hiring workers willing to work for less compensation. In other words, the increase in illegal immigrants is lowering the “average” wage for Americans.

Nonetheless, in the last year, 50% of the labor force growth came from net immigration. The U.S. added 5.2 million jobs last year, which boosted economic growth without sparking inflationary pressures.

While immigration has positively impacted economic growth and disinflation, this story has a dark side.

The Profit Motive

In a previous article, I discussed an interview by Fed Chair Jerome Powell discussing immigration during a 60-Minutes Interview. To wit:

“SCOTT PELLEY: Why was immigration important?

FED CHAIR POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans. But that’s primarily because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.“

You should read that comment again carefully. As noted by Greg Hayes, immigrants tend to work harder and for less compensation than non-immigrants. That suppression of wages and increased productivity, which reduces the amount of required labor, boosts corporate profitability.

The move to hire cheaper labor should be unsurprising. Following the pandemic-related shutdown, corporations faced multiple threats to profitability from supply constraints, a shift to increased services, and a lack of labor. At the same time, mass immigration (both legal and illegal) provided a workforce willing to fill lower-wage paying jobs and work regardless of the shutdown. Since 2019, the cumulative employment change has favored foreign-born workers, who have gained almost 2.5 million jobs, while native-born workers have lost 1.3 million. Unsurprisingly, foreign-born workers also lost far fewer jobs during the pandemic shutdown.

Given that the bulk of employment continues to be in lower-wage paying service jobs (i.e., restaurants, retail, leisure, and hospitality) such is why part-time jobs have dominated full-time in recent reports. Since last year, part-time jobs have risen by 1.8 million while full-time employment has declined by 1.35 million.

Not dismissing the implications of the shift to part-time employment is crucial.

Personal consumption, what you and I spend daily, drives nearly 70% of economic growth in the U.S. Therefore, Americans require full-time employment to consume at an economically sustainable rate. Full-time jobs provide higher wages, benefits, and health insurance to support a family, whereas part-time jobs do not.

Notably, given the surge in immigration into the U.S. over the last few years, the all-important ratio of full-time employees relative to the population has dropped sharply. As noted, given that full-time employment provides the resources for excess consumption, that ratio should increase for the economy to continue growing strongly. 

However, the reality is that the full-time employment rate is falling sharply. Historically, when the annual rate of change in full-time employment dropped below zero, the economy entered a recession.

While there is much debate over immigration, most of the arguments do not differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. There are certainly arguments that can be made on both sides. However, what is less debatable is the impact that immigration is having on employment and wages. Of course, as native-born workers continue to demand higher wages, benefits, and other tax-funded support, those costs must be passed on by the companies creating those products and services. At the same time, consumers are demanding lower prices.

That imbalance between input costs and selling price drives companies to aggressively seek options to reduce the highest cost to any business – labor. 

Such is why full-time employment has declined since 2000 despite the surge in the Internet economy, robotics, and artificial intelligence. It is also why wage growth fails to grow fast enough to sustain the cost of living for the average American. These technological developments increased employee productivity, reducing the need for additional labor.

Unfortunately, college graduates expecting high-paying jobs will likely continue to find it increasingly frustrating. Such is particularly the case as “Artificial Intelligence” gains traction and displaces “white collar” work, further squeezing the demand for “native-born” workers.

The post Immigration And Its Impact On Employment appeared first on RIA.

On the matter of Christ’s alleged appearance among men, an event which we call the Incarnation of God, there is little room to maneuver once you’ve eliminated either madness or mendacity as an explanation for it. Leaving what? Only the bedrock certainty that it happened, which is to say, a miracle. And because that’s the one remaining option on the table, our acceptance of it becomes less a…

Source

Grounded in the sources of divine Revelation, the diaconate holds a unique and irreplaceable role within the Church. Deacons are ordained to serve, embodying the Church’s sacramental life alongside its call to service. This vocation is a living bridge between the altar and the needy, between the Church’s worship and its mission to serve the marginalized. The absence of deacons in the synodal conversations is a gap that deprives the Church of the fullness of its identity.
 

The post A voice unheard: The absence of deacons at the Synod appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

First Old Man

He threw his crutched stick down: there came
Into his face the anger flame,
And he spoke viciously of one
Who thwarted him—his son’s son.
He turned his head away.—“I hate
Absurdity of language, prate
From growing fellows. We’d not stay
About the house the whole of a day
When we were young,
Keeping no job and giving tongue!
“Not us in troth! We would not come
For bit or sup, but stay from home
If we gave answers, or we’d creep
Back to the house, and in we’d peep
Just like a corncrake.
“My grandson and his comrades take
A piece of coal from you, from me
A log, or sod of turf, maybe;
And in some empty place they’ll light
A fire, and stay there all night,
A wisp of lads! Now understand
The blades of grass under my hand
Would be destroyed by company!
There’s no good company: we go
With what is lowest to the low!
He stays up late, and how can he
Rise early? Sure he lags in bed,
And she is worn to a thread
With calling him—his grandmother.
She’s an old woman, and she must make
Stir when the birds are half awake
In dread he’d lose this job like the other!”

Second Old Man

“They brought yon fellow over here,
And set him up for an overseer:
Though men from work are turned away
That thick-necked fellow draws full pay—
Three pounds a week…. They let burn down
The timber yard behind the town
Where work was good; though firemen stand
In boots and brasses big and grand
The crow of a cock away from the place.
And with the yard they let burn too
The clock in the tower, the clock I knew
As well as I know the look in my face.”

Third Old Man

“The fellow you spoke of has broken his bounds—
He came to skulk inside of these grounds:
Behind the bushes he lay down
And stretched full hours in the sun.
He rises now, and like a crane
He looks abroad. He’s off again:
Three pounds a week, and still he owes
Money in every street he goes,
Hundreds of pounds where we’d not get
The second shilling of a debt.”

First Old Man

“Old age has every impediment
Vexation and discontent;
The rich have more than we: for bit
The cut of bread, and over it
The scrape of hog’s lard, and for sup
Warm water in a cup.
But different sorts of feeding breaks
The body more than fasting does
With pains and aches.
“I’m not too badly off, for I
Have pipe and tobacco, a place to lie,
A nook to myself; but from my hand
Is taken the strength to back command—
I’m broken, and there’s gone from me
The privilege of authority.”
I heard them speak—
The old men heavy on the sod,
Letting their angers come
Between them and the thought of God.

The post Old Men Complaining appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Without prior notice, Pope Francis has reversed something that his predecessor Benedict XVI had changed during his pontificate. The Pope now once again bears the historic title of “Patriarch of the West” (Patriarca dell’Occidente), as he last did in 2005. Benedict XVI had this title removed from the list of papal titles in the first year of his pontificate, causing irritation among the churches of the East.
 

The post Pope proclaims himself ‘Patriarch of the West’ appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

In today’s interview, author Brad Wilcox joins contributing editor Patrick Brown to discuss how marrying young can renew culture and form the foundation of a healthier culture. His book Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization was released last month.

Patrick T. Brown: Brad, thanks for joining Public Discourse—where you’ve published before—to talk about your new book. Let’s start with the bad news: we all know marriage is in decline, with many potential causes at play, from general economic forces to Hollywood-induced cultural changes to public policy decisions. If someone asked for an elevator-pitch-length ranking of the most important forces behind the diminution of marriage in American life, what would you tell them?

Brad Wilcox: I would focus on five dynamics, many of which have been championed by the elites who control the commanding heights of our culture, economy, and government: 

(1) Expressive individualism—the cultural orientation that tells us life is about living for the desires and projects of the self, rather than for family and community.

(2) Secularization—the decline of religious authority and practice in modern life, which has diminished the normative power of marriage and the social supports that sustain marriage.

(3) The rise of a post-industrial economy—especially the economic shifts that have disadvantaged non-college-educated men, making them less “marriageable,” that is, less likely to marry and more likely to divorce.

(4) Statism—the modern state’s tendency to supplant many of the functions and much of the authority once held by the family to the detriment of marriage (including “marriage penalties” that make marrying a bad financial deal for lower-income families). 

(5) Electronic opiates—Big Tech’s products have left too many young women anxious and depressed and too many young men bereft of drive and ambition, dynamics that undercut their capacity to forge good relationships. They also distract us from IRL (in real life) dating and investing in the relationships that matter most, including marriage and family.

To sum up, as I note in my book: 

Dominant elites have advanced ideas that devalue and demean marriage, cast aside the normative guardrails that forge strong families, passed laws that penalize marriage for the poor and working class, and superintended the rise of a new economy that benefits them but has put marriage and family life out of reach for millions of their fellow Americans. [But the] irony . . . is that the very group—our ruling class—that has sabotaged our most fundamental social institution has figured out ways to protect their own families even as marriage flounders in the nation at large. 

This, in part, is why a majority of educated and affluent Americans (ages eighteen to fifty-five) are married, whereas only a minority of poor and working-class Americans are married.

PTB: The title of your book is admirably blunt—Get Married. But the group for whom marriage has declined the most—namely, blue-collar Americans—are perhaps least likely to pick up a book by a sociologist from the University of Virginia. What’s the conversation you hope to kickstart with this work?

BW: It’s a great point. The erosion of a strong marriage culture starting in the 1960s initially had a disparate effect on the most vulnerable Americans. But the ongoing erosion of a strong marriage culture has been climbing up the class ladder into working- and middle-class communities since the 1980s. And now, as my book suggests, America’s retreat from marriage is beginning to affect even well-educated and affluent Americans, especially those who embrace a progressive orientation to life. What I mean is that it is not only working-class and poor Americans who are markedly less likely to marry but also more progressive-minded Americans.

So, my aim is to help revive the cachet of marriage among the elites who command the heights of the culture, along with other scholars like Brookings economist Melissa Kearney. To persuade politicians, Hollywood and Big Tech titans, educators, and social media influencers to shift their treatment of marriage not just in a more family-friendly direction, but in a more honest direction. And if mainstream elites prove unpersuadable, then I will work with insurgent elites in media, politics, education, and social media to find new ways to advance a family-friendly message to the American public.

Because the truth is that marriage is a path to financial security and happiness for most Americans. If this truth catches on in the hearts and minds of the general public, especially young adults, and marriage begins to gain greater cultural respect, everyone will benefit—including the least advantaged Americans.

PTB: There’s definitely a conversation happening now that feels different. In response, some left-leaning provocateurs have rolled their eyes at the idea that getting married is “defying the elites.” They point out, I think fairly, that college-educated Americans who skew left and make up a large share of what we might consider “the elite” do get married, and often more stably, than Americans without a college degree. What are they missing?

BW: I laughed when I saw this point making its rounds on Twitter. I’ve written a ton about elite marriages, so I know that elites, in their private lives, tend to get and stay married.

The problem is what they do in their public capacities as cultural, business, and political leaders. Our elites often “Talk Left, Walk Right” when it comes to marriage and family, privately embracing a marriage-minded way of life even as they deny the importance of marriage and the two-parent family in public. And there are now good polling data showing that no group of Americans is less marriage-friendly than college-educated liberals when it comes to their public attitudes.

The pushback was especially funny because the very people who objected to this phrase from the book’s title, like the journalist Matt Yglesias, were exactly the elites I was thinking about in writing the book. Yglesias famously wrote an article in Vox entitled “The ‘Decline’ of Marriage Isn’t a Problem.” Efforts by elites to deny, discount, or devalue the importance of marriage in the media, education, Hollywood, Capitol Hill, and even now, the C-Suite, are a big reason we have a marriage problem.

If our elites used their power to tell the truth about marriage—in schools, universities, media, pop culture, and on social media—we’d have a much healthier family culture. For anyone looking for recent evidence in support of my point that our elites often get behind ideas that are unfriendly to marriage, you only need to look at the recent push for polyamory, coming from seemingly everywhere, from the pages of the New York Times to the Peacock streaming service with its new show, “Couple to Throuple.” It’s like none of these cultural elites know anything about how open marriages fared in the ’70s.

To be fair, there are still glimmers of hope. Influenced by scholars like Kearney, no doubt, even Matt Yglesias has been more positive about marriage and the two-parent family of late. Let’s hope many more elites follow in Matt’s footsteps.

PTB: Part of this shift has to happen in academia as well. I think it’s safe to say you are one of, if not the, most prominent academic voice making an explicit case for marriage and family in the social sciences. As someone with conservative principles at an elite, left-leaning university, how have you seen the conversation around marriage change during your time doing academic work? Do you think the academy—and America—are more open to this message than they would have been in 2014 or 2004?

BW: Given its leftward tilt, the academy is generally not very favorable to a marriage-friendly argument. But because of the work and witness of Bill Galston at Maryland, Sara McLanahan at Princeton, and Isabel Sawhill at Brookings, in part, we saw a brief uptick in appreciation for marriage in the academy in the 1990s and early 2000s. Less so in recent years, as the academy has turned pretty hard to the left.

But Kearney’s new book, my book, and Rob Henderson’s new book, Troubled, are all helping to revive an appreciation for marriage in other precincts of the culture besides the academy. We’ve seen good pieces in mainstream media platforms—like The Atlantic and The Washington Post, for instance—on marriage, that suggest some new movement in a better direction in the media regarding our most important social institution. Let’s hope these books—and the work of civic and educational leaders like J. P. De Gance (president of Communio, a religious initiative to strengthen families) and Ian Rowe (founder of Vertex Partnership Academies)—will help paint an updated, more positive picture of marriage in the culture at large.

Moreover, think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Institute for Family Studies are now producing original empirical research on family-related topics. This research allows us to discover and publicize marriage findings that would otherwise be overlooked in the academy. So we’re less dependent on what is happening in the academy when it comes to conducting and publicizing marriage-related research.

PTB: There is, of course, a long tradition of conservative pundits and intellectuals arguing for a revivified culture of marriage, from Pat Moynihan to Dan Quayle to Rick Santorum and on down the list. But for the most part, they’ve failed to convince the primary vehicle for conservative policymaking, the Republican Party, to prioritize marriage and the family with something more than mere lip service. Are you optimistic or pessimistic that today’s conservative movement is willing to explore policy options other than the bully pulpit that could shore up marriage?

BW: This is a legitimate concern. We’re heading into a very uncertain political climate, both regarding the White House and the makeup of the House. It’s quite possible that the 2024 election will lead to a divided government again. Given all this, I’m not overly optimistic that we will make much headway on policies that would strengthen families in the near term. But, in principle, I’m supportive of policies that (a) financially reward, or at least stop penalizing, marriages, (b) make family life more affordable, (c) let families choose how to best raise their young children, (d) make it easier for parents to spend time with their kids, and (e) underline the value of marriage and parenthood to the general public, especially adolescents and young adults.

Accordingly, I would love for Congress and the states to minimize marriage penalties in means-tested programs like Medicaid, expand the child tax credit for working- and middle-class families, tackle housing costs, give families generous educational savings accounts, and underline the cultural value of marriage in schools and on social media by teaching the success sequence.

To be clear, government can only do so much to renew marriage and family life. It’s worth noting that family formation is falling in countries with very generous family policies, like Finland. So family policy is no panacea. But policy should at least aim to make marriage and childbearing more appealing and attainable to ordinary Americans.

PTB: Certainly policy can’t do it alone; culture plays a huge role as well. When you study the landscape, is there a particular state, region, city, or community that gives you hope that we can turn this thing around?

BW: There are new family policy pushes to strengthen marriage and family emerging in states like Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah: marriage initiatives, new policies on teens and tech, and fatherhood programs—some civic, some public. I am encouraged, for instance, by the work that Communio is doing to strengthen marriage and family ministries in Catholic and Protestant churches across America and the work that Governor Spencer Cox and the Utah legislature are doing to advance the Success Sequence and a range of other family-friendly laws. I am also impressed by what J. P. De Gance and Live the Life seem to have done in their marriage initiative in Jacksonville, Florida to bring down divorce rates there.

Finally, churches that have put a premium on encouraging dating and stressing the value of marriage to their teens and young adults seem to be doing better on the marriage front. St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, for instance, has seen weddings increase 50 percent in the last four years. I would attribute its success, in part, to how its Catholic Hoos ministry, which serves UVA students, has emphasized the vocation of marriage and the practical importance of dating to its students. And given the dramatic decline in dating across the culture that has affected even Latter-Day Saints, the BYU University system is also stepping up efforts to encourage dating among its Mormon students.

Let’s hope evaluations indicate that many of these policies and initiatives work. Otherwise, this nation is facing what I call the “Closing of the American Heart,” where record shares of young adults will never marry and/or never have children. Demographer Lyman Stone projects that, on the current course, as many as one in three young adults in the United States might never marry and as many as one in four will never have kids. That’s a lot of kinless Americans. Given the importance of marriage and family for what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness,” this would be a tragedy. So let’s find new ways to make it easier and more appealing for young adults to get married.

The president of the Belgian biggest health care fund, Christian Mutualities (CM), has called for a radical solution to the problem of Belgium’s ageing population. Luc Van Gorp told Belgian media this week that people who are tired of life should be allowed to end it.

Like all other European countries and, indeed, the rest of the world apart from sub-Saharan Africa, Belgium faces a huge increase in its elderly. Over-80s will double by 2050, from around 640,000 today to 1.2 million. Financial pressure on healthcare, medication and nursing homes will increase.

More money is not the solution, says Van Gorp. “No matter how much you end up investing, it will still not be enough. There are simply not enough health workers to do the job,” he said. “Do we really need all those extra residential care centres? Just building up rooms without doing anything about the staff shortage is not a sustainable model. I miss the why- question in elderly care. Why do we do business the way we do them now? There is often no answer to this.”

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He is in favour of “a radically different approach” – not asking “how long can I live?”, but “how long can I live a quality life?”. He proposes euthanasia for people who believe that their lives are complete. “Suicide is too negative a term,” says Van Gorp. “I would rather call it: giving life back. I know it is sensitive, but we really have to dare to have that debate.”

In an interview with Nieuwsblad, Van Gorp declared:

“Everyone wants their parents and grandparents to stay as long as possible, right? But do those people want that themselves? And what do they need for that? These questions are asked too little. Some people over 80 will not need anything at all to age well. They will even be able to support others, for example by keeping them company. Others need a lot of care, and – just to be clear – we must continue to provide it.

“But what about the category of elderly people who receive maximum care, but who still do not have the quality of life they desire? That question is asked far too little.”

A number of politicians supported Van Gorp’s call to make “a completed life” a justification for euthanasia. However, Christian democrat leader Sammy Mahdi criticised the comments. “This makes me angry,” he wrote on X. “If someone is tired of life and feels they are in the way or don’t get visitors anymore, aren’t we just failing as a society?”

Van Gorp doubled down on the sentiments expressed in his interview with Nieuwsblad. In an op-ed for the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, he wrote: “The demand for care will only increase in the coming years. If we just keep doing the way we are doing today, we’re going for an outright care crash. We can only prevent this if we choose a radically different approach, from a healthy society that puts quality of life first instead of quantity.”

There simply are not enough carers or space for the elderly to live, he says: “Numerous healthcare providers have long indicated that it is not possible to continue in this way. There are simply not enough professional hands left to provide all the care. And as a society, we create too little space to take care of those who are most dear to us ourselves.”

Van Gorp calls for an urgent national debate about the issue: “As delicate as it is, we must dare to enter into the debate about quality of life, including at the end of life. Better today than tomorrow.”

LifeNews Note: Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge where this story appeared.

The post Health Care Executive Says Euthanize More Patients to Cut Costs, Control Population appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Capital punishment

To begin with the latter, I hasten to add that most of the conclusions are unobjectionable.  They are simply reiterations of longstanding Catholic teaching on abortion, euthanasia, our obligations to the poor and to migrants, and so on.  The document is especially helpful and courageous in strongly condemning surrogacy and gender theory, which will win it no praise from the progressives the pope is often accused of being too ready to placate. 

There are other passages that are more problematic but perhaps best interpreted as imprecise rather than novel.  For example, it is stated that “it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war.’”  That might seem to mark the beginnings of a reversal of traditional teaching that has been reiterated as recently as the current Catechism.  However, Dignitas Infinita also “reaffirm[s] the inalienable right to self-defense and the responsibility to protect those whose lives are threatened,” which are themes that recent statements of just war doctrine have already emphasized.

The one undeniably gravely problematic conclusion Dignitas Infinita draws from its key premise concerns the death penalty.  Pope Francis already came extremely close to declaring capital punishment intrinsically immoral when he changed the Catechism in 2018, so that it now says that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”  But that left open the possibility that what was meant is that it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person unless certain circumstances hold, such as the practical impossibility of protecting others from the offender without executing him (even if this reading is a bit strained).  The new DDF document goes further and flatly declares that “the death penalty… violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances” (emphasis added). 

This simply cannot be reconciled with scripture and the consistent teaching of all popes who have spoken on the matter prior to Pope Francis.  That includes Pope St. John Paul II, despite his well-known opposition to capital punishment.  In Evangelium Vitae, even John Paul taught only:

Punishment… ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.  Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

And the original version of the Catechism promulgated by John Paul II stated:

The traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of the legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. (2266)

In short, John Paul II (like scripture and like every previous pope who spoke on the matter) held that some circumstances can justify capital punishment, whereas Pope Francis now teaches that no circumstances can ever justify capital punishment.  That is a direct contradiction.  Now, Joseph Bessette and I, in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, have shown that the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty has in fact been taught infallibly by scripture and the tradition of the Church.  I’ve also made the case for this claim on other occasions, such as in this article.  Hence, if Pope Francis is indeed teaching that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong, it is clear that it is he who is in the wrong, rather than scripture and previous popes. 

If defenders of Pope Francis deny this, then they are logically committed to holding that those previous popes erred.  Either way, some pope or other has erred, so that it will make no sense for defenders of Pope Francis to pretend that they are simply upholding papal magisterial authority.  To defend Pope Francis is to reject the teaching of the previous popes; to defend those previous popes is to reject the teaching of Pope Francis.  There is no way to defend all of them at once. 

This is in no way inconsistent with the doctrine of papal infallibility, because that doctrine concerns ex cathedra definitions, and nothing Pope Francis has said amounts to such a definition (as Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of the DDF, has explicitly acknowledged).  But it refutes those who claim that all papal teaching on faith and morals is infallible, and those who hold that, even if not all such teaching is infallible, no pope has actually taught error.  For that reason alone, Dignitas Infinita is a document of historic significance, albeit not for the reasons Pope Francis or Cardinal Fernández would have intended.

Dignity and the death penalty

The other problem with the document, I have said, concerns the premise with which it begins.  That premise is referred to in its title, and it is stated in its opening lines as follows:

Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.  This principle, which is fully recognizable even by reason alone, underlies the primacy of the human person and the protection of human rights… [Thus] the Church… always insist[s] on “the primacy of the human person and the defense of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance.”

The most striking part of this passage – indeed, I would say the most shocking part of it – is the assertion that human dignity is infinite.  I will come back to that.  But first note the other aspects of its teaching.  The Declaration implies that this dignity follows from human nature itself, rather than from grace.  That is implied by its being fully knowable by reason alone (as opposed to special divine revelation).  It is ontological rather than acquired in nature, reflecting what a human being is rather than what he or she does.  For this reason, it cannot be lost no matter what one does, in “every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.”  And again, the dignity human beings are said in this way to possess is also claimed to be infinite in nature.

It is no surprise, then, that the Declaration should later go on to say what it does about the death penalty.  According to Pope Francis’s revision of the Catechism, the death penalty is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”  But Dignitas Infinita says this dignity exists in “every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.”  That implies that it is retained no matter what evil the person has committed, and no matter how dangerous he is to others.  Thus, if we must “always insist on… the primacy of the human person and the defense of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance,” it would follow that the death penalty would be impermissible in every circumstance.

This alone entails that there is something wrong with the Declaration’s premises.  For it is, again, the infallible teaching of scripture and all previous popes that the death penalty can under some circumstances be justifiable.  Hence, if the Declaration’s teaching on human dignity implies otherwise, it is that teaching that is flawed, not scripture and not two millennia of consistent papal teaching.

There is also the problem that, in defense of its conception of human dignity, the Declaration appeals to scriptural passages from, among other places, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Romans.  But all four of these books contain explicit endorsements of capital punishment!  (See By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed for detailed discussion.)  Hence, their conception of human dignity is clearly not the same as that of the Declaration.  Perhaps the defender of the Declaration will suggest that these scriptural texts erred on the specific topic of capital punishment.  One problem with that is that the Church holds that scripture cannot teach error on a matter of faith or morals.  So, this attempt to get around the difficulty would be heterodox.  But another problem is that this move would undermine the Declaration’s own use of these scriptural texts.  For if Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Romans are wrong about something as serious the death penalty, why should we believe they are right about anything else, such as human dignity?

At this point the defender of the Declaration might suggest that we are misunderstanding these scriptural passages if we think they support capital punishment.  One problem with this suggestion is that it is asinine on its face.  Jewish and Christian theologians alike have for millennia consistently understood the Old Testament to sanction capital punishment, and the Church has always understood both the Old Testament passages and Romans to sanction it.  To pretend that it is only now that we finally understand them accurately defies common sense (and rests on utterly implausible arguments, as Bessette and I show in our book).  But it also contradicts what the Church has said about its own understanding of scripture.  The Church claims that on matters of scriptural interpretation, no one is free to contradict the unanimous opinion of the Fathers or the consistent understanding of the Church over millennia.  And the Fathers and consistent tradition of the Church hold that scripture teaches that the death penalty can under some circumstances be licit.  (See the book for more about this subject too.)

Infinite dignity?

But even putting all of that aside, attributing “infinite dignity” to human beings is highly problematic.  If we are speaking strictly, it is obvious that only God can be said to have infinite dignity.  Dignitas conveys “worth,” “worthiness,” “merit,” “excellence,” “honor.”  Try replacing “dignity” with these words in the phrase “infinite dignity,” and ask whether the result can be applied to human beings.  Do human beings have “infinite merit,” “infinite excellence,” “infinite worthiness”?  The very idea seems blasphemous.  Only God can have any of these things.

Or consider the attributes that impart special dignity to people, such as authority, goodness, or wisdom, where the more perfectly they manifest these attributes, the greater is their dignity.  Can human beings be said to possess “infinite authority,” “infinite goodness,” or “infinite wisdom”?  Obviously not, and obviously it is only God to whom these things can be attributed.  So, how could human beings have infinite dignity?

Aquinas makes several relevant remarks.  He tells us that “the equality of distributive justice consists in allotting various things to various persons in proportion to their personal dignity” (Summa Theologiae II-II.63.1).  Naturally, that implies that some people have more dignity than others.  So, how could all human beings have infinite dignity (which would imply that none has more than any other)?  He also says that “by sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood” (Summa Theologiae II-II.64.2).  But if a person can lose his dignity, how can all people have infinite dignity?

Some will say that what Aquinas is talking about in such passages is only acquired dignity rather than ontological dignity – that is to say, dignity that reflects what we do or some special status we contingently come to have (which can change), rather than dignity that reflects what we are by nature.  But that will not work as an interpretation of other things Aquinas says.  For instance, he notes that “the dignity of the divine nature excels every other dignity” (Summa Theologiae I.29.3).  Obviously, he is talking about God’s ontological dignity here.  And naturally, God has infinite dignity if anything does.  So if his ontological dignity excels ours, how could we possibly have infinite ontological dignity? 

Aquinas also writes:

Now it is more dignified for a thing to exist in something more dignified than itself than to exist in its own right.  And so by this very fact the human nature is more dignified in Christ than in us, since in us it has its own personhood in the sense that it exists in its own right, whereas in Christ it exists in the person of the Word.  (Summa Theologiae III.2.2, Freddoso translation)

Now, if the dignity of human nature is increased by virtue of its being united to Christ in the Incarnation, how could it already be infinite by nature?  Then there is the fact that Aquinas explicitly denies that human dignity is infinite:

But no mere man has the infinite dignity required to satisfy justly an offence against God. Therefore there had to be a man of infinite dignity who would undergo the penalty for all so as to satisfy fully for the sins of the whole world.  Therefore the only-begotten Word of God, true God and Son of God, assumed a human nature and willed to suffer death in it so as to purify the whole human race indebted by sin.  (De Rationibis Fidei, Chapter 7)

To be sure, Aquinas also allows that there is a sense in which some things other than God can have infinite dignity, when he writes:

From the fact that (a) Christ’s human nature is united to God, and that (b) created happiness is the enjoyment of God, and that (c) the Blessed Virgin is the mother of God, it follows that they have a certain infinite dignity that stems from the infinite goodness which is God. (Summa Theologiae I.25.6, Freddoso translation)

But note that the infinite dignity in question derives from a certain special relation to God’s infinite dignity – involving the Incarnation, the beatific vision, and Mary’s divine motherhood respectively – and not from human nature as such.

Relevant too are Aquinas’s remarks on the topic of infinity.  He says that “besides God nothing can be infinite,” for “it is against the nature of a made thing to be absolutely infinite” so that “He cannot make anything to be absolutely infinite” (Summa Theologiae I.7.2).  How, then, could human beings by nature have infinite dignity?

Some might respond by saying that Aquinas is not infallible, but that would miss the point.  For it is not just that Aquinas’s theology has tremendous authority within Catholicism (though it does have that, and that is hardly unimportant here).  It is that he is making points from Catholic teaching itself about the nature of dignity, the nature of human beings, and the nature of God that make it highly problematic to speak of human beings as having “infinite dignity.”  It is no good just to say that he is wrong.  The defender of the Declaration owes us an argument showing that he is wrong, or showing that talk of “infinite dignity” can be reconciled with what he says.

Possible defenses?

One suggestion some have made on Twitter is that further remarks Aquinas makes about infinity can resolve the conflict.  For in the passage just quoted, he also writes:

Things other than God can be relatively infinite, but not absolutely infinite.  For with regard to infinite as applied to matter, it is manifest that everything actually existing possesses a form; and thus its matter is determined by form.  But because matter, considered as existing under some substantial form, remains in potentiality to many accidental forms, which is absolutely finite can be relatively infinite; as, for example, wood is finite according to its own form, but still it is relatively infinite, inasmuch as it is in potentiality to an infinite number of shapes.  But if we speak of the infinite in reference to form, it is manifest that those things, the forms of which are in matter, are absolutely finite, and in no way infinite.  If, however, any created forms are not received into matter, but are self-subsisting, as some think is the case with angels, these will be relatively infinite, inasmuch as such kinds of forms are not terminated, nor contracted by any matter.  But because a created form thus subsisting has being, and yet is not its own being, it follows that its being is received and contracted to a determinate nature.  Hence it cannot be absolutely infinite. (Summa Theologiae I.7.2)

What Aquinas is saying here is that there is a sense in which matter is relatively infinite, and a sense in which an angel is relatively infinite.  The sense in which matter is relatively infinite is that it can at least in principle take on, successively, one form after another ad infinitum.  The sense in which an angel is relatively infinite is that it is not limited by matter. 

But there are several problems with the suggestion that this passage can help us to make sense of the notion that human beings have “infinite dignity.”  First, Aquinas explicitly says that things “the forms of which are in matter, are absolutely finite, and in no way infinite.”  For example, while the matter that makes up a particular tree is relatively infinite insofar as it can take on different forms ad infinitum (the form of a desk, the form of a chair, and so on) the tree itself qua having the form of a tree is in no way infinite.  Now, a human being is, like a tree, a composite of form and matter.  Hence, Aquinas’s remarks here would imply that, even if the matter that makes up the body is relatively infinite insofar as it can successively take on different forms ad infinitum, the human being himself is not in any way infinite.  Obviously, then, this would tell against taking human nature to be even relatively infinite in its dignity.

Furthermore, it’s not clear how the specific examples Aquinas gives are supposed to be relevant to the question at hand in the first place.  The sense in which he says matter is relatively infinite is, again, that it can take on different forms successively ad infinitum – first one form, then a second, then a third, and so on.  But of course, at any particular point in time, matter does not have an infinite number of forms.  So, how would this provide a model for human beings having “infinite dignity”?  Is the idea that they have only finite dignity at any particular point in time, but will keep having it at later points in time without end?  Surely that is not what is meant by “infinite dignity.”  It would entail that even something with the least dignity possible at any particular point in time would have “infinite dignity” as long as it simply persisted with that minimal dignity forever!

Nor does the angel example help.  Again, the sense in which angels are relatively infinite, Aquinas says, is that they are not limited by matter.  But human beings are limited by matter.  So, this is no help in explaining how we could be even relatively infinite in dignity.

Another, sillier suggestion some have made on Twitter is that we can make sense of human beings having “infinite dignity” in light of set theory, which tells us that some infinities can be larger than others.  The idea seems to be that while God has infinite dignity, we too can intelligibly be said to have it, so long as God’s dignity has to do with a larger infinity than ours.

The problem with this is that the “infinity” that is attributed to God and to his dignity (and to human dignity, for that matter) has nothing to do with the infinities studied by set theory.  Set theory is about collections of objects (such as numbers), which might be infinite in size.  But when we say that God is infinite, we’re not talking about a collection any kind.  We’re not saying, for example, that God’s infinite power has something to do with him possessing an infinite collection of powers.  What is meant is merely that he has causal power to do or to make whatever is intrinsically possible.  And his infinite dignity too has nothing to do with any sort of collection (such as an infinitely large collection of units of dignity, whatever that would mean).  Set theory is simply irrelevant.

Another defense that has been suggested is to appeal to Pope St. John Paul II’s having once used the phrase “infinite dignity” in an Angelus address in 1980.  Indeed, the Declaration itself makes note of this.  But there are several problems here.  First, John Paul II’s remark was merely a passing comment made in the course a little-known informal address of little magisterial weight that was devoted to another topic.  It was not a carefully worded formal theological treatment of the nature of human dignity, specifically.  Nor did John Paul put any special emphasis on the phrase or draw momentous conclusions from it, the way the new Declaration does.  For example, he never concluded that, since human dignity is “infinite,” the death penalty must be ruled out under every circumstance.  On the contrary, despite his strong personal opposition to the death penalty, he always acknowledged that there could be circumstances where it was permissible, and that that was the Church’s traditional teaching.  There is no reason whatsoever to take the Angelus address reference to be anything more than a loosely worded off-the-cuff remark.  Moreover, even if it were more than that, that would not make the problems I’ve been setting out here magically disappear.

Some have suggested that the Declaration’s remark about the death penalty does not in fact amount to saying that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.  What it entails, they claim, is only that it is always intrinsically contrary to human dignity.  But that, they say, leaves it open that it may sometimes be permissible to do what is contrary to human dignity.

But there are two reasons why this cannot be right.  First, Dignitas Infinita does not say that what violates our dignity is unacceptable except when such-and-such conditions hold.  On the contrary, it says that the Church “always insist[s] on… the defense of [the human person’s] dignity beyond every circumstance.”  It says that man’s “infinite dignity” is “inviolable,” that it “prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter,” and that our respect for it must be “unconditional.”  It repeatedly emphasizes that “circumstances” are irrelevant to what a respect for dignity requires of us, and it does so precisely because it claims that our dignity is “infinite.”  Asserting that human dignity has such radical “no exceptions” implications is the whole point of the Declaration, the whole point of its making a big deal of the phrase “infinite dignity.”

Second, the Declaration makes a special point of lumping in the death penalty with evils such as “murder, genocide, abortion, [and] euthanasia.”  It says: “Here, one should also mention the death penalty, for this also violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances.”  Obviously, if the death penalty really does violate human dignity under every circumstance in just the way murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, etc. do, then it is no less absolutely ruled out than they are.  And obviously, the Declaration would not allow us to say that there are cases where murder, genocide, abortion, and euthanasia might be allowable despite their being affronts to human dignity.

Hyperbole?

The best defense that some have made of the Declaration is that the phrase “infinite dignity” is mere hyperbole.  But though this is the best defense, that does not make it a good defense.  First of all, magisterial documents should use terms with precision.  This is especially true of a document coming from the DDF, whose job is precisely to clarify matters of doctrine.  It is simply scandalous for a document intended to clarify a doctrinal matter – especially one that we are told has been in preparation for years – to deploy a key theological term in a loose and potentially highly misleading way (and, indeed, to put special emphasis on this loose meaning, even in the very title of the document!)

But second, the idea that the phrase is meant as mere hyperbole is simply not a natural reading of the Declaration.  For it is not just that special emphasis is put on the phrase itself.  It is also that special emphasis is put on the radical implications of the phrase.  We are told that it is precisely because human dignity is “infinite” that the moral conclusions asserted by the Declaration hold “beyond all circumstances,” “beyond every circumstance,” “in all circumstances,” “regardless of the circumstances,” and so on.  If you don’t take the “infinite” part seriously, then you lose the grounds for taking the “beyond all circumstances” parts seriously.  They go hand in hand.  Hence, the “hyperbole” reading simply undermines the whole point of the document.

That this extreme language of man’s “infinite dignity” has now led the pope to condemn the death penalty in an absolute way – and thereby to contradict scripture and all previous papal teaching on the subject – shows just how grave are the consequences of using theological language imprecisely.  And this may not be the end of it.  Asked at a press conference on the Declaration about the implications of man’s “infinite dignity” for the doctrine of Hell, Cardinal Fernández did not deny the doctrine.  But he also said: “’With all the limits that our freedom truly has, might it not be that Hell is empty?’ This is the question that Pope Francis sometimes asks.”  Asked about the Catechism’s teaching that homosexual desire is “intrinsically disordered,” the cardinal said: “It’s a very strong expression, and it needs to be explained a great deal.  Perhaps we could find an expression that is even clearer, to understand what we mean… But it is true that the expression could find other more suitable words.”  When churchmen put special emphasis on the idea that human dignity is infinite, then there is a wide range of traditional Catholic teaching that they are bound to be tempted to soften or find some way to work around.

High-flown rhetoric about human dignity has, in any event, always been especially prone to abuse.  As Allan Bloom once wrote, “the very expression dignity of man, even when Pico della Mirandola coined it in the fifteenth century, had a blasphemous ring to it” (The Closing of the American Mind, p. 180).  Similarly, Jacques Barzun pointed out that “[Pico’s] word dignity can of course be interpreted as flouting the gospel’s call to humility and denying the reality of sin.  Humanism is accordingly charged with inverting the relation between man and God” (From Dawn to Decadence, p. 60).

Some historians would judge this unfair to Pico himself, but my point is not about him.  Rather, it is about how modern people in general, from the Renaissance onward, have gotten progressively more drunk on the idea of their own dignity – and, correspondingly, less and less cognizant of the fact that what is most grave about sin is not that it dishonors us, but that it dishonors God.  This, and not their own dignity, is what modern people most need reminding of.  Hence, while it is not wrong to speak of human dignity, one must be cautious and always put the accent on the divine dignity rather than on our dignity.  I submit that sticking a word like “infinite” in front of the latter accomplishes the reverse of this. 

And I submit that a sure sign that the rhetoric of human dignity has now gone too far is that it has led the highest authorities in the Church to contradict the teaching of the word of God itself (on the topic of the death penalty).  Such an error is possible when popes do not speak ex cathedra.  But it is extremely rare, and always gravely scandalous.