Catholic Church and Population Problem

 

One of the dioceses of the Catholic Church in Kerala is offering sops to believers for having more children and thus saving the Church from extinction. This is diametrically opposite to what Pope Francis said last year: Catholics don’t need to breed “like rabbits.”

Catholics have a moral responsibility to limit the number of their children, the Pope said in no uncertain terms.  The National Catholic Reporter wrote thus about the Pope: “Telling the story of a woman he met in a parish in Rome several months ago who had given birth to seven children via caesarean section and was pregnant with an eighth, Francis asked: 'Does she want to leave the seven orphans?’”

Pope Francis has always advocated responsible parenthood. Having more children is not a service to God or the Church or the State, he has said loud and clear. Having too many children is “irresponsible parenthood,” according to the Pope. He went to the extent of saying, “This is to tempt God.”

There are 7.67 billion people on the planet and the number keeps jumping every day. Aren’t they too many? The answer depends on your convictions.

I have never had reasons to think of the human species as any particular blessing for the planet. On the contrary, I am sure that the planet would have been a far better place without humans. [The book I am now reading is Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. It tells me quite convincingly about the intrinsic goodness of human beings. Yet, yet… More on that later, after I finish reading the entire book.]

The planet would have been a lot greener, cleaner, more beautiful – a paradise, in fact – without human beings around. That sounds rather devilish, right? Well, what shall I tell you if you really think along with the Catholic Church that human species is the crown of God’s creation?

It has become a fad among most religious people nowadays to ask people to have more children. People of almost every faith seem to be convinced that the answer to most religious problems is having a larger population of the faithful. Copulate and Populate. And thus beat your rival religion. It is not only the Catholics who are saying that.

I wish at least a fraction of these believers really followed the good lessons of their religions. The world would have been a much better place.

Religion is one of the biggest evils if you study it seriously. It has divided people into groups that hate one another. It has fostered superstitions and ignorance and cruelty of all sorts. Even this demand for having more children is a sign of ignorance and cruelty and, as the Pope said, irresponsibility.

I know I sound like a misanthrope. Maybe I am. But I don’t do any of the harms – neither to other people nor to the planet – that people do in the name of gods. I do my best to mitigate the evils created by gods and their supporters. But I know that if you don’t belong to the majority you are a loser nowadays. Let that be. I only hope that the believers will turn a deaf ear to the new commandment from their priests about having more children just as they usually do with most commandments.