Family and Life Conference, Madrid,

November, 2009.

Lord Alton of Liverpool

www.davidalton.com

davidalton@mail.com

“Today an invasive materialism is imposing its domination on us in many different forms and with an aggressiveness sparing no one.”

- Pope John Paul II

In 1920 in The Acquisitive Society R.H.Tawney noted our capacity to use capitalism for purely acquisitive purposes

“As far as the Church is concerned, the social message of the Gospel must not be considered a theory, but above all else a basis and a motivation for action…..Today more than ever, the Church is aware that her social message will gain credibility more immediately from the witness of actions than as a result of its internal logic and consistency. This awareness is also a source of her preferential option for the poor, which is never exclusive or discriminatory towards other groups.”

- Pope John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus

“the heart sees where love is needed, and acts accordingly”

- Pope Benedict Deus Caritas Est

"And if the idea of the community of good for all men has even now little influence, the reason is that we identify too little with good character and too much with good things”

-T. H. Green

• There have been more than 6 million abortions in Britain since it was legalised in 1967.

• 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in abortion: 600 every day.

• Eugenic abortion is permitted up to an even during birth on a baby with a disability.

• More than 2 million human embryos have been destroyed or experimented upon.

• The cloning of human embryos for “therapeutic” purposes has been legalised along with the creation of animal-human hybrids.

• Attempts are under way to follow Holland and Belgium by legalising euthanasia.

Children’s Ruined LivesOver 60,000 children live in care; 98% are admitted

due to family breakdown32,465 children and young people are on Child

Protection registers384,200 children in England alone are categorised

as “in need.”In one school term alone 82,400 children were

expelled from school in England and Wales, 14% due to violence against another pupil.

According to the Children’s Society, 100,000 children run away from home each year.

1 in 3 (4.4 million) British children are living in poverty compared with 1 in 10 in 1979.

• Family Life In Tatters• The number of divorces has doubled since 1971, from

80,000 to 157,000 p.a.• The UK has the third highest divorce rate in Europe.• 13% of divorces occur within 3 years of marriage• Family breakdown is estimated to cost the economy £30 billion

a year. • In the past 20 years there has been an increase from 12% to

41% of births outside marriage.• In the UK between 1971 and 2003 the number of single parent

families increased from 8% to 23%.• 90% of births to teenage mothers are outside marriage• 1.7million children are being raised in single parent families• Up to 40% of fathers lose contact with their children within two

years of separation• Three quarters of a million British children have no contact

with their fathers following the breakdown of their relationship.

Indebtedness Has Never Been Greater

• Personal indebtedness has never been higher – British households are £1 trillion in debt; personal debt is greater than the UKs annual income and is rising by £1 million every four minutes.

• In the past six years there has been a 44% increase in the number of people seeking help for debt related problems. Indebtedness is a major factor in family quarrels, depression and loss of homes.

• This year Government borrowing is officially predicted to reach £175 billion, or 12% of national income. Total borrowing over the next four years is estimated at almost £700 bn.

• Homelessness, Alcohol and Drugs • The number of homeless people in the UK is 380,000 – the same as the

population of the city of Bristol.• The number of 11-15 year olds taking drugs in England has doubled since 1998.• 1987: 26,000 drug offences 1998: 128,000 drug offences• 15 million Britons admit to having used cannabis; 2-5 million are regular users.• According to the BMJ “cannabis could kill 30,000 people a year”• “It is quite worrying that we might end up in 10 or 20 years with our psychiatric

hospitals filled with people who have problems with cannabis” –Prof.Hamid Ghodse, former President of the UN’s Narcotic Control Board.

• 2005: Scotland had 55,800 registered heroin addicts.• 7.7 million ecstasy-type tablets were seized in one recent year alone.• There are more than 900 organised gangs involved in the trade of heroin and

cocaine in the UK.• 2005: Just 3 drug dealers who were convicted had no record of violent crime.• More than 160 babies were born addicted to purified cocaine during one recent

twelve month period alone; and a study by the University of Manchester found that in the North West, 71 per cent of the region's adolescents had been offered drugs over a twelve month period.

Guns, Knives, Prisons and Crime offences involving firearms have doubled since 1997

Gun crime in the UK claims 30 victims dailyThe average life span for people who get involved in gun

crime in Manchester is 24 years.Prison population is up 85% since 1993. It’s now more than

77,000 and projected for 90,000 by 2010.7,000 under 18s go through the juvenile prison system

annually – a 50% increase since 1992.1in 10 doctors are physically assaulted by patients or their

relatives each year. In one recent year 27% of people were victims of crime

The Head of the Home Office Statistics Unit accepted that the true level of crime in the UK is around 60 million crimes a

year.Growing dishonesty has led to massive benefit fraud –

estimated at £2 billion in 2003, while fraud is estimated to cost the economy more than £13.8 billion a year.

• Pornography and Our Virtual Society• 57% of 9-19 year-olds have come into contact with

pornography while online• British Telecom said it was blocking up to 20,000 attempts

daily to view child pornography.• 5 million images of child abuse are in circulation on the

internet featuring some 400,000 children• 260 million pages of the internet are now classified as

pornography• Violent scenes on TV have doubled in the last four years.• An average adult in Britain spends 27 hours a week in front

of the television.• In an average week more than 400 killings are screened,

along with 119 woundings and 27 sex attacks on women.

• Loneliness, Despair and Suicide• More than 140,000 people attempt to commit suicide

each year.• Every day 4,000 children call Childline. Since it was

founded in 1986 it has counselled over 1 million children.

• Last year the Samaritans answered 4.6million calls from people in despair – one every seven seconds.

• Suicide accounts for 20%of all deaths among young people aged 15-24

• Suicide rate among young people has doubled since 1985 and recent figures show further increases in France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain and Finland.

• The number of alcohol related diseases has more than doubled since 1980.

• Drink abuse is costing Britain £55 million a day. • Children as young as 6 are being treated for alcohol

abuse• Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said she believed

Europe was facing “…an epidemic of loneliness”

In Britain, an estimated one million elderly do not see a friend or a neighbour during an average week.

7 million people living alone

76%of men are said to experience depression or deep anxiety

British men now work longer hours than any other men in Europe

A proven Link between working patterns and a sense of wellbeing

Consequences for Health75% of suicides are men: 15 daily.

Toxic Loneliness29.4 million anti-depressants dispensed last year

– 334% increase since 1985Cost to NHS - £338 million p.a.

• We have never been more materially prosperous but less happy and less content.

• The human landscape is littered with wreckage• Hardly a family is untouched• God has been closed out• We live in an intolerant and sceptical world• We must regain our nerve, challenge the world,

speak to the world, and then serve it: and be prepared to pay a price.

“Living and partly living….” – T.S.Eliot

“One of the worst diseases of the modern world is its dualism. The dissociation between the things of God and the things of the world.”

- Jacques Maritain

“Descocialisation – The Crisis of Post-Modernity” -Matthew Fforde

“… handicapped by spiritual regression….stewardship of the spirit must mean ending our fracture with God …only those who do not worship themselves are capable of improvement.”

“The most important question for the future is how we can find a basis for human life together, what spiritual laws we accept as the foundation of a meaningful human life.”

“We have been the silent witnesses of evil deeds. What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Imago Dei …every person is made in the image

of God and worthy of our love and respect, from the moment of conception to the point of natural death.

“Life is the most beautiful gift of God. That is why it is so painful to see what is happening today in so many places around the world” -Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta