First, disclosure: I’m what is often called a “fallen away” Catholic, that departure from Catholicism having been accomplished in my mid-teens. And I never looked back, could never ignore the multiple hypocrisies of the Church, on which I won’t elaborate here.
But I have observed the occasional outgassing of populism in the current Pope Francis’ behavior, giving me some hope simply that a corrupt organization might perform some self-surgery on its own corruption. But this pope has revealed himself as being trapped between his social consciousness and his dogmatic handcuffs, which exposes him to accusations of hypocrisy. His latest is a condemnation of married Catholics who eschew having children, who opt for pets as child substitutes. Sadly, predictably, he bases this decision on brainless Catholic dogma that the purpose of a Catholic marriage is procreation, which sanctifies the marriage, else it become just an excuse for legalized fornication.
Dear Papa Frankie: I ain’t had no kids from da get-go because I knew about and was teaching university students about climate change starting in the early 1980’s. In my view, it was a humane decision to refrain from bringing a child into the climate change/ecocide shit-show perpetrated by market capitalist extractive/polluting economics. Something you have condemned in your declarations about climate change and the huge numbers of impoverished folks on the planet. To now criticize individuals as “selfish”, who made the choice to not reproduce is hypocrisy of the first order. This is particularly true on a planet approaching the burden of eight billion humans, as we chem-destroy the soils that we desperately need to feed so many.
Hypocrisy’s not a great look for a supposedly populist pope, Frankie.