My favourite bit of news this week (you couldn’t make it up)
Published:
January 21, 2015 at 7:09pm
From an Associated Press news report today, titled Pope praises big families after ‘like rabbits’ remark; breeders criticise pontiff:
The pope’s comment that Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits” has caused offence among Germany’s rabbit breeders.
Erwin Leowsky, president of the central council of German rabbit breeders, told news agency dpa on Tuesday that only rabbits which live in the wild are sexually overactive.
He said those in captivity have tamer reproductive habits.
Leowsky says he feels the pope should allow Catholics to use contraception rather than resorting to misleading cliches about rabbits.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-01-21/world-news/Pope-praises-big-families-after-like-rabbits-remark-breeders-criticise-pontiff-6736129177
I could never understand on how a bachelor clergy had the audacity to butt in on how many children a married couple had or didn’t have.
It is none of their damn business; they are not paying for the upkeep of those children themselves.
This is the type of service provided by NEWSTHUMP!
Catholics should be responsible parents. That’s what the Pope meant.
[Daphne – Why Catholics, in particular? Everybody who has children should be a responsible parent. For a start, there are laws against being an irresponsible parent.]
Why Catholics?
The pope speaks about Catholics, I suppose.
[Daphne – No, he doesn’t. He has spoken about all manner of things affecting people in general, whatever religion they are, or no religion at all.]
He can’t tell anyone what kind of parenthood one should adopt can he?
That would amount to undue intrusion into one’s private life?
[Daphne – Wrong. Minors are involved, therefore the law comes into play. You can’t decide whether or not to send your children to school, whether or not to feed them properly, whether or not to ill-treat them, whether or not to allow them access to friends and a social life.]
The responsible parenthood the pope was referring to, does not fall under a law.
There are no laws regulating the number of children parents should procreate, unless you’re in China.
Being responsible parents means that the heterosexual couple would not have more children than it can support, for example.
Another example of responsible parenthood would be that an old couple should preferably not have children which it won’t be able to care for when they grow up.
I hope you understand my explanation.
[Daphne – That has nothing to do with religion. If individuals need a pope to tell them that, or religious guidelines, they have problems which no religion can address (or law). The fundamental problem with old parents is not that they won’t be around to bring up their children. They will, of course, be around for that part of their children’s lives. In fact, that is exactly the problem. Sometimes, a missing parent is better than a useless one.]
The irony is that the German rabbit breeders are far more concerned about the ‘bad name’ given to their pets than to the real, human and moral, issues raised by the Pope’s observations.
Talk of a sense of priorities.
[Daphne – Why should rabbit breeders, German or otherwise, pronounce themselves on religion or morality? They pronounce them on rabbits.]
I remember (gives you an idea of my age) when Mr. Bevan an English member of parliament said something similar about us Maltese – ‘They breed like rabbits’ is what he said. I was still at primary school but I think that most Maltese didn’t take too kindly to that remark.
Please note that Nye Bevan was not English but Welsh.
The German rabbit breeders have yet to hear about the simile. They are the stupid ones .
Ein bösartig Angriff.