To the Synod of Bishops for Christians in the Middle East

To the Synod of Bishops for Christians in the Middle East

By Charbel El-chaar
Toronto, Canada

May the Peace of Christ be with You.

I am writing to you as a Pro-life activist, and founder of the largest Catholic Pro-life website in Arabic on the Internet and the world, St. Charbel for Life www.lilhayat.com, and as an observer of population of Christians in the Middle East in general and particularly in Lebanon, I have great concern about its population today. We are in danger of extinction because of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) agenda of Sex Education in Catholic schools, the wide spread adoption of contraception, the recent Approval (legalization) of chemical abortion by the Ministry of Health in Lebanon under the abortion pill brand Norlevo and the underground secrete surgical abortion movement.

The UNFPA agenda is to depopulate nations from its people contrary to the good of the general population. This is an even greater threat to minorities and small nations, since we Catholics are minorities in the Muslim world and we have allowed this agenda to enter our Christian institutions, and schools.

Catholic leaders should never ignore this threats of what the late Holy Father Pope John Paul II called the culture of death. He said in Denver Colorado USA 2003 “Woe to us if we fail to defend life.” He also said in his pastoral visit to St. Louis USA in 1999: “The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in every situation.”

Contraceptive mentality

The contraceptive mentality rejects the child’s existence and considers a large family as evil. To support this agenda, the UNFPA in third world countries uses ‘sex education’ and ‘family planning’ as code words for contraception and abortion. Since third world family-oriented Nations encourage and embrace a large family, this more naturally translates into calls for priesthood vocations and religious life.

Unfortunately some of our Catholic leaders in Lebanon justify contraception and abortion to eliminate poverty. Our leaders seem to want to allow solving the problem of poverty in Lebanon by reducing the number of the poor and their children. We cannot solve poverty by allowing the culture of death to kill our population, by contraception and abortion. We should kill poverty by sharing the wealth and not killing the poor.

Today's rich countries have used methods of contraception and abortion as weapons to conquer the poor countries through depopulation.

I live in Canada, which unfortunately has embraced contraception and sex education in schools thereby giving rise to the roots of the culture of death, and having abortion and euthanasia as its fruits. In addition, many Churches have closed its doors in the Province of Quebec, Canada. More than 500 Roman Catholic and protestant Churches have been offered for sale in Canada recently (209 in 2010 alone). With the decline in calls to the priesthood and religious life in the Church today, the Church in the west is seeking vocations and missionaries from the so-called third world countries.

The lack of vocations to sustain the Church in the West is not the only evidence to population implosion, but there is also an urgent need for workers, where the use of immigration policy is being used to discriminate between rich and poor financially and professionally, in order to benefit its existing population of workers. The culture of death is killing the world.

Immigration policy became the solution to the demographic problems in the west since they created the problem in the first place. Now it has also become a problem for poor countries that embrace the culture of death, contraception and abortion, and the resulting rapid loss of workers and population.

Russia is dying

Today, there is a serious problem in Russia because of contraception, abortion and the absence of family life. In Russia each year, 12 million babies dies from abortion, and taking into account all types of death, the net loss to the country’s population is 700,000 persons annually, because of the pandemic of the culture of death.

The Church and state in Russia don’t know how to stop the population implosion by encouraging people to have more children and end the evil of abortion. If they don’t put an end to sex education, contraception and abortion, they will ultimately cease to exist. They should move to again criminalize abortion after having started it all in 1917 as the first country in the world to legalize the murder of innocents in the womb. And now they are paying the price.

The demographic crisis in Lebanon

The average fertility rate in Lebanon is at the lowest level in history, 1.78 children per woman for the year 2010. If this trend continues along with the current immigration policy, there will be very few Christians left in Lebanon and the Maronite Eparchy will have to move to the USA, Brazil, Mexico or Canada to be closer to her people.

On May 18, 2007 – St. Charbel for Life issued a warning to religious leaders in Lebanon about this danger and was quoted by the media in Lebanon. And in 2002, it also issued a warning to the Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir that the Maronite Christians in Lebanon and the Middle East are in danger of extinction because of the low birth rate whereby global statistics indicate that the fertility rate in Lebanon was 2.2 children per woman which at the time was almost equal to 2.1, the replacement level for the population to maintain itself in the community.

Per the above chart:

In 2002, the fertility rate in Lebanon was 2.2 children per woman;

· In 2007, the fertility rate fell to 1.88 children per woman;

· In 2009, the fertility rate fell further to 1.85; and

· Today in 2010, the fertility rate is 1.78 children per woman.

The fertility and birth rate in Lebanon is falling and becoming a serious situation. In fact, not only serious but also very dangerous. The fertility rate in Lebanon is now at a historic low in the Middle East of 1.78 children per woman.

In Egypt it is 3.01, and in Syria 3.02, Jordan 3.42, Israel 2.72 and in Iraq 3.76 children per woman. It is interesting to note that 3 years ago, the fertility rate in Iraq was 5 children per woman so contraception and abortion are obviously on the rise there as well.

The late Father Paul Marx, founder of Human life International www.HLI.org used to say that “when the fertility rate drops to less than replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, it is very difficult to return to what it was before.”

The emigration of Christians from the Middle East is not the sole problem, but a key factor is that the fertility rate will remains low. History shows that emigration from the Middle East was actually a good thing to help the spread of Christianity in the world. For example, Saints Peter and Paul emigrating to Rome to live, teach and die in the West was a tremendous benefit to Christianity.

What threatens Christians in the East and the world today is the sabotage of youth sex education in schools with the teaching and spread of contraception and chemical abortion.

If you would like to protect Christianity in the Middle East, I respectfully recommend that we focus on defending life by upholding moral values and the sanctity of life, marriage and the family. Without them, we have no hope for Christians in the Middle East and the world. The Fathers of the Church and the Saints spread Christianity to the world from here, and we therefore must preserve this heritage. We are minorities, and that is why we are targets of the culture of death. This is indeed frightening, and all of those who say the contrary are misleading us.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Pastoral visit to St. Louis in 1999
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/olmstedpart4.htm

Fertility rate

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/le.html

Poverty

http://www.pop.org/00000000895/population-control-the-kenyan-perspective

Saint Charbel for Life
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