Pope Francis sparked criticism and comparisons with Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance after commending Indonesians for continuing to have large families.
The pope has been touring southeastern Asia this week and made a stop in the cathedral in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta on Wednesday to meet with outgoing President Joko Widodo and to address a crowd filled with nuns, clerics, lay Catholics, and others.
In 2020, America averaged just 1.6 births per woman, down significantly from an average of 3.6 births in the 1950s.
During his remarks, Pope Francis praised Indonesians for having families with “three, four, or five children.” He called babies “the greatest richness that a nation can have” and slammed countries that effectively imposed “a law of death … by limiting births.”
The pontiff also lightheartedly insisted that Indonesia could serve as an “example” to other countries around the world, where some “families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child.”
Pope Francis did not name any particular country that implicitly or overtly encourages pet ownership over parenting, though birth rates in Western countries have dropped sharply in recent…
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