[NYer]

ping

[Tzfat]

Is he really? If I were Catholic, I would certainly not claim him...

[9thLife]

bump.

[Salvation]

Pope strongly defends Catholic teaching against contraception

Manila, Philippines • Pope Francis issued his strongest defense yet of church teaching opposing artificial contraception, using a Friday rally in Asia's largest Catholic nation to urge families to be "sanctuaries of respect for life."

Francis also denounced the corruption that has plagued the Philippines for decades and urged officials to instead work to end its "scandalous" poverty and social inequalities during his first full day in Manila, where he received a rock star's welcome at every turn.

"Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death," Francis exhorted the crowd. "What a gift this would be to society if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation."

Francis also urged families to be on guard against what he called "ideological colonization," an apparent reference to gay marriage, which isn't legal in the Philippines. The church opposes gay marriage, holding that marriage is only between man and wife.

[Boogieman]

“Here’s the thing: If Pope Francis really is for the poor, he should be the first to see the overwhelming scientific connection between modern birth control and reduction in poverty. “

Here’s the thing: not everyone is going to prioritize things the same as you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care.

[lulu16]

In answer to the question is the pope Catholic, as a Catholic myself, I would say he is a cafeteria Catholic.

[omegatoo]

There is a crystal-clear connection between poverty and family planning that the Pope somehow refuses — or at least fails — to see.

Of course there is a clear connection between poverty and family planning....anyone with a brain can see it. The connection is illegitimacy.

The Catholic Church's opposition to birth control comes from its opposition to sex outside of marriage. If unmarried women would stop bearing children, poor families with children would still exist, but the spread of poverty would no doubt be reversed dramatically.

Family planning isn't birth control and abortion, it is actually having a PLAN to be able to support a FAMILY, THEN getting married, THEN having children.

Whoa, I think I need to make a T-Shirt :^)

Love, O2

[RichInOC]

This reads more like the hazards of leftists actually believing their own stuff. They built this puppet Pope Francis to be Punch to Pope Benedict’s (and others’) Judy, and are surprised when the real guy occasionally whaps them on the nose instead of the conservatives.

“There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.”

—C. S. Lewis, Preface to “The Screwtape Letters”

[Grateful2God]

I wonder if the author is speaking literally or metaphorically about being a kid in school. Kids are brought up with all the rhetoric about population control and starvation, but aren't taught the sanctity of life. Things seem so clear-cut when you're young, and you don't see that they're actually more complex than they seem. It's a painful process, learning that there's so much more to serious issues than we see when we're teens and life in our own little circle is confusing enough, let alone in the bigger picture.

Life is a learning process and sometimes the lessons can be painful. I don't envy kids today. I hope whoever wrote about this, and those who feel the same way find light and truth, especially in realizing the sanctity of human life!