The Pope Waded Into The Pets vs. Kids Debate That No One Asked Him To Join

Childless pet owners can all go to hell — the Pope wants everyone to have more kiddos instead

If you have spent your time, attention, and love on a dog or cat in your life, we’re going to need you to brace yourself. The pope wants you to stop what you’re doing and pop out a human child or two instead.

During a general audience at the Vatican earlier this week, Pope Francis started waxing poetic about those who choose to have pets instead of creating New Life.

“We see that some people do not want to have a child. Sometimes they have one, and that’s it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh but it is a reality,” he said, according to The Guardian.

But people aren’t laughing. Especially cat ladies and dog lovers across the globe. Not to mention people who can’t have biological kids and people who don’t want to birth babies into a world that’s pretty nuts right now.

He went on to say that having pets instead of kids is “a denial of fatherhood and motherhood (that) diminishes us (and) takes away our humanity,” and that “civilization grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers.”

Honestly, it just sounds like he’s never had a puppy?

He then told people not to be afraid of having children, who take over your entire life, cost about $300,000 to raise, and get Goldfish into even the deepest crevices of your car.

“Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child,” he said.

Hmmm, is it really a huge risk to adopt a little blonde Labradoodle who you can dress in themed sweaters and who will never, ever make you pay for his college?

Also can someone tell the Pope that having pets and having children is not an either/or situation? You can have both! We personally treat our pets with the utmost ridiculous mountain of human-level love and also have children or whatever.

The Pope is likely worried about the birth rate, which is dropping off a cliff, especially since the pandemic has begun. And younger millennials say that it’s kind of tough to want to have kids, what with issues like climate change, raging disease, low minimum wage, a housing crisis, and a few other current pending crises around. All they want is a corgi to take for little walks and cry on at night.

He’s also likely worried about the future of the Catholic Church — whose membership is in decline, and who pays for all of the Pope’s fancy robes and sticks and things. The best way to keep a robust population is to have Catholics make more Catholics. What we’re saying is: his condemnation of people with fur babies is likely more about him than it is about us.

Anyway, this is not a good look for Pope Francis, who up to this point had been one of the cooler, if not the coolest pope we’ve had. Until now, he’s been in the press for awesome stuff like encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and for telling parents that god loves their queer children. Someone get this man a basket of kittens so that he realizes that god would have never created fur babies if he didn’t want us to treat them with love.