Kids or pets

 So the Pope is in some hot water over some recent comments he made about people choosing to have pets over children.  According to some sources he called them selfish.  Why would he say that?

I generally don't comment on the Pope any longer, and for a variety of reasons.  One of them is because, and this stems back to Benedict at the very least, the Popes are misquoted far more often than quoted.  The media cherry picks a few words, takes them out of context, twists them, and sometimes flat out lies when it comes to Popes and their words.  In Benedict's time, the media would hate Benedict for the words they put in his mouth. In Francis' pontificate, they love him for the words they put in his.  Usually, but not this time.  The people who cheered him when he said people should not breed like rabbits have turned against him.  Let's assume he said what he is ascribed to have said: why would he say that?

One of the things I have learned through hard experience is to never, ever speak of why or why not people have children, or how many, or are they trying, or when do they plan on having, or any of that.  It is far too personal a topic, and for many people a terribly, terribly painful one.  I have been on both ends of those conversations.  I have said things that have caused people pain.  I have had people twist knives in ever open wounds of mine.  I remember some years ago when I attended the EF I was having breakfast after Mass when one of the other parishioners felt it appropriate to accuse me of using artificial birth control at the breakfast table.  When I told him we didn't he then accused me of lying- proof of which was that my wife and I had but two children in twelve or thirteen years of marriage.  I was finally moved enough to anger to tell this man what I normally keep to myself, and which was really none of his business- that my wife and I had four miscarriages, the last of which had been but a few months earlier.  It shut him down, but it drew no apology from him, nor any admission that he had blundered into a matter that was absolutely none of his business, nor did he even look embarrassed or acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, this was a sensitive topic.  Had he said what he said to me to one of the infertile couples I know, one of the ones who had spent thousands on failed fertility treatments, I imagine they would have reached across the table to strike him in his foolish mouth.  Not acceptable, of course, but understandable. 

Similarly, my wife and I were once attending Mass (this time OF) when the priest during his homily went on a rant about abortion, and quickly segued into ignorance.  He broke off to say that doctors were no longer calling abortions abortions, but were using the term DNC (Dilation 'n' Curettage) to hide the truth.  Here's the thing: he was wrong. A DNC is standard practice following an early term miscarriage and the woman's period has not yet reinstated.  It is done to keep the woman from going toxic and other issues that could arise from having a dead and now rotting fetus in the body.  And, as luck would have it, my wife had just had one about a week earlier following our most recent miscarriage.  She left the church during that homily.  She would never return to that parish as long as that priest remained there.

So I repeat: I believe it is only with the greatest of care that one would even discuss another person's procreation, and I believe that it is best to not discuss it at all, at least on my part.  And above all, do not pretend to be a mind reader who knows the innermost desires of the heart of another. If you are going to assume someone's reasons for their choices, charity demands we assume their reasons to be good, until we find out otherwise.  What the Pope is reported to have said seems to run contrary to that.  I can imagine some people who have struggled with fertility issues and who are wavering in their faith finding themselves pushed out the door by this.

So  why would the Pope say this, or something close to this for the newspapers to report?

Well, there are some- some-  people in the Western world who are choosing to have pets rather than children, those who are voluntarily sterile, and many of them believe they are right and justified in their choice.  Many of them even choose to make what is, strictly speaking, their business everyone's business by crowing it from the rooftop- and at the same time still maintaining that what they have made public is still a private matter.

Giving him the benefit of the charity I just called for, I assume the Pope was speaking to such people, and not to those who have no choice in the matter.  Unfortunately, either through the cherry picking of the media, or the Pope's own idiom (he has a tendency to speak in hyperbole and absolutes- a cultural or perhaps language issue that does not translate well into English as much as it is a personal idiosyncrasy, I suppose)  that nuance may have been lost, assuming it was there in the first place. As I said, nuance does not seem to be this Pope's forte.   Many in the media have told him to mind his own business, but telling a Pope to mind his own business is telling the Pope to not be Pope.

Why would he feel so strongly on this matter?  His words he is said to have said were unusually harsh, at least in translation.  Why would he strike so? Does he hate pets?

Aquinas, following Aristotle and others, has identified virtue in giving each and everything the respect it deserves and keeping it in its proper place, and within its proper bounds.  The sight of people referring to pets as their fur babies, or as their children, breaks those bounds, and goes quite outside the proper order.  One does not need to hate pets to say this is not their proper sphere or place.  This is half the problem that I can see.

The other half, I believe, can be found in where the Pope comes from.  He has come from a country where poverty and corruption is endemic, and he has struggled on behalf of the poor his entire time.  He has made it the overriding theme of his pontificate.  When you come from a place where the people are treated like dogs, seeing dogs treated like people and better is a cause of scandal and even outrage.

Kids and pets- they are very sensitive topics.