Sorry, but I have to bring up Pope Francis again. He was very much in the news last week when he was shown in a new documentary, Francesco, saying: Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or made miserable over it. What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.

In a way, this is old news, since anyone who knows the record of Francis as a bishop in Argentina knows he has said similar things in the past. But now that he is pope, it is big news. Some people are elated; some people are infuriated either because he has gone too far or not far enough. The not far enough is that he didnt call for gay marriage but rather, civil unions.

Why would he do that? Is it because he is just an old dried-up stick-in-the-mud, mouthing opinions that are 100 years out of date? Im sure many people feel that way. He certainly did not say it because he hates homosexuals. That is clear from any number of things he has said over many years.

There is a complicated, but important, reason behind his position; it is related to what is called Catholic Social Teaching and the Catholic definition of the word marriage. At its most basic level, the church holds that a marriage (Holy Matrimony) must not only be between a man and a woman, but -and here is the crux of the matter they must also be ready and willing to have offspring and to raise them within the church. If you are not willing to state your intentions to do both those things, you cant be married in a Catholic Church because the church holds that marriage is inherently, sine qua non, related to the creating and rearing of the next generation.

At this point, Im going to leave off being any sort of apologist for the Catholic Church. Im not good at it, and the point here is larger than a church issue.

Our more formal word, and the longstanding legal term, for marriage even to this day is matrimony, which comes from the Latin mater (mother) and monium (state or condition). Our language, as is usually the case, carries within it the ultimate origins of things. Matrimony is a state that, at its root, is related to an offspring or multiple offspring and their mother. Matrimony exists to further the protection of mothers and their children, because they are absolutely essential to the continuation of society. Hence, when matrimony fails, our legal system establishes alimony and child support.

The condition of matrimony, across time and space around the entire world, has been closely related to the propagation of the human race. There is more than a little logic to the idea that the state of matrimony, to be linguistically and biologically accurate, can only apply to a female and a male union because that union, and only that union, naturally creates children. It is called sexual reproduction, which is the only way all higher life forms reproduce themselves.

Reproducing themselves, lets talk about that.

We in Vermont are very bad at it. We have almost the lowest fertility rate in the United States and the states population is steadily declining. All of the United States is now at a total fertility rate below replacement level, which is 2.1 births per woman. The U.S. fertility rate is 1.8 (the European Union is 1.5). The only reason the U.S. population is staying stable is immigration.

When I was still teaching at college, I found almost all my students thought living in a country with a declining population would be just fine, because there are already too many people on the Earth. I also found they had not thought through what it really means to live in a place that has fewer and fewer people each year. It is not pretty and not fun and does not have a lot of job opportunities.

I have been to rural France, and I have seen whole villages that are now ghost towns. I have traveled around Italy and visited towns where you almost never see a child because almost none live there. It is more than a little depressing. More serious than depressing, however, is the issue of essential social services. How can a country cover the costs of its aging population when there are fewer and fewer people entering the workforce and paying into the health care and pension systems, not to mention roads and sewers.

Its not easy to marry and have children. It is hard work. It is the hardest thing, and the most important thing, we are required to do. The only relationship that can naturally give birth to, and raise, the next generation is matrimony. Not only does it merit a special designation in our everyday speech and in our legal system, but it merits more in fact, far more incentives, protections and assistance than it currently receives in the U.S.

The Western First World has a population problem, but its not the infamous Population Bomb of Paul Ehrlich; its the opposite. Not too many people being born, but too few. Throughout the entire U.S., only one ethnic group is reproducing itself (2.1 births): Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Thats it.

I agree 100% that gay and lesbian people have a right to be in a family as the pope has said, and Im glad he said it. It is an issue that our society is well on its way to addressing, and I am glad to see it happening. But, just as importantly (or even more so), I also agree 100% that men and women have a right, and actually an obligation, to form lasting unions to give birth and nurture children at a rate that creates sustainable communities and fosters the best welfare of children.

It is this last type of union, cisgender matrimony if you will, that is in even more need of focus. Today, in the United States and the European Union, almost 50% of births are to women who are not married. A Pew Research Center study of 130 countries in 2019 found the U.S. has the highest rate of children living in single parent households in the world. And this is in addition to the reality were not having enough births to replace ourselves. If thats not literally a dying culture, I dont know what is.

In our justified and admirable quest to address the concerns of the LGBTQ community, we must not forget to address the concerns we should have about one of the most basic rights and obligations we have as members of the human community: our biological imperative to produce and protect the next generation.

Frankly, were not doing so well at that right now.

John Nassivera is a former professor who retains affiliation with Columbia Universitys Society of Fellows in the Humanities. He lives in Vermont and part time in Mexico.

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Oh Faith: Fertility, civil unions and religion | Perspective - Rutland Herald