Pop star Miley Cyrus told Elle magazine that she and her husband Liam Hemsworth did not intend to have children. Like many millennials, “We don’t want to reproduce because we know the earth can’t handle it.” Cyrus, who declares she’s “such an over-thinker,” doesn’t want to bring children into the world because “[w]e’re getting handed … Read more
I have been rather astounded and amused at the controversy, indeed outright denial, surrounding Pope Emeritus Benedict’s recent essay which attributes a large portion of our current crisis in the Church to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. I react in this way simply because the evidence for the identification of the source of our … Read more
The Pew Research Center is out with a new study of Europe’s growing Muslim population. The first thing to notice is that Pew’s estimate of the current Muslim population for several countries is not much different from estimates of ten years ago. For instance, Pew says that the current size of the Muslim population in … Read more
“If you want to see the face of Europe in 100 years, barring a miracle, look to the faces of young Muslim immigrants.” Thus said Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput at a recent Napa Institute conference. “Islam has a future because Islam believes in children,” he said. “Without a transcendent faith that makes life worth living, … Read more
Friends who visit Europe with large families in tow tell me they soon become “tourist attractions” themselves. Europeans are used to Muslims with large families. But Americans? People from a prosperous developed nation? How odd. Don’t they know that children get in the way of self-fulfillment? That population growth is bad for the environment? The … Read more
I recently returned from three weeks on the road to find a stack of mail on my doorstep. Amongst the bills and magazines, I found a charming invitation to a Sunday brunch being hosted by a family I had known for several years. They had recently welcomed three new babies to the (extended) family, and … Read more
It takes courage to speak out against the threatening presence of Islam in today’s world. And it takes courage to defend those who have the courage to speak out. Eight years ago, after Benedict XVI gave his controversial Regensburg address, most European commentators were shamefully timid in their response. Most refused to raise their heads … Read more
It seems that in a piece I wrote last week deploring the sharp decline in fertility rates across the affluent West, not everyone agreed with my thesis that a world without children is not something we should welcome, and that couples therefore ought to be encouraged to have more of them. One irate reader had … Read more
Tourism, as anyone with a passport can tell you, has become a very big business, particularly in places that no longer thrive in the customary practices of industry and commerce. Take Genoa, for instance, one of Europe’s largest cities along the Mediterranean coast and still the grandest seaport in all Italy, whose bright and shiny … Read more
Another mainstream newspaper from the UK, this time the Telegraph, has put the problem of an ageing, declining population into the spotlight. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times and the Guardian did the same thing, so hopefully we will see more and more of this type of story in the MSM. This is good … Read more