UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Ironically, among the childless pope’s top problems are two that involve children: those abused by predatory priests and those born to parents unable to nurture them adequately. Celibate Pope Francis may soon be creating a new self inflicted “mess” with his much hyped climate change encyclical, unless he decisively reverses his papal contraception ban in the process. A reversal would also free the Vatican of the harmful legacy of illusory “infallible” popes that has compelled modern popes to follow misguided decisions of their fallible predecessors.
The pope’s celibate “Family Synod” Bishops last October were almost 95% in favor of continuing the contraception ban. The final “Family Synod” next October is very unlikely to favor reversing the ban, thereby likely greatly weakening the papacy further in the process. Almost all of these bishops reportedly had, in effect, promised, as a pre-condition to being made a bishop, that they would uphold the contraception ban, a key element of the papal claim to infallibility. The world’s population was about 2 billion in 1930 when Pope Pius XI, the first pope of Francis’ lifetime, unnecessarily banned birth control mainly for geo-political reasons. The population is now 7.3 billion and projected to be 9 billion in 2050, only 35 years from now. It is time for the pope to act responsibly and reasonably to solve this self inflicted papal problem.
The pope is in trouble. He has yet to recover from the revolts of Catholics in Chile and among the members of his “go slow” sex abuse commission over his appointment of Bishop Barros or from his unnecessary “Mexicanization” slur. See my Vatican Revolt Negates Synod & Sex Commission . The pope’s belated and inadequate removal of Bishop Finn has satisfied few and raised the call for more bishops to go.
In January, in flight to the overpopulated and natural disaster ravaged Philippines, reporters asked Pope Francis if he believes that climate change is the result of human activity. The pope replied that he thinks it’s “mostly” man-made. “I don’t know if it (human activity) is the only cause, but mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face,” he reportedly said.
A key factor in climate change, of course, is entirely “man-made”, namely population growth. More children, which the pope consistently pushes for, means more climate change and more unsustainable and “expendable” children to be abandoned, exploited and abused, including by bishops and priests, as was evident in the Dominican Republic with Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski and priest Fr. Alberto Gil.
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