The Pope is right: it is selfish to choose pets over children

Well, we’ve been terrifically amused and amusing at the expense of Pope Francis, who this week declared at a Vatican audience that:

‘Many couples do not have children because they don’t want them, or have just one because they don’t want any more, but have two dogs, two cats… oh yes, dogs and cats take the place of children.’

It was, he said, proof of a ‘certain selfishness… it makes us laugh but it’s true. Renouncing parenthood diminishes us. It takes away our humanity.’

This was inevitably cue for British commentators to weigh up the merits of cats and dogs versus children, and for some to pronounce in favour of the cats. And the obvious point was duly observed, that Pope Francis, as a celibate, had himself renounced parenthood (though for rather different reasons).

As it happens, I think Francis is mistaken to see the matter in terms of pets or children; it is possible to have both.