The fatuousness of the modern secular state, or Why the drought will get worse

In the same month in this year of grace—2006 from the birth of Christ—in which members of Commonwealth and State governments in Australia join in lamenting the ongoing and persistent drought in this country—worse, it is said, than might be expected once in 100 years—members of the same governments see no contradiction in pressing to legalise the cloning of human embryos. Can there ever have been a time in the whole of human history in which the blindness to ultimate causes of those in power and of the people they represent was more manifest?

There is not one of us who has brought himself into existence; not one who keeps himself in existence; not one who has chosen the nature of his being; not one who provides hourly for himself the continuous beating of his heart, or the oxygen that feeds his lungs. There is not one who gives himself, for that matter, the earth beneath his feet or the sky over his head. When the great Australian, Stan Arneil, said in a radio interview with journalist, Caroline Jones in the 1980s, “The very air we breathe is given to us”, he was simply paraphrasing St Paul: “What have you that you have not received?” There was no answer to that question in the first century anno Domini. There is still no answer.

The discoveries of modern science have only served to show the foolishness of its infatuation with the material explanation for human existence manifest in evolutionary theory. The more time that goes by, the more obvious it becomes that the intricate order we find around us is the product of design and of finality which have only one rational explanation, the overarching involvement of a being of infinite power and majesty and love. The passage of time has only served to demonstrate that when Jesus Christ came on earth claiming that he was God some 2,000 years ago, he spoke the truth, and that only by living in accordance with the principles that he revealed as the only principles consistent with the human nature can man truly live and thrive in this world as he should.

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There could be no cloning if there were no fertilisation of human embryos in vitro. There would be no in vitro fertilisation if that practice had not first been permitted, then encouraged, then built by our politicians into the legislative framework of the country. In vitro fertilisation is part of the syndrome of interference in the procreation of human life, interference in matters beyond man’s competence, a trespassing on the rights of the one who made us, and who keeps us in being. Man did not establish the conjugal act; he is not the creator of human life. He is the instrument, and nothing more, whereby human life is brought into existence. That instrumentality, that order in procreation, was established not by man but by his Creator. It is not licit for man, then, to interfere with it save in very limited circumstances and then only to assist, not to impede or prevent, the achievement of its natural end. To interfere with human procreation is to offend not only the Creator, but also the dignity of man who is not an animal like the brutes—a limited if splendid creature—but a being which is objectively infinite. Any interference in the process, any subjugation of the natural offspring of man, through in vitro fertilisation, involves human degradation. No matter how attractively it may be presented by politicians and press, it is nothing but slavery with another name.

In vitro fertilisation is a malevolent offshoot of the contraceptive push which sought acceptance and legitimacy in the 1960s. In his encyclical of 1968, Humanae Vitae, condemning the contraceptive processPope Paul VI warned of the evils which would flow if that process was followed. He was ignored. The effects of that conduct are manifest for all to see. Prominent among them is abortion, the wilful destruction of the unborn. Australia has one of the highest abortion rates per capita in the world. In excess of 100,000 abortions are committed in this country every year. Yet the governments in this country, and the people, will do nothing to reduce this frightful slaughter, let alone do anything to make reparation to Almighty God for the ongoing offences entailed. Yet they expect Him to bless them with rain!

These people are living in a dream world. It is not rain that they are going to get but drought and more drought—death and destruction—until they wake up to themselves, undergo a conversion of heart and acknowledge again the rule of God in their lives and in the life of this country.

Michael Baker
23rd November 2006—St Clement, Pope and martyr

[1] The King James translation of Cum prophetia defecerit dissipabitur populus.