The family under siege

The Fast Food Theory of Homosexuality is a thesis popular among credulous segments of the Filipino population. Like most urban legends and conspiracy theories, it is built on at least one fact: that livestock and poultry used in fast foods are often fattened by feeding or injection with female hormones. The thesis holds that the hormones alter the sexual orientation of males with a taste for burgers and fried chicken. I eagerly await a thesis to explain female homosexuality.

Another thesis favored by credulous Filipinos is what I call the Microwave Theory of Disaster. This thesis asserts that calamities such as supertyphoons are manufactured using microwaves, presumably by that favorite bogey of conspiracy theorists, the US government.

Both theories may comfortably be accommodated into a longer-standing conspiracy theory which I call the Conspiracy of Death. A strident minority of the Catholic family apostolate declares that the family is under siege from a worldwide alliance of feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered movements; Planned Parenthood Global; multinational producers of contraceptives; the US government, particularly when led by the Democratic Party; Western European governments; any Philippine administration that supports family planning; and the United Nations. Coordinating this conspiracy is an intelligence that, according to some Filipino bishops of the 1990s, “surpasses human intelligence”—“the father of lies.” Anyone who reads the bible can guess who that is.

The conspiracy aims to promote a “culture of death” by, among other things, preventing humans from reproducing. The narrative can be enriched by construing as part of the conspiracy the hormones in fast foods which reduce the male inclination to reproduce, and the microwave-induced disasters which reduce the predominantly Catholic population of the Philippines—the last bastion, after all, against the conspiracy. This logical fit may explain why I first heard about all three theories from Roman Catholic priests.

I trust that most Catholics are not preoccupied with such theories. Pope Francis is not. At least, he mentioned none of them in his addresses to the recent World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in the United States. In a speech meant to be read to that assembly last Sept. 26, the Pope instead wrote of the effects upon the family of the lack of employment, workers’ rights, adequate housing, health services, and other basic needs. The speech made it clear that he considers the main source of threats to the family to be a socioeconomic system “which fails to meet [families’] needs, is insensitive to their pain, and forces them to make great sacrifices to receive adequate treatment.”

The Pope at the last minute replaced the prepared speech with more personal extemporaneous remarks. Nonetheless, the undelivered speech is consistent with his prioritization of the problems of the poor over crusades against conspiracies. In his encyclical “Laudato Sí,” he mentions the “culture of death” once, quoting John Paul II, but focuses on the effects on the larger human family of the environmental degradation caused by the socioeconomic system.

Also relatively free from conspiracy theory is the “Instrumentum Laboris,” or working document, for the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World, now being held in Rome. There is some complaint about how Western governments and international institutions try to force poorer countries to accept gay marriage. But the document also recognizes that many threats to the family are caused by systemic economic and social forces that destroy social solidarity, generate inequality within and between nations, despoil the environment, and constrain personal freedom. The document trains attention on the problems of poor families, and especially poor families in poor countries.

Several paragraphs are devoted to the effects of “reckless economic policies” and “insensitive social policies” that place economic burdens especially on poor families, of “adverse economic development,” “the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few,” and corruption. These effects include low wages, unemployment, economic insecurity, labor migration, environmental degradation, the exhaustion of natural resources, and social exclusion, all of which take their toll on the family. The document recognizes the need for the Church to work for policy and legislation that address such threats to the family, and their root causes. But it is relatively mute on the bitter legislative battles against contraception, divorce and gender equality on which the Catholic family apostolate in the Philippines has spent so much passion and political capital.

This does not mean a change in official Catholic teaching on those issues. It might suggest a change in the priorities of the family apostolate. If more Catholic energies were rechanneled from defending an idealized concept of the family against “anti-family legislation” to working with poor families in the real world, listening to and addressing their needs, and advocating laws and policies that meet those needs, that would be a significant contribution to protecting the family and promoting life. It would also make a bigger difference to actual families than protracted tilting at the windmills of the Conspiracy of Death.

Eleanor R. Dionisio is an associate director of the John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues.