Lecturing people about not becoming parents is never a great idea, but it’s even more absurd when you’re the celibate leader of a religion that has consistently made efforts to prevent LGBTQ+ people from adopting children in need.
But that’s still what Pope Francis recently opted to do while speaking at the Vatican, specifically calling out people who choose to have pets “instead” of children, as if it’s truly an either/or scenario.
"Today, we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have children, or just one and no more,” he said. “And many, many couples do not have children because they do not want to, or they have just one — but they have two dogs, two cats… Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children.”
He also insisted that the “denial of fatherhood and motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity.”
“[And] it is the country that suffers,” he claimed.
There are an incredible number of reasons people might choose not to have children, certainly including the overwhelming financial burden that begins even before birth in some countries, including the United States. Then there’s also the part where we don’t know how habitable the world will be when children being born today are growing old, thanks to climate change.
But there are still children being born and put up for adoption, and Pope Francis suggested it is selfish for people to not step up and take care of them.
And while some may argue that it is, in fact, the responsibility of a civilized society to look out for its children (and to provide adequate resources for people who do so), the fact remains that many same-sex couples struggle when trying to adopt, due largely to the influence of religious organizations such as the Catholic church.
Just last year, the Supreme Court ruled that Philadelphia had to allow a Roman Catholic adoption agency to discriminate against same-sex applicants — people fully willing and able to commit to providing stability for children in need — because doing otherwise would constitute religious discrimination.
Yet the pope has the audacity to suggest people who don’t have children are being selfish.
Needless to say, folks weren’t having it.
Surprisingly enough, the pope has yet to come forth and tell Catholic organizations to stop discriminating against same-sex couples. The children need looking after, but apparently not that much.
