KOCHI: Pope Francis’ description of people’s preference for pets over babies as “selfish and denial of parenthood” has been a topic of debate on social media across the globe. Though the remarks were viewed with distaste by many including pet lovers, the Church in Kerala points to the rising trend in Europe slowly making its way into the community here.
The Pope, while addressing the general audience in the Vatican, said that couples who prefer pets to children are “selfish” and substituting pets for children “takes away our humanity”. “In European countries generally, the importance for pets is more than even their kids.
As per their culture, the parents do not have to take responsibility of their children after attaining a certain age. Parents have also developed a similar mindset and they do not expect the children to take care of them after the latter are well settled. The Pope through his remarks aimed that family ties should be strengthened and, in a Catholic family atmosphere, pets should not be given more importance than children,” said Fr Jacob Palakkapilly, deputy secretarygeneral and spokesperson of Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC). Nowadays, the mindset of young working couples has changed. Most of them prefer to delay having children or not having them due to various reasons.
“In the old traditions in the society, the parents forced women to conceive and raise kids. The individual desires of the couples, career and financial stability were not considered by anyone. There is a huge responsibility falls on the couples once a child is born. Raising kids and giving them education cannot be compromised in any case. Why won’t the Church take up the education of the children if it promotes procreation?”asks Sally George, an activist based in Kochi.
“I have a few friends who have taken the decision to have no kids for a very long time. They are lovers of pets at the same time as well,” said James P, an IT professional and a resident of Kochi. In his address, the Pope said, “Today, we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have a child. 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.” Pet keeping was “a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity and as a result, the civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood”, and it is the country that suffers, said the pontiff.
The KCBC had earlier expressed concern over the dwindling population of the Christian community here. It had claimed that Christians formed 24.6% of the population in the 1950s. Now, the number has come down to 17.2%. Currently, the birth rate among Christians in the state is the lowest — 1.8%, said KCBC.
“The rising work stress makes couples delay having children. Irrespective of a particular community, there is an increase in the number of people not desiring kids as well but while compared to rest of the countries, the numbers are low here. The objective of Christian marriage itself is procreation, ” said Fr Palakkapilly. The KCBC had earlier come out in support of the welfare schemes announced by the churches for families with five and more children.