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Pope Francis hits out at 'selfish' couples who have pets not children
Pope Francis hits out at ‘selfish’ couples who have pets instead of children as he calls for parents to have more offspring to solve the West’s ‘demographic winter’
- Pope Francis said couples who have pets not children show ‘form of selfishness’
- Not having children, he said, ‘takes away our humanity’ and denies motherhood
- Said couples should have more children to address West’s ‘demographic winter’
- Francis has been photographed petting dogs as well as a tiger and baby panther
Pope Francis today hit out at ‘selfish’ couples who have pets instead of children as he called for parents to have more offspring to solve the West’s ‘demographic winter’.
Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets ‘sometimes take the place of children’ in society.
‘Today… we see a form of selfishness,’ said the pope. ‘We see that some people do not want to have a child.
‘Sometimes they have one, and that’s it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh but it is a reality.’
The practice, said the head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, ‘is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity’.
Pope Francis today hit out at ‘selfish’ couples who have pets instead of children as he called for parents to have more offspring to solve the West’s ‘demographic winter’
Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Pope Francis (pictured, blessing a child during the audience today) lamented that pets ‘sometimes take the place of children’ in society
Thus, ‘civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers’, the pontiff said at the Paul VI Hall.
Francis has been photographed petting dogs, allowed a baby lamb to be draped over his shoulders during Epiphany in 2014 and even petted a tiger and a baby panther.
But while his predecessor, Benedict XVI, was a cat lover, Francis is not known to have a pet at his Vatican residence.
In 2014, Francis told Il Messaggero daily that having pets instead of children was ‘another phenomenon of cultural degradation’, and that emotional relationships with pets was ‘easier’ than the ‘complex’ relationship between parents and children.
On Wednesday, while inviting couples who are unable to have children for biological reasons to consider adoption, he urged potential parents ‘not to be afraid’ in embarking on parenthood.
‘Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child, in denying paternity,’ he said.
He argued for the simplification of adoption procedures ‘so that the dream of so many children who need a family, and of so many spouses who wish to give themselves in love, can come true.’
‘This kind of choice is among the highest forms of love, and of fatherhood and motherhood,’ he said. ‘How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them!’
The Argentine pontiff has in the past denounced the ‘demographic winter’, or falling birth rates in the developed world.
Earlier this year, he criticised modern society, in which career and money-making trumps building a family for many, calling such mentality ‘gangrene for society’.
Francis has been photographed petting dogs, allowed a baby lamb to be draped over his shoulders during Epiphany in 2014 (pictured)
Pope Francis pets a tiger at an audience marking the jubilee of circus and travelling show performers at the Vatican in June 2016
For the first time, a layman and a nun provided the English and Spanish translations of Francis’ weekly catechism lesson rather than a cloaked monsignor, a small but revolutionary change for the Vatican.
Vatican monsignors from the secretariat of state have always provided the summarised translations at the Wednesday general audience. On Wednesday, the clerics only read the translations in French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Polish and Italian.
The Vatican announced the change ahead of time, saying that starting Wednesday ‘men and women, religious and lay employees of several dicasteries of the Roman Curia, will be present at the General Audience for the reading of the greetings in various languages.’
During his nearly nine-year pontificate, Francis has often criticized the element of Catholic culture that puts priests on a pedestal and has advocated for the ‘people of God’ to take their rightful place in the church.
He has called for women in particular to serve in governance roles and has appointed a handful of women religious to important jobs in the Vatican, though none heads a Vatican congregation.
He is currently presiding over a two-year consultation of the Catholic laity around the globe to understand the needs and desires of ordinary faithful and how the church can better serve them.
For the first time, a layman and a nun provided the English and Spanish translations of Francis’ weekly catechism lesson rather than a cloaked monsignor, a small but revolutionary change for the Vatican (pictured, the Pope leads his weekly audience in the Vatican today)
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