Category: Pope Francis

It was based on a mis­quo­ta­tion of Vat­i­can pan­elist Peter Raven. See, I told you so. The pope was advo­cat­ing “sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” but “respon­si­ble par­ent­hood,” which the last three popes—Benedict XVI, John Paul II, and Paul VI—also advo­cat­ed. Many were out­raged when the pope said that Catholics should not feel they must “breed like rab­bits” in order to be good Catholics. Some mis­quot­ed the pope as hav­ing com­mand­ed: “Don’t breed like rab­bits.” You need to be care­ful about these mis­quo­ta­tions. The pope tells us what the Church has already told us.

Fox News, the UK Inde­pen­dent, and LSD News are all report­ing that the pope has praised pop­u­la­tion con­trol. This is fake news. And the rea­son I say so is because Pope Fran­cis is on record con­demn­ing pop­u­la­tion con­trol. He con­demns it in Lauda­to Si—have you read it? Even LSD News and the Nation­al Catholic Reg­is­ter picked up on that. He con­demned it in his inter­view on the flight back to Rome from Mani­la; maybe you recall that inter­view. Did you know he con­demns pop­u­la­tion con­trol in that inter­view three times? I have all the quotes, dear read­er.

Here is a good rule of thumb. When some­one says, “I mis­spoke, here is what I meant to say”: Believe him. Mis­s­peak­ing is a known phe­nom­e­non. If you haven’t known about this phe­nom­e­non for some time, I don’t know what you know. Even popes can mis­s­peak. It’s true. I have checked, and rechecked, the dog­mat­ic def­i­n­i­tion of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty, and I find nowhere that the Holy Spir­it pro­tects the Roman Pon­tiff from mis­s­peak­ing. Check it your­self if you like, but do not waste too much of your time. That’s what I’m here for.