Pope: Don’t breed like rabbits

ABOARD ‘SHEPHERD ONE’ Pope Francis animatedly talks with the international media on the Philippine Airlines plane that flew him from Manila to Rome on Monday. He said that Catholics to be true to their faith didn’t have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice “responsible parenting.” AP

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE—Pope Francis is firmly upholding Church teaching banning contraception, but he said on Monday that Catholics to be true to their faith didn’t have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice “responsible parenting.”

Speaking to reporters en route home from the Philippines, Francis said there were plenty of Church-approved ways to regulate births.

But he said most importantly, no outside institution should impose its views on regulating family size, blasting what he called the “ideological colonization” of the developing world.

African bishops, in particular, have long complained about how progressive, Western ideas about birth control and gay rights were increasingly being imposed on the developing world by groups, institutions or individual nations, often as a condition for development aid.

“Every people deserves to conserve its identity without being ideologically colonized,” Francis said.

The Pope’s comments, taken together with his defense of the Catholic Church’s ban on artificial contraception during the trip, signal that he is increasingly showing his more conservative bent, which has largely been ignored by public opinion or obscured by a media narrative that has tended to highlight his populist persona.

1968 encyclical

On the trip, Francis gave his strongest defense yet of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which enshrined the Church’s opposition to artificial birth control.

He warned against “insidious attacks” against the family—a reference to gay marriage proposals—echoing language often used by overwhelmingly conservative US bishops. And he insisted that “openness to life is a condition of the sacrament of matrimony.”

At the same time, however, the Pontiff said it was not true that to be a good Catholic “you have to be like rabbits.”

On the contrary, he said “responsible parenthood” required that couples regulate the births of their children, as Church teaching allowed.

Eighth pregnancy

The Pope cited the case of a woman he met who was pregnant with her eighth child after seven caesarian sections.

“That is an irresponsibility!” he said.

“The woman might argue that she should trust in God. But God gives you methods to be responsible,” he added.

He said there were many “licit” ways of regulating births approved by the Church, an apparent reference to the Natural Family Planning method of monitoring a woman’s cycle to avoid intercourse when she is ovulating.

During the Vatican’s recent meeting on the family, African bishops denounced how aid groups and lending institutions often condition their assistance on a country’s compliance with their ideals: Allowing healthcare workers to distribute condoms, or withdrawing assistance if legislation discriminating against gays is passed.

“When imposed conditions come from imperial colonizers, they search to make people lose their own identity and make a sameness,” he said. “This is ideological colonization.”

Propaganda, brainwashing

The Pope said ideological colonization preyed on children.

“They take a real need of the people to have an opportunity to enter and make themselves strong with the children,” he said.

The Pope indicated ideological colonization was a means of propaganda and brainwashing.

“But this is not new,” he pointed out. “The dictators of the last century did the same. They came with their own doctrine. Think of the Balila or the Fascist Youth under Mussolini, think of the Hitler Youth.”

“People must not lose their freedom, their culture and history,” the Pope said, “but when conditions are imposed by the colonizing empires they seek to make people forget their own identity.”

He indicated that ideological colonization was taking place because of globalization.

“It is important to globalize but not like the sphere but like the polyhedron, namely that every people conserve their own identity without being ideologically colonized.”–With a report from Lito B. Zulueta

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