VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said couples who choose to have pets instead of children are exhibiting “a form of selfishness.”
The remarks were made Wednesday during a discussion about parenthood with a general audience at the Vatican, the BBC reported.
“Today ... we see a form of selfishness,” Francis said. “We see that some people do not want to have a child. Sometimes they have one, and that’s it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children,” according to transcripts reported by the BBC and The Guardian.
Francis went on to say that the growing trend of couples choosing to raise pets instead of children “is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity,” The Guardian reported. Francis also spoke of a “demographic winter,” which may have been in reference to the declining birthrates in some major countries.
This is not the first time he’s spoken on the issue of having pets instead of children. In 2014 he called the growing trend “another phenomenon of cultural degradation.”
Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, was a well-known cat lover, but Francis is not known to keep any pets at the Vatican, according to The Guardian.