Pope Frances scolded couples last Wednesday for choosing pets over children.
Before a general audience, the Pope contrasted Saint Joseph’s selfless, earthly fatherhood of Jesus with the “selfish” pet parenting some adherents choose. He deemed Joseph’s act as “among the highest forms of love” then said of people who raise pets instead of children: “ . . . this denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us. It takes away our humanity . . . And our homeland suffers as it does not have children.”
The Pope also criticized couples for having just one child while having two or more pets (“Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children.”) and urged infertile couples to consider adoption (“How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them.”).
In a Vatican radio address in 2014, the Pope made similar remarks about pets, referencing “This culture of well-being [has] convinced us, ‘It’s better not to have children’.”
Shocking as the Pope’s declaration was to some, it appears consistent with traditional Catholic doctrine. It follows that reduced progeny spells a withering future population of believers. Diversion of emotional, spiritual and material resources away from children and onto pets is viewed as a both cause and threat. Still, many expected more tolerance from their “progressive” spiritual leader.
Pet parents across the globe have condemned the Pope’s remarks as insensitive, presumptive and sexist, saying they don’t account for individual choice, dire financial circumstances or the formative role one can play to nieces and nephews within extended families.
“If Catholicism is about family, I’ve been very successful at being a great family member,” Sophie Lusby, a NHS Manager in Belfast, told The Guardian. “I don’t need to be told off.”
Estee Nagy, a jeweler in London, added, “Having a child in today’s world is a luxury. It’s easier for those who were simply lucky and are rich or have more money than an average salary, but it gets harder when there isn’t enough.”
Embedded in the Pope’s admonition is the suggestion that love for pets is readily transferrable to human children be they biological or adopted. If we somehow abandon all this self-centeredness and plumb our maternal or paternal well, we can multiply — and humanity will be saved.
Anyone who has raised both children and pets can tell you that the skill sets involved for each are hardly equivalent. There may be considerable overlap in terms of devotion and nurture, but they are neither qualitatively nor quantitatively the same. For one, the parent of a human child will likely see several generations of pets die during the course of their child’s life. Moreover, people who are exclusively pet parents never negotiate the complexities of a developing psyche stewing within a burbling cauldron of hormones.
This fact in no way diminishes pet parenting. Some people, for reasons true to their sovereign selves, choose not to bear or adopt children. My wife and I are in that group. We did not cower at the specter of change involved in bringing a human baby into the world; we thoughtfully decided not to have one. Should that preclude us — or thousands of other childless singles or couples — from offering life and love to an abused or neglected being simply because it is not human? Is it really “selfish” of those of us equipped with the motivation and means to care for one of the tens of millions of homeless animals? I daresay that it is quite noble.
Conspicuously absent from the Pope’s addresses is his belief as to the role of pets in the family. Are they acceptable, adjunct family members once an unspecified number of children have been created? Vessels to teach responsibility to children? Or, God forbid, a discardable warmup for the babies to come?
This ambiguity is at the very least curious given the Pope’s self-selected name after the patron saint of animals.