SECULARISM PART OF BIRTH RATE FALL

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Secularism part of birth rate fall

Gerald Danaher ("Global birth rates are down, but are hardly in free-fall", Mailbox, March 15) states: "The Vatican maintains that the use of artificial contraception is a grave sin, while the majority of Catholics – such as myself – believe it is not a sin at all."

If I did not believe in what the Catholic Church teaches, I would not call myself a Catholic. Why follow something you think is a lie?

Mr Danaher is right in pointing to the dramatic fall in fertility rates across western Europe. This has been caused by birth control and virtual abortion on demand.

The population is heading for what Japan already faces by 2055 – a demographic winter, with a huge number of elderly people and a tiny number of young people to support them.

In Leicester, 2,500 babies were aborted in two of our city hospitals in 2011-12. That's more than two comprehensive schools of children who will never live to work, marry and have children of their own.

Despite having a Christian heritage, Europe, including the Catholic countries Mr Danaher cites, is now the most secular continent on the planet.

It is its secularism, not its Christianity, that will lead to its own demographic winter.

Francisca Martinez, Leicester