To think the pope has a point??

[HiggleDyPigGeldy]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65572153

I was in Italy recently and visited several large towns in the North. More dogs being walked than babies in buggies.

I think they'll have find ways to artificially create human life in future. AI may also assist when the population falls too low - I think that's partly why there's such a big push to bring it in.

If you are wringing your hands about overpopulation in the west I assume you believe in not keeping the elderly living as long as possible?

MN always goes nuts when I make this comment but yes, I am a strong advocate for voluntary euthanasia. I personally would avail myself of it because I have no desire whatsoever to end up in a care home. At the point where I have no quality of life, I want to end my life with my dignity intact.

Emphasis on the VOLUNTARY, before everyone starts howling.

He’s only worried there will be less people to be members of his cult.

I’d choose a dog rather than bring kids into that nonsense.

The population becomes better off when the population has a sudden decline in population. The years after ww1 were much better for the working classes. We can’t keep worrying about the future and who will look after us. That just exacerbates the problem and kicks the can down the road. We need to listen to David Attenborough.
The pope is happy for the peasants to keep breeding so they can continue to take their money ……

The years after ww1 were much better for the working classes

Try telling that to the working classes in WW2.

@ConsuelaHammock Yup. Also the Renaissance after the Black Death.

Perfectly said and I agree completely.

She is correct though. The country needed workers, and there being less of them meant the working classes had more leverage in negotiating better working conditions, pay, and rights.

@chilliplant634

And at the same time the role of motherhood has been denigrated and is portrayed so negatively. Even if someone does have the income, they would rather spend it on extra holidays or other luxuries, rather than bring another child into the world

I could not disagree more. The Catholic Church largely has itself to blame for this. Quite apart from the hypocrisy of largely gay celibate men opine on matters only affecting women.

If your contention about “valuing motherhood” is true (and I’m not sure it is), it’s because women in western countries such as Italy now feel they have greater choice and are no longer automatically destined to be mothers and wives. And are tired of having these choices circumscribed by make society.

I had thought this particular Pope seemed among the better of a very bad lot but the Catholic Church has systematically marginalised women from society for millennia and has created an entire moral infrastructure designed to shame women for having person freedom or expressing any individual views. Not to mention dictating their family planning choices and stigmatising them when they have children in the “wrong” circumstances.

If women in Italy (the cradle of Catholicism) choose more for their lives than traditional motherhood the Catholic Church might want to do a bit of self reflection as to how they got to that point. As opposed to continuing to bully them to have more children.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Lots of children/ big families tend to be born to two income brackets - the wealthy and the poor. When the poor realise that their best chances of not being poor is to have fewer children and for them to have a good education then perhaps they won’t be so keen to produce workers for the rich .
My granny was one of 11, she had 6, my mum had 4, I have 2. Our family have become progressively better off throughout the generations. I don’t want my children to work in crappy jobs for wealthy people just to pay for food and shelter. I’d rather have a smaller family and give them a good future .
There’s a very good saying ‘ The wealthy plan for the next generation, the poor plan for the weekend’. I don’t want my family and descendants to be poor. It’s shit!
The pope wants lots of peasants to keep money flowing to Rome!

What the pope meant is not more babies, it’s more Catholics . Particularly given the greater fecundity of those that follow Islam.

My thoughts exactly! May ever more people have their eyes opened.

The wealthy love immigrants. A surplus of labour will always keep wages low.

It’s just about recruiting souls for the Catholic Church which is a powerful, wealthy & influential organisation in its own right

Why would anyone actively want their children to take the bins out for the wealthy? Let the wealthy take their own bins out. Our children aren’t here to make wealthy people’s lives more comfortable. This should never be used in an argument as to why everyone should be able to have as many children as they want. They deserve more! Why don’t people want more for their children?

Indeed. Ask the Irish families about the visits from the local priest if they were still childless after the first year of marriage ! It’s shocking what went on in the name of the church.

Francis, is that you?😁

It's all well and good religion not believing in contraception but do they financially contribute to the raising of the extra children, some of which they fathered themselves

So it's OK to pick and choose which part of religion to abide by?

What is this, Kinder, Kirche, Kuche???? Gilead???

Incentives like free childcare and making it easier for women to get back into work after having kids - great.

Women being ‘prodded’ to take a huge, life-changing responsibility that they don’t want - horrendous idea.

The world is not going to run out of people if anything we need less people. Also there are other countries with high birthrates such as most African countries and India etc where the population is growing rapidly. No doubt migration will keep countries with low birth rates well supplied with a younger population through migration which is already happening now.

I’d like the Pope to be pro euthanasia, allowing people the choice of how they end their lives. And pro immigration, to rebalance the global population dynamics.
Give women education, choices through birth control and abortion and the number of children born drops.
Make it impossible to manage on one salary, or make childcare expensive and of variable quality, and the number of children born plummets.
Nagging women to breed is an ineffective strategy for most.
Western, ostensibly Catholic countries are no longer populated by those who feel that listening to the clergy and living their lives by scripture and religious laws is a good idea.

You might want to cover your naked envy a bit better there. Why would you begrudge your childless friends a good life of their own choosing? Presumably you have the bundles of joy you wanted? If you've got buyer's remorse it's hardly your childless friends' fault is it?

The elephant in the room for some is the fact that the Christian population in many places are being replaced by Muslims and that is going to extend to the whole white population. We'll never be under populated because you are never going to convince Muslim men to lower their family size, likewise the men in African countries (although they will get the Church's backing because they are Catholic)

If you look at the statistics over the last three decades, the average number of children in Muslim families resident in the UK has dropped. 2.9 children per family in 2017.
Anecdotal, I worked in a largely first generation immigrant area in the 1990s.
Most families of Pakistani origin had an average of around 5 children. Those of Bangladeshi heritage had families with 6-8 children, although there were a significant number that had more.
Those children at adulthood mostly decided to have between 3-5 children or fewer. That pattern repeats in every community where the women have access to contraception and education. Many of the women were on the pill without their husband’s knowledge.

Newsflash you had children because you wanted them (at least at first by the sounds of it) just like everyone else so get off your high horse and shove off quietly, it's really not the great achievement you imagine it is.

I don’t want my children to work in crappy jobs for wealthy people just to pay for food and shelter.

You are missing the nuance though because it's already happening just in a less obvious form. Workers are already working longer for less & the rich have got richer whereas the majority are getting poorer.

I don’t want my family and descendants to be poor

What are you classing as poor?