Scottish Catholic Observer

Catholics are not practicing ‘responsible parenthood’ when they have too many children, Pope Francis said yesterday during an in-flight press conference on the way home from Manila.

The Pope made his remarks in an hour-long meeting with reporters accompanying him back to Rome from a week-long trip to Asia.

The Holy Father condemned population control programmes as ‘ideological colonisation’ and praised Blessed Paul VI for defending Catholic teaching against contraception. But ‘this does not mean a Christian must make children one after another,’ the Pope said, citing the case of a woman who became pregnant an eighth time after giving birth to seven children via cesarean section.

“Does she want to leave seven orphans?” he said. “This is tempting God.”

“Some people think—excuse me for saying this— that to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits,” the Pope said, yet Church teaching provides for ‘many licit ways’ to control reproduction.

He also touched on another of other topics. One reporter asked the Pope to explain his January 15 statement, prompted by the recent killings by Islamist terrorists at a Paris newspaper, that freedom of expression should be limited by respect for religion and that mockery of faith can be expected to provoke violence.

“In theory, we can say what the Gospel says, that we should turn the other cheek,” he said. “In theory, we can say that we have freedom of expression. But in practice, let’s stop a bit, because we are human and we risk provoking others. For this reason, freedom must be accompanied by prudence. That’s what I wanted to say.”

Asked about the limited response to his calls on Muslim religious, political and intellectual leaders to condemn violence in the name of religion, the Pope said ’some of them have done something, but we need to allow a little time, because the situation is not easy for them.’

“I have hope, because there are so many good people among them, so many good people, so many good leaders, and I am sure they will do it,’” he added.

The Holy Father also spoke of why his declined to meet with the Dalai Lama in December, when the exiled Tibetan leader was in Rome for a conference of Nobel Peace Prize winners. He said Vatican protocol prevents the pope from ‘receiving heads of state and people at that level when they are taking part in an international meeting.’

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