Story at a glance
- Pope Francis suggested that couples who choose to not have children or who instead only own pets show a form of selfishness.
- The comment was made during a Wednesday general assembly at the Vatican.
- The focus of the general assembly was to reflect on the importance of parenthood in all its forms.
Pope Francis suggested that couples who do not have children or have pets instead of children show a form of selfishness.
The pontiff made the comments while speaking about parenthood and reflecting on the importance of foster and adoptive parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican.
“Today we see a form of selfishness with our orphan [society],” the Pope said according to The Guardian. “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.”
“Giving up on being a mother and father can take some of your humanity away from us…society becomes older and without humanity because we lose the richness of motherhood and fatherhood,” the head of the world’s 1.34 billion Catholics added.
Pope Francis then spoke about how this choice to not have children was resulting in declining birth rates in developed countries noting a “demographic winter” affecting the world. He then encouraged couples who could not have their own biological children to consider adoption.
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“Having a child is always a risk whether biologically or through adoption but what’s even more risky is renouncing or not having children,” said the pontiff. “We need to be open to motherhood and fatherhood otherwise we can be lacking, we can be lacking in ourselves and we can be lacking in humanity.”
Pope Francis clarified that it is not enough to just bring a child into the world to be a true parent.
“Fathers are not born but made… a man does not become a father but is just bringing a child into the world by taking up the responsibility to care for that child.”
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