In his book How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, author Thomas E. Woods Jr. tells the story of how English monks were on the verge of introducing the Industrial Age to Great Britain when King Henry VIII closed the monasteries and destroyed Catholic religious life in England. As a result of a monarch’s greed, the Industrial Age may well have been postponed some three centuries.
It got me to thinking: What breakthroughs has our modern culture of death prevented us from accomplishing? Although we have accomplished a great deal in the realm of modern science, much of it has been devoted to both fighting and perpetuating the culture of death. The search for cures for deadly venereal diseases, caused in large part by the unchaste lifestyle of modern man, and the fascination with manipulating human life has taken up much of our time, energy, and resources. What if it had been possible to devote those resources to furthering the culture of life?
We can now routinely save premature babies as early as 24 weeks gestation, and have had spotty success as early as 20 weeks. That is no small accomplishment. But will future generations remark that if we hadn’t been consumed with finding ways to murder first-trimester babies in their mothers’ wombs, we might have been able to routinely save first-trimester babies in danger of miscarriage?
If we hadn’t had to focus resources to fighting the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic, could we have found a cure for cancer, multiple sclerosis, influenza, or the common cold? Would we have been able to reliably export to the developing world the medicines needed to cure childhood diseases that devastate youngsters in the Third World but are merely a rite of passage in First World countries?
If we hadn’t been diverted by the Cold War and the "need" to compete in the arms race, could we have redirected money used to stockpile weapons of mass destruction into helping developing nations reach maturity on the world stage?
If we hadn’t been consumed with an alleged "right to privacy," "freedom of choice," and "right to die," would we have turned our efforts to the rehabilitation (where possible) and comfort care (where not) of our disabled, elderly, and otherwise dependent citizens? Could Terri Schiavo have been rehabilitated, perhaps even cured, if our society hadn’t been more interested in warehousing and eventually murdering her and those who suffer from similar catastrophic disabilities?
How will future generations judge us? Somehow I doubt they will be impressed with our ability to clone sheep, walk on the moon, and treat (but not cure) venereal disease. They will be more likely to sigh, shake their heads, and note a lot of similarity between our society and that of Tudor England during the Protestant Reformation.
Walking on the moon was not a result of focus on the culture of death! Numerous advances in technology have resulted from the space program, advances with application in so many areas of medicine, safety, and more. Did you know that the smoke detector was developed at NASA? Read more about it here: http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
+J.M.J+
I read somewhere that, once scientists discovered the genetic cause of Down’s Syndrome, attempts to fine a cure for it stopped cold. Now most babies with Down’s Syndrome are just detected and killed before birth.
Scientists are now looking for a possible genetic cause of autism. As the mother of a child with autism, I would love to see them apply any knowledge they acquire to developing a cure. But I’ll bet they’ll just end up doing prenatal testing for autism someday, which will lead to yet more abortions.
In Jesu et Maria,
What might have been
Michelle Arnold over at Jimmy Akin’s blog has a very interesting essay on what feats our society might have performed had it not been for the plagues of modernity. It’s a wonderful point. According to this report I found online, the fede…
In Chile abortion is illegal. A few month ago a woman with some form of dwarfism was about to have a normal size baby. This meant a great risk for her life but since an abortion was out of the question, the doctors made huge efforts to save both life.
Finally the mother and the son survived and the intervention was hailed as a big achiviement of national medicine.
Michelle what you say is not just a “what if”, it is a fact.
You raise some interesting points, but to lump the push towards space in with the culture of death does nothing for your arguement. Granted you might make the case that it was part of the Cold War, and Kennedy not wanting to be outdone by the Soviets, but space tech is not part of the woes of modernity. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but there is no way of knowing if the negative aspects of modernity would have developed had the monks been allowed to progress. Science fiction writers have been mining this area for quite some time now, and my biggest problem with the premise is that given sometimes how one little invention or decision can blossom good or bad, there is no way to say where we would be if… (fill in the blank) had happened.
Joy, Annette: My point wasn’t that the space program is the result of the culture of death or should be lumped into the culture of death. My point was that future generations are unlikely to be as impressed as we are with our modern scientific achievements when absorption with the culture of death may have prevented us from scientifically advancing as far as we might have.
Another thought. If the U.S. (particularly but not limited to the Southern states) had not been so determined to build and maintain separate but (un)equal education, medical, social, etc. systems, how many other great citizens would have been available to work on the problems we are still fighting? For instance, the population in Mississippi is well over 50 percent black. Legal and social policies made sure that population stayed below the poverty line—they discouraged their black citizens from higher education, going into professions like law, medicine, etc. or going into business for themselves. Poor people pay no taxes, which means there were few resources to pay for good schools, roads, public health, etc. for anyone, white or black. The state has improved, but still lags way behind the other 49 states in so many areas. Just think where we would be as a nation if more people had been like St. Katharine Drexel, who used her wealth to educate and make life better for others!Rather than curse the darkness, she lit a fire–she funded schools and one university, Xavier in New Orleans.
How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization sounds like propaganda to me. The Catholic Church didn’t build Western civilization any more than Protestantism built Western Capitalism, or any other reverse statistical analysis that scholars come up with in hindsight.
Ya know, I’m starting to think that guy really is James Carville.
While I’m not one for the “post hoc ergo porpter hoc” arguement found in many similar works, I do believe quite a number of folks would be genuinely surprised to find out just what the monastic system has given to civilization & culture through the centuries. Bearing in mind that this point seems to be the focus of Woods’ thesis, despite the book’s glib title, I find it highly plausible.
Publius: Can’t you just hear his voice when you read those posts?!
Publius, Gene: I deleted the comments again because I confirmed that he’s not *the real* James Carville or a guy who shares that name. He’s a combox troll.
Well, according to data from the CDC, 50 years ago, TB didn’t even show up among the top 10 killing deseases in the US, now it’s second only to heart diseases.
Interestingly enough, it started creeping up as the “war on cancer” staterd. I guess that billions spent with no proportional results can make even a known curable desease to become a problem.
I wonder which desease will show up in 15 years after 25 years of the “war on AIDS”…
Lord, deliver us from evil.
There are a number of excellent alternate history novels out there which speculate on a “Catholic” world. I can think of three that present different views of the Catholic Church, but all of which reflect the view that progress would have been slowed.
1. Pavane, by Keith Roberts. This novel, set in 1968, shows the Church firmly limiting technology (but for ultimately good reasons).
“Jesse had all the hauliers’ ingrained contempt for internal combustion, though he’d followed the arguments for and against it keenly enough. Maybe one day petrol might amount to something and there was that other system, what did they call it, diesel … But the hand of the Church would have to be lifted first. The Bull of 1910, Petroleum Veto, had limited the capacity of IC engines to 150 cc’s, and since then the hauliers had had no real competition. Petrol vehicles had been forced to fit gaudy sails to help tow themselves along; load hauling was a singularly bad joke.”
2. The Alteration, by Kingsley Amis. An unflattering view of the Catholic Church, but a playful example of the genre. Progress to the year 1976 has been retarded by the rule of the cynically exploitative rulers of the Church:
“All these used the method of propulsion developed by the great inventor Rudolf Diesel. The fuel was petroleum from the wells of northern Mexico, Louisiana and, in the last few years, the New Spain province of Venezuela; ignition was achieved merely by compressing petroleum vapour to a certain density, without the introduction of a spark. That suffix was vital, for the only practicable known means of producing a spark was an electrical one, and matters electrical were held in general disesteem. They were commonly regarded among the people as strange, fearful, even profane; the gentry smiled at the terms of this view while not missing its essential truth: electricity was appallingly dangerous, both as it existed and as it might be developed. No wonder that its exploration had never received official encouragement.”
3. To Build Jerusalem, by John Whitbourn. Whitbourn is a triumphalist Catholic himself, and his vision of an alternate 1995 is great fun. Nevertheless, progress is again slowed:
“The Church had accepted the development of railways, albeit with a show of ill grace. Even today the ultra-pious declined to venture on them, eschewing the ‘presumption’ of transport quicker than that provided by nature.”
I’ve read only Pavane, but much as I admire it — it’s fiction.
I understand that it’s fiction, and I wasn’t trying to defend the view that we’d be less advanced in a Catholic world.
But still, I think the argument has some merit: assuming that war is an engine for technological advancement, and that a united Catholic Christendom would mean less war (debatable!).
And Catholicism *might* influence society to mean less emphasis on worldly possessions and success.