The drama no Church leader talks about

5 May 2015 | The Catholic Herald

(Headline by Catholic Herald – ‘Comment of the Week’)

One thousand million people have been added to the population of Africa and the wider Middle East since 1950. The addition of a second one thousand million people is now well under way and is expected to be reached before 2040. (Two thousand million is a lot of people. It was the population of the whole world in 1930.) After 2040, the United Nations Population Division expects the population increase to be at least another one thousand million every 25 years.

This huge population increase will cause poverty, hunger, water shortage, conflict, the persecution of minorities, the migration of millions of desperate people, the drowning of thousands in the Mediterranean, and many other terrible events.

It is unfortunate that for the last thirty years no religious of political leader, no news channel, or aid agency has dared alert us to this world changing demographic drama. There is an urgent need for them to start informing us about it now, and Catholics should lead this effort as they have a reputation for being dismissive of the importance of population growth control.

Gerald Danaher