In the first general audience of the year, at the Vatican, on Wednesday (5), Pope Francis criticized those who do not want to have children, which would be a form of selfishness, and lamented that domestic animals “occupy this place”.
“Today we see a form of selfishness. Some do not want to have children. Sometimes they have one and they stop there, but there are dogs and cats that occupy that place,” he said. “It might make people laugh, but it’s reality.”
Francisco also asked institutions to facilitate adoption processes, to make the dream of children who need a family and couples who want to take in them come true. “The denial of fatherhood and motherhood diminishes us, takes away our humanity, civilization ages,” he said.
The pontiff even again criticized the so-called “demographic winter” and the “dramatic fall in the birth rate” registered in many Western countries, inviting people to have children or to adopt them.
“Having a child is always a risk, whether natural or adopted. But more risky is not having one. More risky is denying paternity, denying maternity, whether real or spiritual,” Francisco insisted.
It is not the first time that Francisco makes this kind of criticism. In 2015, he had already said that not wanting to have children is a selfish act and that “a society with a greedy generation, which does not want to surround itself with children, which considers them a source of concern, a burden, a risk, is a society depressed”.
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