Pope Francis Is Right

T he pope’s being Catholic is not exactly newsworthy. Perhaps it’s a sign of the religious illiteracy of our age, then, that Pope Francis’s remarks about the importance of motherhood and fatherhood have upset progressive pet owners.

In his general audience last Wednesday — during a discussion of Saint Joseph, whom Catholics believe to be the foster father of Jesus — Pope Francis called adoption “among the highest forms of love” and said more couples ought to pursue it. The pope also mourned the West’s “demographic winter” and criticized couples having only one or no children. As an example of “selfishness” and disordered priorities, he spoke of those couples choosing to have pets instead of children.

The social trend he’s identified is beyond dispute. Last year, the United States saw the lowest fertility rates since records began. All while pet ownership has been steadily rising among those of childbearing age. The majority of Millennials, approximately three-fourths, are dog owners, and half have cats. In 2016, Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me, noted that “pets are becoming a replacement for children.”

The pontiff said:

Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children. Yes, it is funny, I understand, but it is the reality. And this denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity. And in this way civilization becomes more aged and without humanity, because it loses the richness of fatherhood and motherhood. And our homeland suffers as it does not have children, and, as someone said somewhat humorously, “and now that there are no children, who will pay the taxes for my pension? Who will take care of me?” He laughed, but it is the truth.

The pope said that “those who live in the world and get married, have to think about having children,” while those who are unable to conceive naturally should “think about adoption.” He said that while “having a child is always a risk,” it is far riskier to not have them, since “a man or a woman who do not voluntarily develop a sense of fatherhood or motherhood are lacking something fundamental.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen explained this point well in his book, Three to Get Married:

In a true marriage, there is an ever-enchanting romance. There are at least four distinct mysteries progressively revealed. First, there is the mystery of the other partner, which is body-mystery.

When that mystery is solved and the first child is born, there begins a new mystery. The husband sees something in the wife he never before knew existed, namely, the beautiful mystery of motherhood. She sees a new mystery in him she never before knew existed, namely, the mystery of fatherhood. As other children come to revive their strength and beauty, the husband never seems older to the wife than the day they were married, and the wife never seems older than the day they first met and carved their initials in an oak tree.

As the children reach the age of reason, a third mystery unfolds, that of fathercraft and mothercraft — the disciplining and training of young minds and hearts in the ways of God.

As the children grow into maturity, the mystery continues to deepen, new areas of exploration open up, and the father and mother now see themselves as sculptors in the great quarry of humanity, carving living stones and fitting them together in the Temple of God, Whose Architect is Love.

The fourth mystery is their contribution to the well-being of the nation. Here, too, is the root of democracy, for it is in the family that a person is valued not for what he is worth, nor for what he can do, but primarily for what he is.

While I understand that nobody likes to be called selfish, the widespread defensiveness to the pope’s statements have been revealing.

Maureen Callahan, in the New York Post, writes that dogs “are superior to most people,” adding, “The idea that dogs are unlike children is ridiculous.” Simon Kelner, for iNews, calls the pope’s position “fundamentally flawed.” Kelner argues that his puppy has taught him about “unconditional love and loyalty,” as well as how to be “more selfless, caring, and responsible.” Lara Williams, in Bloomberg, says that “doting on a fur baby rather than an infant is far from selfish” and suggests that some couples delay or forgo children because they face “many economic hurdles that older generations didn’t.”

Let’s first address Williams’s last point. Are couples having fewer children nowadays because they can’t afford them? Williams notes that the average lifetime cost of raising a child born in 2015 was $233,610 whereas the lifetime cost of a medium-sized dog is $36,568 and that of a cat is $16,252. Yet even so, obviously it is possible to raise children for much less than this, as evidenced by the relative poverty of most of the pre-Boomer generations and the countless lower-middle-income families who do so today. The trouble is that many people aren’t willing to do this.

True, it is difficult for young middle-class professionals to enjoy the same standard of living after children come along. They may have to move. They may have to forgo certain luxuries and put aside savings. Pets are certainly less disruptive in this respect.

What Pope Francis’s critics misunderstand by focusing on his line about pets is that his comments were more about the purpose of marriage and family life, and about urging people to open their hearts to adoption, than about denigrating a love for pets, who are, after all, also God’s creatures. For those with a vocation to marriage, he reminds us, it is only through parenthood that they may reach their full biological and spiritual potential. Even though that does mean making sacrifices, it is still an investment worth making.