Corpus Christi In Our Modern World
Why have young adults given up on marriage? I believe bad economic polices have destroyed the young's ability to form families and our Church leaders have contributed to this outcome by supporting globalism.
Without the ability to financially support a family, those in the childbearing years will not have children. We are witnessing this today in America. I believe the core reason no one has children anymore is that the young have no economic stability.
In the West there are several factors that have lead to economic instability. The main issue I believe is that mass migration has forced wages to fall.
If young people can't find work at livable wages, then they will cut costs in order to survive. That means they no longer feel they can have a baby. It is a cause-effect seen during the Great Depression. The U.S. fertility rate declined by nearly 20% from 1928 to 1935 ( https://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html).
The Church must care about young adults who are facing a new and different Great Depression. This Great Worker Depression replaces national populations through immigration thus destroying social institutions like marriage.
People need to feel secure to have children.
Without just laws to protect a nation's citizens, many people become unstable in their economic and social lives. For Catholics, economic insecurity disrupts their call to marriage and childbearing. Without the vocation of marriage many souls will be harmed because God desires the formation of families.
We are in the middle of an economic policy battle--one in which the Catholic Church must have a stake.
We are seeing the US changing rapidly from a stable middle-class dominated country to one that has only rich and poor citizens.
Mass and unlimited immigration (legal and illegal) is causing this change in the USA. It is causing a new form of serfdom because those who migrate have no bargaining power. The displaced native workers find themselves without a livelihood. Both conditions make it difficult to commit to raising a family (because of falling wages).
Governments used to balance the needs of their citizens with the needs of businesses, but this has changed in recent years. It seems our Church leaders also side with those wanting global economies. This is the wrong approach however. Without a Church that demands justice for all, we find the Church picks some of its members over others.
Economic policies that do not consider the needs of families are immoral. We must advocate for fair and family wages. Globalism harms American Catholics--especially those who are called by God to bear and raise the heavenly class of future saints.
Years ago Catholic families were larger and survived on one income thanks to higher wages. While there are complex reasons for shrinking families, modern families are being harmed by economic policies that make it far too difficult to raise children.
Economic hardships of lower wages and unemployment thanks to bad immigration policy also contribute to the rise of divorces (due to heightened marital stress).
We must remove the stumbling blocks of bad economic policies--like open borders--that lead many young people into the temptation to not have children.
We should help the young fulfill their God-given right to form families.