“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”—Samuel Johnson
When reading the absurd comments of Harry Knox, who serves on President Barack Obama’s faith-based advisory council, I cannot help but think that Samuel Johnson missed a category.
In 2009, in response to the Pope’s comments about condoms and AIDS in Africa, Knox said that the Pope is “hurting people in the name of Jesus.” This past week, Knox was asked if he stood by this statement and he answered with an emphatic “I do.”
Knox’s statement is as ignorant as it is lacking in integrity. Why, last year even the leftist Washington Post conceded “The Pope May Be Right”:
In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations’ AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa.
So why would an adviser to President Obama’s on faith-based issues stand by such an offensive and unscientific remark? Why accuse the Pope, and by extension the entire Church—an organization that unarguably helps more people than any other—of hurting people in the name of Jesus?
The Washington Post article acknowledges the real reason behind the anti-papal backlash saying, “The condom has become a symbol of freedom and—along with contraception—female emancipation, so those who question condom orthodoxy are accused of being against these causes.”
Believe it or not, this is really about abortion. Knox and others recognize, wittingly or unwittingly, that the foundation of modern sexual liberation relies upon denying or removing any of the consequences of that sinful behavior, even to the point of killing. They also know that the contraceptive mentality underpins the entire culture of death. The contraceptive and utilitarian view of life and of procreation is the “mitochondrial Eve” from which all the horrors of the culture of death are descended. Abortion, ESCR, and euthanasia all call contraception “mother.”
That is why any acknowledgment, no matter how trivial, obvious, or scientific, that calls into question the magic consequence-erasing power of contraception must be attacked with all vigor.
The Catholic Church’s consistent and unbending opposition to the contraceptive culture makes it the perennial target of promoters of the culture of death. This can also be seen in previous anti-Catholic comments by Knox on homosexuality and the Church in reference to a lesbian couple being denied communion.
“In this holy Lenten season, it is immoral and insulting to Jesus to use the body and blood of Christ the reconciler as a weapon to silence free speech and demean the love of a committed, legally married couple. The Human Rights Campaign grieves with the couple, Leah Vader and Lynne Huskinson, over this act of spiritual and emotional violence perpetrated against them.”
While Knox ostensibly and offensively comments on a different topic, lesbianism and communion, the reason remains the same . What this quote shows is that Knox’s anti-Catholicism is as strategic as it is deep-seated. Unfortunately, President Obama hired Knox for a reason and continues to stand behind him no matter how many anti-Catholic statements he makes. President Obama supports Knox because he understands the same thing that Knox does, that the entire culture of death is built on the foundation of contraception and One doesn’t undermine the foundation when One lives in the penthouse.
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If you think that having only the number of children you can pay for equates to a “culture of death”, all I can say to you is enjoy that continuing slide into irrelevance. And good riddance.
Jane,
I am not really sure how you got to that conclusion, but you completely misunderstand the Church’s life teachings. Stating unequivocally that contraception is wrong is not the same thing as have as many children as physically possible.
Before you cast aside all ideas that you don’t understand with a “good riddance”, please take the time to understand what the Church teaches.
So many of the de-humanizing horrors of our world depend on the contraceptive view of life.
Uh, Jane: ever heard of Natural Family Planning? It’s based on self-control. We’re all called to be saints - we’re called to heroic virtue. Not a message that contraceptives promote.
If you’re looking for genuine feminine liberation, I agree with Denise, check out NFP. NFP uses the science of how a woman’s body works to enable couples to take a proactive role in planning their family size and spacing. The methods used by NFP include monitoring of a woman’s cycle and fertile/ infertile times and inherently give more power to the woman by respecting her natural capacity for bearing life. When it’s the woman who decides if tonight is a “good night” and the couple’s activity is predicated on her natural signals, her body and her will are inherently more respected in the relationship.
Compare this to your contraceptive mentality of “whenever, wherever” in which a man expects have his way with a woman regardless of her physical condition as her natural bodily functions are over-ridden by hormones or barriers.
Which of the two methods for family planning, NFP (approved by the Catholic Church) or artificial contraception are truly more empowering to the woman?
Pat, I agree wholeheartedly. At one time, as a new Catholic, I thought the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control was anachronistic and necessarily alienating of the faithful. Then I undertook to understand why the Church takes this position and I eventually read through Humanae Vite.
Suddenly, all of the tragedy and sorrow I had experienced in my youth came into sharp relief; my parent’s promiscuity, their eventual divorce, my own very early sexual activity (age 12) as instructed by the Planned Parenthood liturature brought home by my public health nurse mom, STD’s including HPV that resulted in cervical cancer years later, marriage to a man 20 years older, a control freak and narcissist, a custody battle form my son with said man when I finally “grew up”... all of these things and more could be linked to the degradation and de-sacramentalization of the sexual act.
The acid, the catalyst to this degradation is absolutely contraception. It takes the meaning out of sex, the meaning out of marriage, divorces us to the extent that we think of babies, the natural consequence of sex no less! as “mistakes” to be disposed of, and it subtlety changes the culture until what is moral/immoral or even what the definition of marriage is seems impossible to define.
All of the “prophecies” of Pope Paul the VI regarding contraception have come true, in spades. Is this not enough evidence to at least consider that he may have had some insight here, Jane?
By the way, that was “unnecessarily” not necessarily below. And it does not surprise me that this Church eschewing President employs an anti-catholic bigot; in fact it would surprise me if he didn’t. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.
And I love the image of Obama living in the Penthouse of the house that contraception and abortion built. Quite apt.
The evidence overwhelmingly supports the veracity of Pope Benedict XVI’s statement.
http://heyitsjustablogman.blogspot.com/2009/03/condom-corporations-kill-you-for-your.html
Knox is in reality-denial - he is anti-truth. He is unfit.
I would like to comment on one specific thing, the comment on “utilitarian” view of life. Most people associate the law of marginal utility, as some way to push morals aside or excuse them and live their life wild and free. However, our beloved St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about the law of marginal utility, however not called that at the time.
What St. Thomas Aquinas understood is that humans are not simple creatures even if they can be simplified in laws and theories of actions. When someone chooses what brings him more utility (Law of Marginal Utility), it is does not have to be a long decision, it can be instantaneous in time. However, if someone does not have a foundation in good morals and faith, then they will likely pick something that is immoral as something that brings them utility.
I whole heartedly believe in St. Thomas Aquinas writing on utility. However, my utility is different than others. I find more utility in waiting for marriage more than having sex now with my girlfriend. It brings me more utility of not being chained by having to worry about contraception and disease, more than having it on my heart after a one night stand. It brings me more utility (or happiness, joy, etcetera) to wait until I have received the marriage sacrament than to enjoy a few fleeting moments of lust that might not lead to marriage.
So the Law of Marginal Utility is not just a concept that came about in the middle of last century to excuse the lack of morals, it has been around for a long time (even if just in theory and another name) to explain why people behave as they do.
Another example, if someone finds that charity brings them happiness, and so does drinking Starbucks. If they only have four bucks (assuming that can buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks with four bucks) they will put that money to the thing that brings them the happiest. If they are taught self sacrifice, and they understand the charity needs to be done more than them having a cup of coffee. The four bucks will be given to charity.
However, if they lack the morals and understanding of self sacrifice they will buy the Starbucks. Now if they have twenty dollars, and they still enjoy both activities. Then the coffee will be bought and so will money be given to charity.
So, I think it is a little irresponsible to blame a law of human action on why people do the things they do, and instead we should focus the blame on their foundation and education.
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