Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children

[Aptrgangr]

Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children

MARIAZELL, Austria (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having enough children, in a sermon on Saturday at the 850-year-old pilgrimage site of Mariazell in Austria.


Pope Benedict XVI holds a candle during the Vesper ceremony in the shrine of Mariazell, on the second day of his three-day visit to Austria. Pope Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having enough children, in a sermon on Saturday at the 850-year-old pilgrimage site of Mariazell in Austria.(AFP/Vincenzo Pinto )

"Europe has become child-poor. We want everything for ourselves and place little trust in the future," the pope told a crowd of faithful from his canopied area at an open-air, afternoon mass that took place under heavy rain.
But Benedict held out hope, saying: "The earth will be deprived of a future only when the forces of the human heart and of reason illuminated by the heart are extinguished . . . Where God is, there is the future."
The pontiff had slammed abortion upon arriving in Austria Friday as the "very opposite" of human rights.

"The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself," he told members of the government and the diplomatic corps at the Hofburg, the seat of the Austrian presidency in Vienna. Austrian Defence Minister Norbert Darabos said in a state televisin interview however Saturday that the Austrian government would not call for a change in the country's law which allows abortions.
Meanwhile, in evening prayers at Mariazell the traditionalist Pope defended chastity for religious orders as a way for them to become "men and women of hope."
Celibacy is not "individualism or a life of isolation" for priests, nuns and other religious orders but "unreservedly" serving God and having "deep relationships ... which they accept as a gift."

The Austrian Church has been wracked by several sex scandals involving priests and in an open letter to the pope the liberal Austrian movement Wir sind Kirche ("We are the Church") has called for the end of celibacy.
Despite the bad weather that has dogged the visit so far, thousands stood in the rain at Mariazell packed behind crowd barriers, with many wearing yellow raincoats and some waving blue scarves, the traditional colour of Jesus's mother Mary.
The pope, who had arrived in Mariazell from Vienna by car instead of by helicopter due to the weather, waved to the crowd through the windows of the Popemobile as he made his way to the centuries-old white and pink basilica in Mariazell.
People who had been sheltering under doorways rushed towards his motorcade as it passed, even as the rain increased in intensity.
Organisers said 33,040 free tickets had already been distributed for Mariazell and that the pilgrims would include 70 bishops from central and eastern European countries.
The Austrian archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, told the crowd that two pilgrims had died from health problems, and the Pope said a prayer for them.
On Friday, the pontiff said he intended his pilgrimage "to be a journey made in the company of all the pilgrims of our time."
He said Mariazell "symbolizes an openness which... transcends physical and national frontiers."

The main pilgrimage site in the Danube region, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) southwest of Vienna, the basilica was founded by Benedictine monks.
The site, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and celebrates its 850th anniversary this year, welcomes around a million pilgrims every year from Austria, neighbouring Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia as well as Poland, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.

The Pope arrived in Vienna Friday morning and addressed a crowd of thousands at Am Hof square before making a silent tribute to the victims of the Holocaust at a nearby monument.
The pope's visit has been greeted with some criticism in a country where the traditionally powerful Catholic Church is waning in influence.
Statistics show the Austrian Church has lost about one million followers since 1983, and only 67 percent of Austrians are still officially Catholic, compared to almost 92 percent in 1900.
On Sunday, the Pope will celebrate a morning mass at Vienna's St. Stepheon's Cathedral and visit the Cistercian monastery in Heiligenkreuz, before flying back to Rome.

Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children - Yahoo! News


Says the man promoting celibacy for the priest class.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children - Yahoo! News


Says the man promoting celibacy for the priest class.

Clergy is just a tiny fraction of the overall population.

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Plethon

Clergy is just a tiny fraction of the overall population.

Undoubedly, but what is said in Genesis 1:28? "Be fruitful and multiply..."
A strange clergy living the opposite of their sermons... anyway, I am an offspring of "heretic" Christian clerics

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

Undoubedly, but what is said in Genesis 1:28? "Be fruitful and multiply..."
A strange clergy living the opposite of their sermons... anyway, I am an offspring of "heretic" Christian clerics

Old Catholics?

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

Says the man promoting celibacy for the priest class.

Rather, says the man who opposes artificial contraception and abortion.
He's quite within his rights as his organisation have consistently opposed the main reasons behind the demographic catastrophe.

He could have been far less tactful and simply said - "Told you so"

[Menydh]

Considering that the demographic crisis has been openly promoted from the Atheistic camp, in the name of "science", while the Church has a faultless trajectory during two millenia of actively promoting the exact opposite, and that it has been in the age when the values promoted by the Church have been replaced at large by Atheistic values, it sounds bizarre to present something as celibacy (which statistically approaches zero) as a reason why the Pope should not speak about it.

And just for the record, I don't support the idea of any type of uncontrolled demographics, in any direction.

[Marcus Marulus]

We all have our roles in life. Be fruitful and multiply, yes, in principle. But I also think it is right for a few individuals (who will always be a small minority in any community) who pursue some higher goal, to abstain from having family, deeming that it would be a distraction to the pursuit of their goal. It may not exclusively be a priestly calling, but, for example, a life dedicated to science or whatever. They will always be a tiny minority. But the bulk of people, having no higher goal in their life, revelling in their petty (and self-destructive) individualistic hedonism and declining to have a family as a consequence of such an attitude, that's the problem.

Anyway, the priestly celibacy is not the dogma, it could - theoretically - be changed some day. I am not categorically neither for or against it. Both celibacy and non-celibacy of the priesthood have their pluses and minuses.

I have also my own objections to this Pope's speech though. Instead of only blasting people for not having children, maybe he should have put it into a wider context and blasted the present day criminal liberal-democratic-capitalistic system, which contributes significantly to people not deciding to have families. And the indoctrination througn media and mass (garbage) "culture", which is essentially anti-family and anti-life.

[Gromoljut]

I am by no means an expert on catholic matters, but wasn't celibacy introduced to prevent children of the priesthood from inheriting their parent's land, thus securing the church's property? If this is indeed true, then has the church not forfeited "higher goals" for purely economic interest?
(don't bash me, please, I repeat that I am no expert )

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Gromoljut

I am by no means an expert on catholic matters, but wasn't celibacy introduced to prevent children of the priesthood from inheriting their parent's land, thus securing the church's property? If this is indeed true, then has the church not forfeited "higher goals" for purely economic interest?
(don't bash me, please, I repeat that I am no expert )

To a certain extent, yes.

Celibacy existed in the ancient monachism (and it was justified by higher goals) and there were constant disputes inside the Church on whether it should be extended to the common priesthood as well. So it was always controversial, both sides invoking passages from the Bible and the Church Fathers to justify their positions.

Finally, in the Middle Ages, it was the econimic factor, that brought about the argument in favour of the celibacy to prevail.

[svin]

In Russia most of the priests have a lot of children, more than 3 usually.

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Plethon

Old Catholics?

No, Lutherans and Pietists.

Originally Posted by Milesian

Rather, says the man who opposes artificial contraception and abortion.

Does the shere opposition of artificial contraception and abortion create own offsprings?
My mom, a leftist academic, gave birth to 4 children; this clearly shows the availability of those contraceptives does not influence the peoples' decision to found a family or not. Either they want children, or they do not want (except those that are infertile...). Anyway, as far as I know noone participating in this thread has own children anyway; I wonder this has to do with the availability of artificial contraceptives. [Not that I would want to have an answer..]

Originally Posted by Milesian

He's quite within his rights as his organisation have consistently opposed the main reasons behind the demographic catastrophe.

He and his organization are also partly responsible for the demographic catastrophe in thse regions of the world where people have big families without being able to maintain them.