OPINION:
Each Dec. 26, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the execution of St. Stephen, the first of those who would become millions of witnesses — the English equivalent of the Greek word “martyr” — to the faith. The Acts of the Apostles adds a cryptic and seemingly unimportant coda to the story by noting that those who went off to kill Stephen left their coats, and presumably other valuables, with a man named Saul.
We don’t see Saul again until he is on the road to Damascus, where he has a personal and direct encounter with God and eventually concludes that he has been playing for the wrong team.
This all seems relevant given the recent contretemps over Harrison Butker. If that name is unfamiliar, he is the placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He is probably the best placekicker in the National Football League, but that’s not really the important part of Mr. Butker’s life.
The really important part of Mr. Butker’s life began a couple of weeks ago when he gave an impressive commencement address to the graduating class at Benedictine College in Kansas. If you have a chance, you should read it. His speech correctly and extensively critiques the Catholic Church, our sick and sad civic culture, and the expectations that society has created for its young people, especially young ladies.
More specifically, Mr. Butker was rude enough to point out what Western civilization has always known: That the titles of “mom” and “homemaker” are, for many, much more important than whatever propaganda and cash might accompany temporal success. They are also, without question, the bedrock of any society.
That is obvious enough that it barely seems worth mentioning. Still, some of the folks who disagreed with him went bananas, with one poor unfortunate woman in Atlanta — Mr. Butker’s hometown — describing the sentiment as “dystopian.”
Yikes.
The good news is that Mr. Butker joins a long line of witnesses to the truth that includes Sts. Paul and Stephen and traces back to Isaiah and Jeremiah and beyond that. I suspect that’s a tribute he wishes could have been delayed indefinitely. But, as was the case with those who came before him, it wasn’t really his choice.
The bad news is that some people are sad and sick enough to truly believe that having and raising children is dystopian. The problem is that if enough people believe that and act on that belief, society will eventually die.
Oddly enough, the recent data suggests that is exactly what is happening. In Europe, Latin America, Asia and the United States, birthrates are falling below replacement levels.
Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that “soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may have already happened. Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation.” More ominously, the Journal reported that the dearth of children seems to be accelerating.
Japan, France, Brazil, El Salvador, China — it doesn’t matter. Across the planet, societies seem to have literally lost their will to live.
This leads to a simple and uncomfortable question: In the long run, who really has the dystopian vision for the future of mankind — Harrison Butker, who values motherhood and home above the corner office, or that lady in Atlanta and her fellow travelers, who value cash and temporal titles over children and motherhood?
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and a co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.”
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