(Image source/credit: Arickx Photography)

Pope Francis has never had much of a filter, which has sometimes showcased his sardonic humor, as when he referred to an anti-vaccination Cardinal on a ventilator with Covid as “the irony of life.” At other times, however, his off the cuff comments about women, queer people, and gender issues have felt insulting. In January of this year, while speaking to an audience at the Vatican, the pope referred to the recent global birthdate drop as a “demographic winter.”

But Pope Francis, who’s written and spoken powerfully about the dangers of climate change and the catastrophic capitalist exploitation of the poor, didn’t blame population decline on those issues or even on the pandemic, which has led many people to reconsider the idea of starting a family. Instead, he blamed people who have pets instead of children.

The pope then dug in further, saying the choice not to have children is “selfish,” and that it “takes away our humanity.” According to Pope Francis, when cats and dogs replace children, it’s a slippery slope toward a bleak Children of Men-style future, and it’s the happy couples adopting pets instead of raising kids who are to blame.

It’s no secret that I’m one of those people who doesn’t have children, and I have long bemoaned the attitude that people without children, and women in particular, are acting selfishly. A recent anthology of essays by childless women entitled Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed illustrates the pervasiveness of this concept. The irony that the pope, who himself has chosen to forego having children, is finger-wagging people like me was not lost on social media, where queer couples, single men and women, and straight couples alike groused about his choice of words.

But, as it turns out, this isn’t the first time the pope has called childless people selfish. In a 2014 interview, he referred to people without children a “greedy generation” and a sign of a “depressed society,” and added that choosing not to have children is, you guessed it, selfish. People without children, according to the pope, will grow old and bitter from loneliness. Cats and dogs are easier to care for, he admitted, but the people who adopt them are rejecting the more complicated job of taking care of a child, all due to selfishness.

Again, ironic. And painful for many of us to hear. But some voices in Catholic media have urged us to reframe this conversation. In America magazine (full disclosure: I’m a contributing writer to America), editor-in-chief Father Matt Malone admitted that as an unmarried cleric he is an “imperfect messenger” on this topic, but argued that the pope is not talking about couples who can’t have children for biological issues or those who “lack the means to care for them properly.” The pope, he writes, was instead referring to financially comfortable couples who choose not to reproduce. These couples, according to Fr. Malone, are substituting a pet for a child. As a result, he argues, they are on a slippery slope toward thinking that adopting an animal is equal to raising a human child.

This is an interesting argument, but not a persuasive one. Although I know many people with pets, I have yet to meet a pet owner who seriously believes their dog or cat is, in any way, human. And yet, animals do express love and need care. Unlike people or the Catholic Church, pets don’t judge. When Saint Francis was discerning whether to retreat from the world or to keep preaching and his advisors encouraged him to keep preaching, his first sermon was delivered not to other people, but to a flock of birds. Today, “pet parent” is usually used in a joking way, but when a person (okay, this person is me) begins to project too much thinking or feeling onto their pet, they usually realize what’s happening and laugh it off. I’ve talked to my cats throughout the pandemic because I share my house with them, but I’ve never expected much in return except for warm feet when the cats cooperate by sitting on them.

I’m also cognizant of the fact that both Pope Francis and Fr. Malone are aware of the many reasons people cite for not having children, such as economic hardship, environmental danger, and political instability. But condemnations of childlessness coming from clergy also make it sound like not having children is sinful. Is it? And if so, is it something that needs to be forgiven?

Hamartiology, the branch of theology dedicated to the study of sin, is closely connected to ethics. And sin, loosely defined in a Christian context, is anything that goes against God’s will, or, in a secular sense, something that harms other people. But in both Christian and secular contexts, the person who chooses to have a child is rarely considered selfish, sinful, or bad, whereas the person who doesn’t is all of these things. Childless people are often accused of being self-obsessed and putting themselves first. But when a couple has a child to “save their marriage,” it is largely considered a reasonable decision even if that relationship is emotionally turbulent or even violent. In her book “Why Have Children?” philosopher Christine Overall points out that while a person who doesn’t have children is frequently interrogated about that decision, a pregnant person is rarely – if ever – asked why they got pregnant. “The choice to procreate,” she writes, “is not regarded as needing any thought or justification.”

But the choice to have children, Overall writes, is something we should think of as a moral and ethical choice rather than a simplistic matter of biology, that people should have kids because that’s what some bodies are made to do. When a child is born, according to Overall, “a new and vulnerable human being is brought into existence whose future may be at risk.” Oftentimes, people have children without thinking about the impact that child might have on the people around them, the economy, and the environment. This can also include not considering their own capacity to care for that child, or how they are contributing to overpopulation.

When Christians talk about having a child as a sinful act, they are usually referring to single parents having kids “out of wedlock.” The Catholic Church still teaches that giving birth outside of church-sanctioned, heterosexual marriage is sinful, but the culture has largely left that idea in the past. Times have changed since The Scarlet Letter, and most of us would agree today that single parents have not sinned and do not need to be forgiven. Sometimes God even makes bodies that can’t make babies, and there are plenty of childless people in the Bible, including that person named Jesus Christ. Does God think those people are selfish?

(Image credit: Remo Casillio for Reuters)

Amidst this debate we also have to acknowledge that the Catholic Church suffers from the problem of clericalism, where priests, bishops, cardinals and popes are seen as “special and superior to laypersons and their authority should be accepted without question,” according to psychiatrist Thomas Plante, who has written widely on sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Clericalism, Plante writes, leads to authoritarianism, narcissism, and a sense that the clergy are right while anyone who disagrees is wrong and must seek forgiveness. So clergy may not see their own childlessness as selfish because of their self-perceived specialness, but some of them will still cast aspersions on others who make the same choice. Clerical culture also leads celibate clergy to pretend they don’t have sexual impulses, which can contribute to “destructive coping strategies” (ahem, abuse crisis) and an unwillingness to ask for help because of a desire to maintain a facade of perfection.

But another fact about Catholic clergy is that they can be incredibly isolated and lonely. Members of many religious orders aren’t even allowed to have pets, and with the priest shortage in America, many priests live alone and have little to no sense of community. When they harangue others for not having children, we have to remember that they have also lost that possibility for themselves, sometimes even giving up the chance to have an animal companion. Could there perhaps be some jealousy involved, or some sense that because they gave up something for what they see as the greater good, anyone who doesn’t have children is selfish? From their perspective, childless couples are deliberately choosing the social, emotional and physical benefits of marriage without the burdens of child rearing.

I’m obviously not a Catholic priest (that pesky issue of being a woman!), but I do know a number of them fairly well and can see and hear what a difficult job they have, and how they’re not really encouraged to share their regrets about choosing vocation over family and losing out on the highs and lows of intimate partnership. I imagine the pope might feel that loss as well. He grew up in a large family home surrounded by siblings, and now lives alone in an apartment surrounded mostly by staff, not by friends and loved ones. I may not have children, but I can see whoever I want whenever I want, befriend people of every gender without worrying about it looking weird, babysit and take my nieces out to dinner, and generally go about my life with a greater degree of freedom than the pope or any priest in the Catholic church.

None of this means I’m selfish or sinful, and, in fact, much like a member of the clergy, my life overflows with responsibility for other people and occasions to take care of them. It’s just that those people aren’t my biological children. But we don’t go around calling priests selfish for choosing not to have kids, nor do we say these things about Jesus, who, as far as we know, never changed a diaper in his life. By persisting in this idea of childless couples as selfish, the pope reveals the overly narrow paths the church offers lay people: you can either commit to celibacy as a single person or you can get married, but you should only do the latter if you’re willing to procreate as much as humanly possible, because sex should always be potentially procreative. With this point of view, the pope demonstrates he’s much more conservative on issues of sex and relationships than he is on economics or the environment.

But to return to, and expand on, my original question: if people who are selfish need to be forgiven, does that mean that the pope, who chose not to have children, is also in need of forgiveness?

I don’t have a tidy answer to that question, but I do think that if the pope really believes that childless people are selfish and sinful and need forgiveness, he and every other member of the clergy should probably ask for forgiveness for the very same thing. Francis has often said that he too is a sinner, but has never really opened up about what it’s like to be an elderly man without children, nor have I ever heard a priest preach a sermon on this topic or even bring it up in conversation.

If the pope has regrets about not having children, ambivalent feelings about it, or is even happy he made that choice, opening up would be a radical act of solidarity that might make room for much more complex and enlightening conversations between those who have children and those who don’t, and enable us to develop language about the ethics of both of our choices, a language less focused on sin and forgiveness and more on mutual human struggle and compassion. Imagine hearing a priest preach about what it means to give up intimate relationships, or hearing bishops talk about the people under their care with the same compassion and understanding a parent ought to show their child. Maybe that kind of openness would mean we could even start to forgive one another for being so judgemental about a decision that is nobody’s business but our own. But that would also require the pope to understand that if he does not need forgiveness for not having children, neither does anyone else.

Kaya Oakes is the author of five books, most recently including The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life’s In Betweens to Remake the World. She teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.