Pope claims couples who choose to have pets but not children are ‘selfish’
Francis believes doing so ‘takes away our humanity’.
The Pope has suggested that people who substitute pets for children are selfish.
Francis claimed doing so ‘takes away our humanity’.
The comments – which are not the first the Pope has made criticising childless pet owners – drew criticism from animal groups.
Discussing parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, the pontiff lamented how pets ‘sometimes take the place of children’ in society.
‘Today… we see a form of selfishness,’ he said.
‘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 head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics added – in comments that are likely to raise eyebrow – among childless pet owners, that the practice ‘is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity’.
He told the Paul VI Hall: ‘Civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers.’
The 85-year-old, who has been photographed stroking 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 thought to have a pet at his Vatican residence.
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Italy’s International Organization for the Protection of Animals (OIPA) said it was ‘strange to think that the pope considers the love in our lives limited quantitatively’ and highlighted the sacrifices of volunteers who save the lives of animals.
OIPA President Massimo Comparotto said: ‘It is evident that for Francis, animal life is less important than human life.
‘But those who feel that life is sacred love life beyond species.’
In 2014, Francis told Il Messaggero daily that having pets instead of children was ‘another phenomenon of cultural degradation’, adding that emotional relationships with pets are ‘easier’ than the ‘complex’ relationship between parents and children.
As he invited couples who are unable to have children for biological reasons to consider adoption, he urged potential parents ‘not to be afraid’ of the responsibility.
‘Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child, in denying paternity,’ he said.
The Argentine Pope has in the past denounced the ‘demographic winter’, or falling birth rates in the developed world.
Earlier this year, he criticised modern society, saying careers and money-making trumps building a family for many, calling the mentality ‘gangrene for society’.
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