The Broken Household Fallacy

Remember the broken window fallacy? In case you don’t, it’s a fallacy that underlies much bogus economic reasoning, according to which, when bad things happen to people (e.g., when a kid throws a rock through your window) it is actually good for the economy because it provides economic stimulus.

Actually, it doesn’t. If your window gets broken you have to pay to get a new one, and that does give money to the window-makers and provide economic stimulus in that area, but in reality there’s a net loss to the economy: If your window was never broken then you’d have both a good window and the money you would have spent to replace it. Unless that money goes to the Land of the Lost, it’ll eventually get spent (by you or your heirs) and thus provide economic stimulus. It might not be given to a window-maker, but it’ll get given to someone.

Say that replacing a broken window costs $50 (to pull a number out of the air). Which is better for you (and society) to have: a broken window and $50 or a good window and $50? More wealth is in existence if you have a good window and $50 than if the window gets broken and $50 has to be spent to replace it. Surprise! Bad things like broken windows really are bad.

Now let’s think about this:

  1. A family consisting of a dad, a mom, and children would like more money.
  2. The mom decides to get a full-time job outside the home to make that money.
  3. Mom makes money!
  4. The family has the additional money it wanted.
  5. Society benefits by having an additional worker in the workforce.
  6. Every family gets the same idea and does likewise.
  7. Society benefits economically from "not having half its potential workers out of the workforce."

Right?

Well, think about this (and BE SURE to read the important note at the bottom):

  1. BROKEN WINDOW #1: Since mom is working outside the home, somebody has to take care of the children, so they are put in outside-the-home schools or daycare centers. The family pays for this either directly by fees or indirectly by taxes.
  2. BROKEN WINDOW #2: The family is not willing to have all of mom’s salary go to paying someone else to be a surrogate mom, but the alternative caretakers are not willing to be paid only a fraction of a normal salary. They need to make a living, too, so they aggregate the children of different famlies together to get economies of scale going. This means each child gets less attention than if mom were the caretaker.
  3. BROKEN WINDOW #3: It also means that the children operate in a standardized environment that is less customized to their individual needs than the home would be (e.g., if the slow learners in class set the pace of learning then the fast learners are slowed down and visa versa mutatis mutandis).
  4. BROKEN WINDOW #4: By being shipped to child aggregation centers, very young infants end up not being breastfed for the first year of life, with the result that their health suffers..
  5. BROKEN WINDOW #5: By being taken care of by someone other than their parents, the influence of the parents over the children is weakened as they become attached to their caretakers.
  6. BROKEN WINDOW #6: The children begin to adopt the values and ideology of the aggregation environment, which can never fully reflect the parents’ wishes since it must cater to the needs of children of different families which have parents with different beliefs–and that’s assuming that the caretakers aren’t idealogues trying to push a particular agenda on the children. Further, most of the socialization (raising) is done by child-to-child interaction rather than adult-to-child interaction. In other words, to a significant degree the kids "raise" themselves.
  7. BROKEN WINDOW #7: Friction errupts in the home as the values the child has absorbed from the caretakers are brought into conflict with the values of the home.
  8. BROKEN WINDOW #8: Many children end up alienated from their parents and doing things that significantly harm themselves (e.g., drinking, taking drugs, having sex). These result in health problems, human suffering, and a rise in the number of children murdered by abortion.
  9. BROKEN WINDOW #9: By aggregating children together on a daily basis and by making it hard for them to be pulled out unless they are really sick (e.g., mom has to take a day off to care for a sick child), the kids get sick more often, resulting in higher medical costs and human suffering.
  10. BROKEN WINDOW #10: Since mom can’t be in two places at once, she can’t both be at her job and taking care of domestic needs in addition to childcare (cleaning, shopping, cooking, etc.). This means (a) that these must be done after work, increasing her stress level (and likely that of her husband as well as he will want to help if he is at all a person of conscience) or (b) someone else is paid to do them or (c) nobody does them and the family suffers.
  11. BROKEN WINDOW #11: Because some domestic needs like food provision have to be done, stressed families will increasingly turn to food that is prepared outside the home and that is quick and convient. Such "for profit" food will be configured to maximize profits for its makers. This means pushing more profitable rather than more nutritious food on the public, as well as pushing more food on the public, leading to health problems, medical costs, and human suffering.
  12. BROKEN WINDOW #12: Moms will increasingly feel the stress of juggling job and family, leading many to feel like they are expected to be "superwomen" and effortlessly achieve things that no one person should be expected to do.
  13. BROKEN WINDOW #13: At some points in their lives, particularly in late pregnancy, with an infant in the house, or when small children are in the house, women will either put their careers "on hold" or otherwise have the consequences of what is going on in their lives impinge on their work environment (e.g., by cutting back number of hours worked), causing their career to suffer. As a result, more men than women will end up in higher and higher-paying positions, leading to dissatisfaction, charges of discrimination, and lawsuits.
  14. BROKEN WINDOW #14: Calls of "equal pay for equal work" will result in the erroding of the family wage idea. Since the norm is now for a family to have two wage-earners, the idea than an individual wage-earner should be able to support a family on the income received will go away as employers begin configuring salary scales predicated on a two-income family. Thus the gains in income by the first generation of moms entering the workforce will be lost in the second generation as incomes fail to grow as quickly in order to accomodate the family wage concept.
  15. BROKEN WINDOW #15: Wages are also depressed from where they would be more directly: By doubling the number of people competing for a position, labor is in abundant supply and will have the effect of lowering the salaries laborers can command by a standard supply-and-demand dynamic.
  16. BROKEN WINDOW #16: As a result of the above effects, voters will turn to government to provide social programs to ease their difficulties (e.g., government-subsidized childcare). These programs represent an additional cost that the family will have to pay indirectly through taxes.
  17. BROKEN WINDOW #17: As families feel the pinch of higher taxes, calls will be made for the wealthy to pay more in taxes than regular folks. This results in the wealthy having less money to invest in the economy because the money is being taken out of the economy and being shuttled through government programs that are inherently less efficient than the market because they are shielded from supply-and-demand considerations. The economy thus shrinks, meaning fewer job opportunities, fewer raises, and more layoffs.
  18. BROKEN WINDOW #18: As families turn to the government to solve problems that the family once solved for itself (e.g., how to raise and educate a child), the government becomes more and more intrusive into family life, creating models that try to standardize the handling of situations, leading to a loss of parental freedom (e.g., can you spank your child or is that child abuse? must your child be taught evolution only or can he be taught intelligent design?).
  19. BROKEN WINDOW #19: As families feel the pinch of the above considerations, they begin to decide that–in financial, emotional, and time concerns–they cannot afford as many children any more. There are fewer large families and more small ones. Eventually the number of children falls below the replacement level.
  20. BROKEN WINDOW #20: As the childbirth rate falls below the replacement level, attempts will be made to cover the gap by increasing immigration, often illegal immigration. These attempts either will fail or will radically change the nature of American culture or both.
  21. BROKEN WINDOW #21: As a result of immigration, including and especially illegal immigration, there will be more competition for jobs, depressed wages, and additional costs to the taxpayer (e.g., emergency medical care) that are not covered by the immigrants due to the fact many are illegals not paying taxes.
  22. BROKEN WINDOW #22: As a result of increased immigration, and especially illegal immigration, a nativist movement will emerge resulting in friction between the nativists and the immigrants.
  23. BROKEN WINDOW #23: Because birth rates begin to fall among the immigrants, and because birthrates are falling world-wide, immigration proves not to be a long-term solution to the problem, leading to proposed other solutions to keep the economy from shrinking–like extending the retirement age. That means many people will have to work longer before they get to retire. (And which also is likely not to solve the problem.)
  24. BROKEN WINDOW #24: As the working population begins to shrink the burden of caring for retirees (by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and direct personal care of family members) begins to grow for each two-income family. This causes further pressure to keep the number of children down since, by government mandate and human compassion, more resources must go to caring for the retirees.
  25. BROKEN WINDOW #25: Because of the increase in the burden of caring for the elderly, increased deaths through euthanasia occur.
  26. BROKEN WINDOW #26: Because of the pressure families are under, the divorce rate goes up, harming everybody in the family.
  27. BROKEN WINDOW #27: Because of the rise in family break-ups, the out-of-wedlock birthrate goes up (harming children and single mothers, particularly), but it is not enough to offset the overall shrinkage of the population.
  28. BROKEN WINDOW #28: As the birthrate continues to shrink, the economy shrinks, leading to a generational depression (because it will take a generation to turn it around by conceiving and raising the workers needed to get the economy growing again).
  29. BROKEN WINDOW #29: Because of the interlinkage of the global economy, a global generational depression happens.
  30. BROKEN WINDOW #30: Because of economic shrinkage. the United States starts being less generous with the rest of the world and is less able to serve as global policeman.
  31. BROKEN WINDOW #31: An increase in warfare occurs as nations compete for scarcer-resources due to the depression and due to the lessened stabilizing role of the United States.
  32. BROKEN WINDOW #32: A civilizational crisis explodes and the situation gets dramatically worse until a restructuring of societal values along more traditional lines (especially having more babies!) is achieved.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The above represents a line of economic reasoning rather than moral reasoning. In particular:

  • It is not a policy proposal.
  • It does not suggest that there should be no two-income households.
  • It does not suggest that women should be driven from the workforce.
  • It does not suggest that immigration should be stopped (I myself have worked very hard to facilitate the immigration of a particular individual).
  • It does not suggest that no children should be cared for or educated outside the home.
  • It does not suggest that the two-income family is the only source contributing to the problems mentioned above.
  • It does not suggest that the two-income family will lead to the death of western civilization. Not all of the items mentioned in the above scenario may occur (especially the more futuristic ones) and alternative solutions may be found to some of them (e.g., another technological revolution equivalent to computers and the Internet increases productivity and keeps the economy growing).
  • It does not even suggest that the costs of the two-income household outweigh the benefits of it.

What it does do is point out that the idea that by having two-income households be the norm does not automatically benefit the economy. There are economic and other costs (the broken windows) associated with having a society with nuclear families where both parents work outside the home. How many of those costs a society should be willing to bear and thus what degree of two-income families there should be is an entirely separate question (which gets to the morality subject).

What it also does is point out that raising and educating children in the home is itself work! It is work that makes a valuable contribution to society and, if someone is not available in the home to do it then it has to be handled another way. That means that the advent of the two-income household is not simply an economic gain to the family or to the economy as a whole. It also has significant costs that have to be weighed in determining whether or not it should be pursued.

That calculus, of what benefits one is willing to pursue and at what costs, is what economics is all about.

Contraception Outside Marriage

A reader writes:

Please help me understand the Church’s teaching on this issue.  Is it ok for a catholic single person to use contraceptives, if they do not want to end a sexual relationship with their partner, to avoid bringing a child into the situation?  A priest said that God is not in this sexual act, so they cannot be coming between God and the child is not part of God’s will.  (which I know God didn’t will the child to come into the world this way, but he permits the child to be born).

Here is what Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae:

We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.

Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means [Section 14].

There are no qualifiers in this about this situation only pertaining to the case of married couples. What your friend is doing is disrupting the way God designed human sexuality to work.

Specifically, your friend is doing two things:

  1. Separating the procreative aspect of the sexual act from the act itself (i.e., contracepting), and
  2. Separating the sexual act from the marital context in which it is meant to occur (i.e., fornicating).

Your friend’s behavior thus is "coming between [them and] God"–and in two ways. They are compounding the sin of fornication by adding to it the sin of contraception.

Indeed, their use of contraception is facilitating their fornication. You note that the use of contraceptives is because your friend does not want "to end a sexual relationship with their partner, to avoid bringing a child into the situation." The contraception is thus facilitating your friend’s rejection of God’s will by letting her avoid making the choice between (a) ending the sexual relationship or (b) having a baby by a man she isn’t married to. The contraception is thus a sin in itself and it compounds the sin of fornication by lengthening its duration.

What your friend needs to do is to resolve to do what is right: End the sexual relationship and not have sex until marriage and, even then, not to use contraception.

The above-described sins are grave matter, meaning that if they are mortal if done with adequate knowledge and consent.

What the priest said was wrong and was a disservice to your friend.

God will hold him accountable for it.

Marriage Involvement

A reader writes:

About 5 or 6 years ago my friend started coming back to Church.

[One of her Catholic daughters pursued] a relationship with a divorced father of two and is now getting married. Mom disapproves of the marriage because he is divorced and it is not a Catholic wedding but she has accepted their plans because she know there is nothing she can do about it and does not want to ostrasize her daughter from her.

The question is, can she at all participate in any plans with the wedding or will this come accross as a approval? They asked her to find a blessing to be read at the begining of the ceremony. I thought that seemed a little unusal since the daughter knows how her mother feels. The mother has been praying alot and attending mass alot in order to bring about a change of heart in her daughter.

I could not recommend her involvement in this wedding. There are two problems with it:

  1. The gentleman is divorced and, since you don’t mention him having received an annulment, I presume he doesn’t have one. That being the case, he must be assumed to be actually married to his first wife and thus not free to marry your friend’s daughter.
  2. Since the daughter is a Catholic who, so far as you say, has not defected from the Church by a formal act, she is bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage or obtain a dispensation from it. Since you don’t mention a dispensation, I assume that she doesn’t have one. If that is the case then the marriage will be invalid due to lack of form.

The marriage thus looks to be invalid on two grounds, and I cannot recommend the participation of individuals in any marriage presumed to be invalid as their involvement constitutes a kind of false witness.

On the other hand, if the gentleman has received an annulment from the Catholic Church and if the daughter has obtained a dispensation from form then the marriage will be presumably valid. In that case, her participation would be perfectly legitimate.

Hope this helps!

Ethical Question Concerning Conjoined Twins

A reader writes:

You may have heard of the recent surgery to remove a second head from a ten month old girl. 

I found this very troubling for a couple of reasons.

1. The kept on refering to the "second head".  Looking at the photograph and the fact that "it" could smile and blink, I would be inclined to refer to "it" as a conjoined twin.

2.  By refering to the conjoined twin as a second head, it seemed as if they were trying to remove or ignore the personhood of the conjoined twin.

With all of that in mind, was it morally licit for them to have the twins seperated knowing that the not fully formed twin would surely die.

If the unintended consequence of the seperation is the guaranteed death of one of the children is it still permissable to have the seperation surgery.

First, I agree that the situation here is not merely a case of a "second head" but of a conjoined twin who happens to (a) be joined at the top of the head and (b) lacks a body below the neck.

VIEW THE CHILDREN (PRE-OPERATION) HERE.

(I won’t reproduce the photo here since it’s a little disturbing.)

The fact that the body-less child is able to blink and smile makes her personhood easier to demonstrate, but the fact that she is a head with a brain shows it as well. A head is not just an extra organ. If a child were born with an extra leg, you could remove the extra leg without it leading to the death of a person, but removing a head with a brain and not sustaining its life somehow results in the death of that person.

Consequently, it could be done only under those conditions in which it would be morally licit to disconnect on person from another knowing that this would lead to the death of the disconnected person.

Are there such conditions?

The closest well-thought-through situation is that of a mother with a tubal pregnancy. In such cases the child will definitely die when it grows too large for the fallopian tube to contain it and it will cause a hemmorage that threatens the mother’s life as well.

Catholic moralists have been debating about whether the law of double-effect may apply to the case of removing an ectopic child in the case of a tubal pregnancy. For a survey of the debate SEE HERE (scroll down). A consensus seems to have emerged that at least one type of surgical procedure (known as a salpingectomy) might be morally licit to deal with the situation.

One group of conservative moral theologians, including William May and William Smith, hold that the thing that makes a salpingectomy possible is that it is a procedure done on the mother rather than on the child. Specifically, the segment of the mother’s fallopian tube is cut out that happens to contain the child. The child will die as a result of this procedure (until such time as we can transplant the child to the womb or to an artificial womb), but the procedure does not directly kill the child (in contrast to other procedures, such as injecting methotrexate to stop the child’s placenta from developing and functioning. Since a salpingecotomy does not directly kill the child, it is argued to be potentially justifiable under the law of double effect (i.e., for a porportionate reason an action can be taken that is licit in itself though it will have a foreseen but unintended evil side effect).

If it were the case that the bodiless-twin was certain to die or posed a grave threat to the life of the bodied-twin (which would also result in the death of the bodiless-twin) then it might be possible to perform a procedure on the bodied-twin that would disconnect it from the bodiless-twin in such a way that the death of the bodiless-twin is an unintended but foreseen side effect, analogous to the case of a salpingectomy.

Unfortunately, the story give me no reason to think that the bodiless-twin poses any threat to the life of the bodied-twin. As far as I know, they could live a normal life while remaining conjoined. The bodied-twin’s heart might have to develop a little more to cover the extra blood pumping to the bodiless-twin, but no evidence is presented that this would be problematic.

Consequently, I have no reason to regard the severing of the bodiless-twin as anything other than murder.

READ THE (DISGUSTING) STORY. [WARNING: Also has picture.]

Release The Hounds!

FoxhuntCertain U.K. yahoos have now passed a law outlawing foxhunting.

Actually, it’s worse than that.

They’ve passed a law to ban the use of dogs in hunting.

It’s apparently "wrong."

Yeah.

Dogs can go out and hunt naturally, as their instincts tell them to, but humans can’t faciliate dog’s natural instincts because that’s "wrong."

Uh-huh.

To quote Ford Prefect: "YOU’RE A LOAD OF USELESS BLOODY LOONIES!!!"

Now, I should note that the last comment was not directed at all people in the U.K. It’s only direted to those who are yahoos. Not everybody in the U.K. is a yahoo. For example, I’d extent a special holler to those entrerprising ex-hunters who, lest their dogs suffer from lack of exercise, have started to get gussied up with the red coats and all and then hop on their horses and take the dogs out for a brisk run and everything stays well within the law as long as no foxes happen to cross their paths . . . in which case canine instincts might take over . . . through no fault at all of the ex-hunters, of course!

GET THE (STUPID) STORY.

Powerline (cowboy hat tip to them) notes:

This is one time when we can say "It can’t happen here," and really mean it. America’s hunters are too powerful; I suspect they’re also better armed than their English counterparts. I think it’s time for the NRA to open a branch in England [SOURCE].

New Rule!

Just made an addition to DA RULZ:

20. When Jimmy is answering a pastoral question (i.e., for a person asking about an actual rather than a hypothetical situation) that can be phrased  in the form "Is it morally licit to do X?", do not contradict Jimmy in the comments box. People asking pastoral questions on moral subjects often feel very disoriented and confused if they get a debate rather than an answer on a sensitive question about a situation they, a friend, or a family member is involved in. For the peace of mind of the person who asked the question, challenges to such answers need to be handled a different way. Instead of using the comments box to pose your challenge, e-mail Jimmy. If you win him over, he’ll make a correction and notify the person who asked the question. Comments violating this policy will be deleted. Widespread violation of this policy will result in the comments box being turned off for such questions.

Do Not Open Until Christmas1960

Y’know how Sr. Lucia wrote on the envelope that contained the third secret that it wasn’t to be opened until 1960? Here’s the straight story on that:

Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then [1944] Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope [SOURCE: The Message of Fatima (Vatican doc.)].

The reason the Vatican had to ask Sr. Lucia to clarify this is that the apparition rumor-net had been circulating allegations that Mary herself had commanded that the message be "read to the world" by "1960 at the latest." (The apparition rumor-net is second only to the papal rumor-net in rumor generating capacity.) These allegations were then used to denounce John XXIII (pope in 1960) and every subsequent pope for not announcing the secret to the world "as Mary had commanded."

Now that we know the straight story, it serves as a good caution to all of us to CHECK OUR FACTS INSTEAD OF JUST REPEATING RUMORS!!! (Unfortunately, the advent of the blogosphere may not play the same fact-checking function for the apparition and papal rumor-nets as it does for the MSM.)

That being said, I had a few thoughts recently about why the third secret was best kept under wraps until 1960 (and even after):

  1. The third secret was written down January 3, 1944, in the midst of World War II. Since the third secret contains a vision of a devastated city and a large number of people, including the pope, apparently being killed, if it had been released in 1944 it likely would have been interpreted as a prophecy of the events of World War II instead of the accurate interpretation of it as pertaining to the events of World War III (the Cold War). Indeed, Pius XII already thought that Hitler was going to have him kidnapped, and as we’ve recently learned Hitler did order the pope to be kidnapped (but the general didn’t carry out the order). If Pius had read it in 1944, he likely would have thought (incorrectly) that he would be martyred by Hitler.
  2. Since Sr. Lucia already sensed that the third secret pertains to the part of the second secret where it is mentioned that "Russia will spread its errors," she deferred its opening to 1960, a date that she intuited needed to be reached for it to be properly understood. Indeed, by that time the Cold War was under way and the threat posed by Russia was well understood.
  3. It’s even good that the message was not announced to the world at that time. If it had been it might have resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy of a pope being killed (i.e., some nujob might have taken it into his nogging to off the pope and thus fulfill the third secret).
  4. It’s also good that it wasn’t announced because the assassination attempt on John Paul II did not occur until May 13, 1981. If the secret had been known publicly beforehand then we would not be able as clearly to see this date as linking it to Fatima (May 13 was the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima) since we wouldn’t be able to be sure that the would-be assassin (or his paymasters) didn’t know this and didn’t engineer it to occur on that date because of the third secret.
  5. It’s even good that, though others had read the third secret previously, John Paul II had not read it before the assassination attempt. At first he did not see the connection between the May 13 assassination attempt and Fatima, but when he read the third secret afterwards, the scales fell from his eyes (figuratively!) and he credited Our Lady of Fatima with saving his life. This helped motivate him to perform the consecration of Russia (and, for good measure, the rest of the world) in 1984.

This consecration, coupled with John Paul II’s role in the end of the Cold War, may have averted a nuclear war that might otherwise have ben the terminus of the U.S.-Soviet conflict (note the third secret’s reference to a angel’s flaming sword about to set the world on fire but stopped by Mary’s intervention).

It’s interesting to observe that the secret of Fatima addressed each of the first three world wars:

  • [Addressing World War I:] "If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end. . . . "
  • [Addressing World War II:] " . . . but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI."
  • [Addressing World War III:] "If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church."

Unfortunatley, it said nothing about World War IV (the War on Terror), which we are now in the midst of. We know this because in the wake of September 11th and the start of World War IV,

The content of the interview held between the Vatican representative and Sister Lucia in the convent of Coimbra, Portugal, where she resided, was made public by the Vatican press office on Dec. 20, 2001.

The text of the document states: "In recent months, especially following the sad events of the September 11 terrorist attacks, articles appeared in newspapers alleging new revelations by Sister Lucia, announcements of letters of warning to the Pope, and apocalyptic reinterpretations of the Fatima message."

"Moreover, emphasis was placed on the suspicion that the Holy See had not published the entire text of the third part of the secret, and some ‘Fatimist’ movements have repeated the accusation that the Holy Father has yet to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary," the document continues.

As a result, the Vatican note clarifies, it was considered necessary that Archbishop Bertone go personally "to clarify and obtain direct information from the visionary."

The meeting was held in the presence of Father Luis Kondor, vice postulator of the cause of Blessed Francisco and Jacinta (the other Fatima visionaries), and of the prioress of St. Teresa’s Carmelite Convent.

The conversation took place on the afternoon of that Nov. 17 and lasted more than two hours. Sister Lucia, then 94, "was in great form — lucid and vivacious," the Vatican envoy said.

The meeting addressed the question of the third part of the secret of Fatima. The Portuguese religious said that she had read "carefully and meditated on the fascicle published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and confirms everything that is written," the Vatican statement noted.

When the archbishop explained that there are doubts that part of the secret remains unknown, Sister Lucia replied: "Everything has been published; there are no more secrets."

"If I had received new revelations, I would not have communicated them to anyone, but I would have told them directly to the Holy Father," the religious added.

There was then talk about the statements of Nicholas Gruner, a Canadian priest suspended "a divinis," who is collecting signatures insisting that the Pope finally consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and alleging that this has never been done.

Sister Lucia told the archbishop: "The Carmel community has rejected the forms for the collection of signatures. I have already said that the consecration requested by Our Lady was done in 1984, and it has been accepted in heaven" [SOURCE.]

Take that, rumor-net!

READ MY PIECE ON THE THIRD SECRET.

READ THE VATICAN DOC ANNOUNCING THE THIRD SECRET.

Do Not Open Until Christmas1960

Y’know how Sr. Lucia wrote on the envelope that contained the third secret that it wasn’t to be opened until 1960? Here’s the straight story on that:

Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then [1944] Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope [SOURCE: The Message of Fatima (Vatican doc.)].

The reason the Vatican had to ask Sr. Lucia to clarify this is that the apparition rumor-net had been circulating allegations that Mary herself had commanded that the message be "read to the world" by "1960 at the latest." (The apparition rumor-net is second only to the papal rumor-net in rumor generating capacity.) These allegations were then used to denounce John XXIII (pope in 1960) and every subsequent pope for not announcing the secret to the world "as Mary had commanded."

Now that we know the straight story, it serves as a good caution to all of us to CHECK OUR FACTS INSTEAD OF JUST REPEATING RUMORS!!! (Unfortunately, the advent of the blogosphere may not play the same fact-checking function for the apparition and papal rumor-nets as it does for the MSM.)

That being said, I had a few thoughts recently about why the third secret was best kept under wraps until 1960 (and even after):

  1. The third secret was written down January 3, 1944, in the midst of World War II. Since the third secret contains a vision of a devastated city and a large number of people, including the pope, apparently being killed, if it had been released in 1944 it likely would have been interpreted as a prophecy of the events of World War II instead of the accurate interpretation of it as pertaining to the events of World War III (the Cold War). Indeed, Pius XII already thought that Hitler was going to have him kidnapped, and as we’ve recently learned Hitler did order the pope to be kidnapped (but the general didn’t carry out the order). If Pius had read it in 1944, he likely would have thought (incorrectly) that he would be martyred by Hitler.
  2. Since Sr. Lucia already sensed that the third secret pertains to the part of the second secret where it is mentioned that "Russia will spread its errors," she deferred its opening to 1960, a date that she intuited needed to be reached for it to be properly understood. Indeed, by that time the Cold War was under way and the threat posed by Russia was well understood.
  3. It’s even good that the message was not announced to the world at that time. If it had been it might have resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy of a pope being killed (i.e., some nujob might have taken it into his nogging to off the pope and thus fulfill the third secret).
  4. It’s also good that it wasn’t announced because the assassination attempt on John Paul II did not occur until May 13, 1981. If the secret had been known publicly beforehand then we would not be able as clearly to see this date as linking it to Fatima (May 13 was the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima) since we wouldn’t be able to be sure that the would-be assassin (or his paymasters) didn’t know this and didn’t engineer it to occur on that date because of the third secret.
  5. It’s even good that, though others had read the third secret previously, John Paul II had not read it before the assassination attempt. At first he did not see the connection between the May 13 assassination attempt and Fatima, but when he read the third secret afterwards, the scales fell from his eyes (figuratively!) and he credited Our Lady of Fatima with saving his life. This helped motivate him to perform the consecration of Russia (and, for good measure, the rest of the world) in 1984.

This consecration, coupled with John Paul II’s role in the end of the Cold War, may have averted a nuclear war that might otherwise have ben the terminus of the U.S.-Soviet conflict (note the third secret’s reference to a angel’s flaming sword about to set the world on fire but stopped by Mary’s intervention).

It’s interesting to observe that the secret of Fatima addressed each of the first three world wars:

  • [Addressing World War I:] "If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end. . . . "
  • [Addressing World War II:] " . . . but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI."
  • [Addressing World War III:] "If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church."

Unfortunatley, it said nothing about World War IV (the War on Terror), which we are now in the midst of. We know this because in the wake of September 11th and the start of World War IV,

The content of the interview held between the Vatican representative and Sister Lucia in the convent of Coimbra, Portugal, where she resided, was made public by the Vatican press office on Dec. 20, 2001.

The text of the document states: "In recent months, especially following the sad events of the September 11 terrorist attacks, articles appeared in newspapers alleging new revelations by Sister Lucia, announcements of letters of warning to the Pope, and apocalyptic reinterpretations of the Fatima message."

"Moreover, emphasis was placed on the suspicion that the Holy See had not published the entire text of the third part of the secret, and some ‘Fatimist’ movements have repeated the accusation that the Holy Father has yet to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary," the document continues.

As a result, the Vatican note clarifies, it was considered necessary that Archbishop Bertone go personally "to clarify and obtain direct information from the visionary."

The meeting was held in the presence of Father Luis Kondor, vice postulator of the cause of Blessed Francisco and Jacinta (the other Fatima visionaries), and of the prioress of St. Teresa’s Carmelite Convent.

The conversation took place on the afternoon of that Nov. 17 and lasted more than two hours. Sister Lucia, then 94, "was in great form — lucid and vivacious," the Vatican envoy said.

The meeting addressed the question of the third part of the secret of Fatima. The Portuguese religious said that she had read "carefully and meditated on the fascicle published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and confirms everything that is written," the Vatican statement noted.

When the archbishop explained that there are doubts that part of the secret remains unknown, Sister Lucia replied: "Everything has been published; there are no more secrets."

"If I had received new revelations, I would not have communicated them to anyone, but I would have told them directly to the Holy Father," the religious added.

There was then talk about the statements of Nicholas Gruner, a Canadian priest suspended "a divinis," who is collecting signatures insisting that the Pope finally consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and alleging that this has never been done.

Sister Lucia told the archbishop: "The Carmel community has rejected the forms for the collection of signatures. I have already said that the consecration requested by Our Lady was done in 1984, and it has been accepted in heaven" [SOURCE.]

Take that, rumor-net!

READ MY PIECE ON THE THIRD SECRET.

READ THE VATICAN DOC ANNOUNCING THE THIRD SECRET.

LIBERAL BIGWIG: Liberalism Is Dead

. . . or dying, anyway.

Thus says Martin Peretz, editor of liberal think-mag The New Republic.

Among many other interesting things, he writes:

Liberals like to blame their political consultants. But then, if you depend on consultants for your motivating ideas, you are nowhere. So let’s admit it: The liberals are themselves uninspired by a vision of the good society–a problem we didn’t have 30 years ago. For several years, the liberal agenda has looked and sounded like little more than a bookkeeping exercise. We want to spend more, they less. In the end, the numbers do not clarify; they confuse. Almost no one can explain any principle behind the cost differences.

It’s much easier, more comfortable, to do the old refrains. You can easily rouse a crowd when you get it to sing, "We Shall Overcome." One of the tropes that trips off the tongues of American liberals is the civil rights theme of the ’60s. Another is that U.S. power is dangerous to others and dangerous to us. This is also a reprise from the ’60s, the late ’60s. Virtue returns, it seems, merely by mouthing the words.

For months, liberals have been peddling one disaster scenario after another, one contradictory fact somehow reinforcing another, hoping now against hope that their gloomy visions will come true.

I happen to believe that they won’t. This will not curb the liberal complaint. That complaint is not a matter of circumstance. It is a permanent affliction of the liberal mind. It is not a symptom; it is a condition. And it is a condition related to the desperate hopes liberals have vested in the United Nations. That is their lodestone. But the lodestone does not perform. It is not a magnet for the good. It performs the magic of the wicked. It is corrupt, it is pompous, it is shackled to tyrants and cynics. It does not recognize a genocide when the genocide is seen and understood by all. Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let’s hope we still have the strength.

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