Pope Francis To Couples: Raise Children, Not Pets
I’m not a Roman Catholic and usually like to stick to topics of a Baptist or evangelical bent, but. There is this.
Isn’t the Pope supposed to be a single, celibate dude? Then what gives with the anti-singles view of pushing kids and marriage and “family?” Shame on this Pope, for shame.
I find this kind of thing quite rude. I harbor no animosity per se at this Pope, but I hate how society, and religious types in particular, keep scolding people for their life choices, in particular with choices pertaining to parenting or marriage.
If a married couple chooses to have dogs or cats instead of kids, get off their backs already.
It is none of your business if a couple does not want to have children, or prefers dogs to babies.
By the by, adult children are notorious for NOT visiting their parents in nursing homes, so the Pope’s plea that you crank out children so you will not be “lonely in old age” is a bunch of ca-ca, doo-doo. You can get married, have ten, or forty, children, and STILL end up “being lonely in old age.”
(Link): Pope tells married couples: have children, not pets
From a CF (Child Free) discussion board conversation
(read what various child-free people think about the Pope’s remarks – warning: many CF are atheist, left wing politically, and hostile towards Christians and conservatives, but their views can be worth a read on occasion):
- (Link):
Pope Francis is just like the rest of them, after all.
(Link): Pope Francis Cautions Couples Not To Substitute Pets for Kids
(Link): Pope tells married couples: have children, not pets
- Pontiff says couples who decide not to procreate and opt to get a dog or cat instead face the ‘bitterness of loneliness’ in old age
by Lizzy Davies in Rome
theguardian.com, Tuesday 3 June 2014 06.58 EDT
Pope Francis has warned married couples who choose not to have children that they are heading for an old age blighted by “the bitterness of loneliness”.
In a homily on Monday in the Vatican guesthouse where he lives, the Argentinian pontiff railed against “a culture of wellbeing” which he said had convinced some people they were better off shunning procreation and getting a pet instead.
“This culture of wellbeing … convinced us it’s better not to have children. It’s better! That way you can see the world, go on holidays; you can have a house in the country and be carefree,” he said. “Maybe it is better, more convenient, to have a little dog, two cats; and the love goes to the two cats and the little dog,” he said.
But such couples their ways, he said. “Eventually this marriage gets to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness. It is not fertile; it does not do what Jesus does with his church: he makes it fertile.”
Francis, 77, was holding a special mass at the chapel at the Domus Sanctae Marthae for 15 couples who had been married for between 25 and 60 years, Vatican Radio reported.
He told them fertility was one of the three planks of a successful marriage, alongside faithfulness and perseverance.
“Married life must be perseverant … because otherwise love cannot go forward,” he said. “Perseverance in love, in good times and in bad times, when there are problems: problems with the children, economic problems, problems here, problems there – but love perseveres, presses on, always trying to work things out, to save the family.”
What about saving the adult single? What is the obsession with family, family, family?
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Related posts:
(Link): Praying for a Child – The Catholic Church makes life impossible for infertile women.
(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family / Marriage) (article)
(Link): Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world by Catherine Deveny
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