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Pope says couples who choose pets over kids are selfish. 4 times Pontifex made a statement, literally

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Akshata Kamath
Akshata KamathJan 06, 2022 | 19:02

Pope says couples who choose pets over kids are selfish. 4 times Pontifex made a statement, literally

Pope Francis, the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church is no stranger to controversy but is always looked up to as the Pope who brought a lot of changes. Being the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, and the first non-European pope in over a thousand years, he has been noted for his humility and his concern for the poor. 

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The Pope recently spoke about how he was seeing selfishness in a new form these days as people were placing more importance on dogs and cats, and allowing them to take the place of 'children'. As per his opinion, the experience of fatherhood and motherhood is essential for our civilisation to understand humanity. He later mentioned that having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child.

Children over Pets. Photo: Instagram
Children over pets. Photo: Instagram

TWITTER REACTS

Twitter rightfully had strong reactions to these words. 

1. AGAIN, WHO IS SELFISH? 

2. HOW MANY DOES HE HAVE HIMSELF? 

3. WE DARE YOU TO SAY IT AGAIN! 

4. IT'S EASY TO GET OFFENDED 

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5. LET THE BATTLE BEGIN! 

6. WHO WILL PAY THE BILLS? 

THE OTHER TIMES WHEN THE POPE TURNED HEADS

1. THE FINANCIALLY PRUDENT POPE

In the first few years of his tenure, the Pope encouraged the Catholic heirarchs to be financially prudent and responsible. But he eventually showed that he was serious about it by ordering a 10% pay cut for Cardinals across the board, and slashing salaries for Vatican employees. He also imposed a 40 Euro ($45) gift cap, all this to manage the Vatican’s 50-million euro ($57 million) budget.  

via GIPHY

2. OPEN TO HOMOSEXUALITY, BUT WON'T BLESS THEM 

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” When the Pope said these statements, shocks and surprises were expressed around the world. Would these words change the course of the Catholic Church forever? 

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This statement made LGBTQ magazine The Advocate name Pope Francis as its "2013 Person of the Year".  Being the first Pope of the Social Media age, his remark showed a stark contrast between the Church's attitudes towards the LGBTQ community and his personal views. His focus was on loving and accepting a person as a whole, instead of looking at their sexual tendencies to decide whether they receive essential support and guidance. 

But here is the thing: Vatican priests cannot bless same sex unions because such unions are "not ordered to the Creator's plan''. As per the Vatican, Union is defined as the marriage between a Man and a Woman and since same sex unions are "a sin", and God cannot bless sin. 

This move alienated the Church from younger followers, who had hoped that the Church would evolve with changing times and would move to liberal beliefs. 

3. WELCOME, DEAR FEMALES TO HIGHER TASKS AT MASS. BUT PRIESTHOOD, UMM NO

On a flight from Sweden, the Pope was asked if there ever would be female priests in the coming decades and if not, were they afraid of competition? To this, the Pope mentioned that he was following the declaration made by his ancestor St John Paul II, and that there would never be female priests. But he went on to say how Catcholic history is based on 2 dimensions - the Pastoral activity (male dimension) and the Marian Dimension (feminine dimension) and how the feminine was more important than the masculine. 

In January 2021, the Pope amended the Church law to allow women to administer communion and serve at the altar, but cannot be priests as there is no precedent for female priests. Women are allowed to recite prayers during mass, but gospel readings can be done only by a male priest. This despite churches all over the world experiencing a shortage in the number of priests.

4. SEX SCANDALS

The Church has faced sexual abuse allegations for decades, but senior officials had never really done much except for transferring clergymen to other parishes; as if transferring them would solve the problem. In 2013, Pope Francis created a committee to fight sex abuse and appointed 8 people to the committee in 2014. He publicly apologised for the Vatican's actions (and inactions), but his own actions have not proved to make much of a difference as he seems to only be a man of words. 

Maria, a sex abuse survivor who was one of the 8 in the committee, stepped down from the committee since the Vatican resisted from redressing its wrongs and was reluctant to comply with a simple recommendation: to respond to all correspondence from the people who identified themselves as victims of abuse.

The news of child sex abuse rocked the Vatican again in 2016 when Cardinal George Pell, the Treasurer and the third most senior official of the Vatican was charged with multiple sex assaults in Australia. In 2018, George Pell was found guilty of sexually abusing 2 children and was sentenced to 6 years in prison. In April 2020, a bench of the HC ruled for the convictions to be dismissed. 

Chile had also similarly dealt with the case of Father Karadima, who was sentenced by the Vatican to a “lifetime of penance and prayer” for decades of child abuse and that of Bishop Juan Barros, who was accused of covering up Karadima's act. When Pope was asked to talk about this, he got defensive saying, “The day they bring me proof against the bishop, “then I will speak. There is not a single proof against him. This is calumny! Is that clear?”  

He later partially apologised for these remarks as it was a slap in the face for Karadima's victims and an example of lack of empathy.

What do you think about the Pope's recent statement on kids vs pets? Let us know in the comments.

 

Last updated: January 06, 2022 | 19:02
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