"It Is Selfish To Have Animal Pets Instead Of Children" - Pope Francis Blasts Westerners

Pope Francis today hit out at 'selfish' couples who have pets instead of children as he called for parents to have more offspring to solve the West's 'demographic winter'.

Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets 'sometimes take the place of children' in society.

'Today... we see a form of selfishness,' said the pope. 'We see that some people do not want to have a child.

'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.'

The practice, said the head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, 'is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity'.

He said couples should have more children to address the 'demographic winter' in much of the West and called for couples who can't have children to be open to adoption.   

Thus, 'civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers', the pontiff said at the Paul VI Hall.

Francis has been photographed petting dogs, allowed a baby lamb to be draped over his shoulders during Epiphany in 2014 and even petted a tiger and a baby panther.

But while his predecessor, Benedict XVI, was a cat lover, Francis is not known to have a pet at his Vatican residence.

In 2014, Francis told Il Messaggero daily that having pets instead of children was 'another phenomenon of cultural degradation', and that emotional relationships with pets was 'easier' than the 'complex' relationship between parents and children.

On Wednesday, while inviting couples who are unable to have children for biological reasons to consider adoption, he urged potential parents 'not to be afraid' in embarking on parenthood.

'Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child, in denying paternity,' he said.

He argued for the simplification of adoption procedures 'so that the dream of so many children who need a family, and of so many spouses who wish to give themselves in love, can come true.'

'This kind of choice is among the highest forms of love, and of fatherhood and motherhood,' he said. 'How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them!'

The Argentine pontiff has in the past denounced the 'demographic winter', or falling birth rates in the developed world.

Earlier this year, he criticised modern society, in which career and money-making trumps building a family for many, calling such mentality 'gangrene for society'.

Posted: at 5-01-2022 09:23 PM (2 years ago) | Addicted Hero

Tell your reverend fathers and priests to get marry and stop yanshing lil boys in a corner. I once Know of a sister who almost killed a student because  he refused to give in to her pressure to f&&k her. Not a joke true story,  That shit happened in while was in UNIBEN in 2005 . We all including those guys live in same house in Ekosodi

Posted: at 6-01-2022 03:51 AM (2 years ago) | Gistmaniac