Pope suggests people who have pets, not children, are ‘selfish’
- Pope Francis tells audience in Vatican that dogs and cats sometimes take the place of children and not having offspring is ‘form of selfishness’
- It is not the first time he has aired such views; in 2014 he said having pets instead of children was ‘another phenomenon of cultural degradation’
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Pope Francis risked the ire of the world’s childless dog and cat owners on Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for children exhibit “a certain selfishness”.
Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets “sometimes take the place of children” in society.
“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.”
Thus, “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 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.
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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.
The Argentine pontiff has in the past denounced the “demographic winter”, or falling birth rates in the developed world.
He has criticised modern society, in which career and moneymaking trumps building a family for many, calling such mentality “gangrene for society”.
