To think Pope Francis is talking out of his arse here?

[CounsellorTroi]

Says couples who prefer pets to children are selfish. It’s a bit rich from someone who effectively chose not to have children when he became a priest.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/05/pope-couples-choose-pets-children-selfish

He doesn’t know what he is talking about, it’s more selfish having kids you don’t want. Does he not watch the news 😏

Man who decided on a specific career rather than having children tells others they must have children.

@OwMyToe

Fortunately I don't have to care what he thinks, but yes, it's obnoxious.

Few people have children out of selflessness. People have children because they want them or want the societal acceptance and perks that come with having children. Not having children is no more selfish than having them, imo.

People have children because they want them or want the societal acceptance and perks that come with having children.

Seriously???

@LastInTheQueue

Like any religion, Catholicism relies on new intake. Indoctrination, rather than conversion, provides the numbers needed.

Well if so many of them weren't dying of hunger and disease in childhood then there would be more left to believe, wouldn't there?

@ShinyHappyPoster

So facts become less valid if your sectarianism gets in the way? Are the population comments valid if they come from governments? Businesses? Global bodies? Because they have all flagged up this issue. It's not feminism that stops you engaging with the issues because the majority of paid and unpaid carers are women. Ignoring the facts about population issues to 'joke' about abusing children - ffs I mean really?!? - doesn't change the crisis in elderly care that Western countries are facing.

Finally!

Thank you!

Isn't he named after the most famous Catholic animal-lover of them all? Saint F will be turning in his grave

I think he's got a point to some extent that people used to have pets they kept in kennels outdoors, disciplined with the odd kick etc. Now pet ownership seems much more invested with animal psychologists and all kinds of kit.

I don't see that as a problem really though. People don't have large families any more because of the cost of living and because women want careers, and because frankly lots of parenthood is a tedious slog so people don't want decades and decades of it.

The Catholic church's problem is that its own followers think the teaching on contraception is nuts and ignore it. If they tried haranguing Catholic couples who have no kids or only one or two, those couples would likely leave the church. Which would be no bad thing. The church has no future in developed countries.

It's not just Catholics who fall into this trap, though. Remember Giles Fraser saying that we should be looking after our own elderly at home instead of relying on European carers? Of course, in reality, the 'we' is almost always the woman.

It's not much good to the church of followers keep having dogs instead of children - the dogs just cannot be relied upon to go to church.

In a church in Italy once a little old lady asked me to hold her dog’s lead while she went up for communion.

Actually is this a potential gap in the market: communion wafers for dogs? People spend unreal amounts on pet food these days. Old Popey here might want to investigate.

@Feliana

Actually is this a potential gap in the market: communion wafers for dogs? People spend unreal amounts on pet food these days. Old Popey here might want to investigate.

Communion Woof-ers?

Yes! 🤣

Who the hell listens to this bollocks?
An organisation which was imprisoning unmarried women and allowing priests to rape then well into the late 1990s. Then to top it all of they marry the adulterer Boris Johnson who has many illegitimate children.
Christ on a bike how dare he tell anyone what to do.
How dare any man tell a woman what to do with her own body, never mind her entire life.
I do have children but I would advise any woman who is not absolutely sure she wants them to not have them.
If you aren't sure then don't. Especially nowadays as So many women and up alone as struggling single parents and you are expected to be joined at the hip to your child at all times.

@Porcupineintherough

Maybe the Catholic church could concern itself with the lives of the millions of children in the world who live and die in poverty before it encourages the faithful to bring more children into the world. Even if it just worried about the Catholic ones that'd be an improvement.

It does.

@CanIPleaseHaveOne

www.wsj.com/articles/vatican-uses-donations-for-the-poor-to-plug-its-budget-deficit-11576075764

Have a read of the results of this investigation if you really think the Catholic Church does anywhere near what it could do to help poor people in poor countries. Peter's Pence donations are around $55 million annually. Only 10% of that goes to charitable works. The rest to fight the Vatican's budget deficit.

Have you been to the Vatican? I have and I honestly don't know how Catholic people can visit and feel proud of a faith that displays such opulence and obscene displays of wealth while simultaneously preaching kindness to those less fortunate. Disgraceful.

@MabelsApron

Funny how we only seem to need to have a spiritual discussion about what people without children are doing. Parents are just automatically assumed to be spiritual.

Why does it matter to anyone else if I got a dog instead of having a child? Why does that require an existential discussion on how I’m using my time on earth? Can’t you just be happy with your own lot and leave me alone to create my own version of a family?

Parents are just automatically assumed to be spiritual.

I think the idea of sacrificial love must be in there, and agape.

Pets love us unconditionally, very satisfying (thanks pooch, I do love you too). The harder challange is giving love unconditionally - as a parent to a chlid - sustained for many long years!

Which by the way we all know being the offspring ourselves!

@TheABC

If the Pope is in favour of families, he can end celibacy within the Church and allow priests to marry.

Until that point (and until women can ascend the clerical hierarchy, just as men can) I am going to discount what he says on this issue.

If the Pope is in favour of families, he can end celibacy within the Church and allow priests to marry.

They view that as a sacrifice. In the past it was viewed, or at least presnted that way.

@CanIPleaseHaveOne so why are their do many children living in extreme poverty in the slums of South America? The church is rich but its main efforts here seem to be denying the poor access to contraception and persecuting women for seeking an abortion.

In fairness, Porcupineintherough, if you keep people poor by encouraging them to have too many children and they're run off their feet looking after them, they're likely to have much less mindspace to query the church, it's practices and teaching

Which is a pretty good motivation for encouraging all those children in the first place ...

I wondered if it was a preamble to announcing that he has a hoard of secret children from a series of affairs.
Hypocritical old goat.

I agree with him - lavishing all your love on an animal does have an element of selfishness (I say this as someone who loves her pets to bits, especially when I was ttc and had a miscarriage), as animals will not challenge your bad behaviour and are not difficult to love, unlike children. Animals require less sacrifice and are less all-consuming. While some people have children for the wrong reasons, generally speaking procreation and raising children does require a great deal of self-effacement

I really cannot get my head around this at all. Do you understand what selfish means? Having a child is the most selfish thing ever. You are choosing to bring a person into this world, for them to have a few years of (hopefully) happy childhood and then to have to find something they don't hate to work at to feed themselves until they are old enough to retire and then die. That's it. You have a child because you want to. To fulfill your desires and wants. They have to then navigate their way through a life on this planet because you chose to put them here. How is that not the absolute definite of selfishness?

@MabelsApron

Funny how we only seem to need to have a spiritual discussion about what people without children are doing. Parents are just automatically assumed to be spiritual.

Why does it matter to anyone else if I got a dog instead of having a child? Why does that require an existential discussion on how I’m using my time on earth? Can’t you just be happy with your own lot and leave me alone to create my own version of a family?

I said spiritual discussion could be had. It doesn't matter, it doesn't require an existential discussion on how you're using your time on earth. I am happy with my lot and haven't engaged directly with you about your version of family. I don't know why you're making my opinion about you.

When I said a spiritual discussion could be had, I meant that people who are spiritual could have a lot to say about meaningfulness in life now that so much more time is available because of modern conveniences. From contraception and childcare to air travel and amazon, the average adult in the West has more time than previous generations. It doesn't matter what you do with your time. It could matter to spiritual people how they spend their own time now that they have much more choice in how they spend it.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@CanIPleaseHaveOne so why are their do many children living in extreme poverty in the slums of South America? The church is rich but its main efforts here seem to be denying the poor access to contraception and persecuting women for seeking an abortion.[/quote]
I think that poverty exists across all religions - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc, and sadly across most of the world.
Religious belief will not define your financial status.

I am strongly in favour of contraception and access to abortion. Indeed, had I not had access to a safe abortion as a young woman my life would have been entirely different, and I am pretty sure not in a good way.

That being said, it seems to me that if the head of the Catholic church is against contraception, abortion, death sentence etc it consistant with their belief system.

Let's be honest - I could not give a flyer what he has to say.

@Smorgasborb

Why are we giving airtime to this head of an abusive cult?

All these religions need to go the way of the dinosaurs. Christianity, Catholic, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, etc. all cults.