Lonesome Tree in Sandhills

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Catholic Birth Control Ban - Do the Math


There are financial reasons why the Roman Catholic Church has continued its stance on birth control (BC) - just do the math to understand.  Is the Vatican's position rational?  I'll let you figure that out.

In 2 generations, Catholic families went from an average of 8 kids who had an average of 5 kids, to my generation with an average of 2 kids. The average total adults in a Catholic family donating to the church dropped from 50 [2+8+(8*5)] to 17 [2+5+(5*2)] after the pill arrived in 1964.  The impact of family members who have left the church because of BC ban magnifies the results.  

My parents had 6 kids & 16 grandkids, but only 4 out of the total of 22 are practicing Catholics.  Using $100 as today's average monthly donation of Catholic adults, the lost revenue annually from just one family is $21,600 (18 x $1200) or $216,000 in a decade if nothing changes. 

The Church's financial experts would look at this impact in the USA of:
1 million families   = $216,000,000,000 = $216 Billion
10 million families = $2,160,000,000,000 = $2.16 Trillion

$2.16 TRILLION is a heckuva lot of money!!

Unfortunately, at the same time families were having fewer kids & therefore higher disposable income, which could have translated into increased donations, the Vatican then doubled down on the BC ban causing those fewer kids to turn away from the church as adults.

Add financial settlements from decades of child sex abuse, which are the tip of this iceberg, and you begin to understand why the Roman Catholic Church faces grave financial troubles today.  To "bring Catholics back to the Church" would require the Pope, the Curia in the Vatican and all the Cardinals, as well as bishops and priests, to completely lift the ban on birth control... and increase the number of available parish priests by taking back those who left to marry.

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