Rick Santorum Should Read the Transcript of Pope Francis’s “Rabbits” Remark. So Should Everyone Else.

On Mediaite, Matt Wilstein reports that Rick Santorum “did not appreciate” Pope Francis’s recent comments about Catholics and rabbits. “It’s sometimes very difficult to listen to the pope,” Mr. Santorum said in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt. He continued:

Maybe he’s speaking to people in the third world, but the problem certainly in most of the Catholic world is not procreation. I mean, in Europe in particular, you have birth rates that are only over, just a little over one for every two people. So this isn’t a global problem, and I don’t know what the Pope was referring to.

Here’s a case where a simple check of the transcript would help everybody, not just Mr. Santorum. For Pope Francis made that very point himself—twice. Here’s the first.

The refusal of Paul VI [to ease the Catholic teaching on birth control] was not only to the personal problems, for which he will tell the confessors to be merciful and understand the situation and pardon. Being understanding and merciful, no? But he was watching the universal Neo-Malthusianism that was in progress. And, how do you call this Neo-Malthusianism? There is less than one percent of birth rate growth in Italy. The same in Spain. That Neo-Malthusianism that sought to control humanity on the part of the powers.

By “Neo-Malthusianism,” the pope is referring to the idea that there needs to be population control—an idea which he rejects.

Here’s the second time the pope speaks words like that.

I think the number of three children per family that you mentioned—it makes me suffer—I think it is the number experts say is important to keep the population going. Three per couple. When this decreases, the other extreme happens, like what is happening in Italy. I have heard, I do not know if it is true, that in 2024 there will be no money to pay pensioners because of the fall in population. Therefore, the key word, to give you an answer, and the one the Church uses all the time, and I do too, is responsible parenthood. How do we do this? With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do carry out a responsible parenthood.

So Pope Francis is just as concerned about falling populations in Europe as Rick Santorum is. One read through the actual transcript would have told him that. The pope praises large families. Couples must always be open to life, he says.

Of course, a look a the transcript would also clarify the true sense of the pope’s remark about rabbits. Here it is; it comes right after the last paragraph I just quoted.

God gives you means to be responsible. Some think that—excuse the language—that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood.

So the pope does not say here that Catholics “should not breed like rabbits”; in fact, he does not use the word “breed” at all. What he says is that Catholics should not feel that they must “be like rabbits” with no sense of “responsible parenthood.” In his replies, the pope gives the full Catholic teaching. He does not just say that life is good and that couples should bring life into the world, and life more abundantly; he also says that couples have an obligation to be responsible with their parenthood. The Church says both.

In fairness, Mr. Santorum is not the only one getting the pope’s words wrong. Everyone else is too. The media tends to report half of the pope’s words as though the other half did not exist; and then, when they are forced to discover the other half, they feign shock.

Here is Mr. Wilstein in the same article in Mediaite.

In an unprecedented statement to reporters during his flight from the Philippines to Rome, the Pope suggested that Catholics could take measures to limit the number of children they have.

Unprecedented? I’m sorry, Mr. Wilstein, but that kind of statement shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. The Church has talked about Natural Family Planning and responsible parenthood for a long time. See the USCCB here and John Paul II in 1984 here and Pope Paul VI in 1968 here (§16). Well, in fact, here are Paul VI’s words.

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which we have just explained.

The pope’s remarks were no more “unprecedented” than the media, or a politician, getting the pope and the Church wrong. These things happen every day. What’s sad is that no one seems to much try. Anna Matranga, writing for CBS here, is one of many today reporting that the pope has somehow “changed his mind” or is “walking back” his words in the interview. The papal quotation they are using to support this claim is this one.

It gives consolation and hope to see so many numerous families who receive children as a real gift of God. They know that every child is a benediction.

No again. I’m sorry to have to point this out, but the pope said that very same thing in the interview. There is nothing new here. Here, again, is what the pope had already said in the first place.

Another curious thing in relation to this is that for the most poor people, a child is a treasure. It is true that you have to be prudent here too, but for them a child is a treasure. Some would say ‘God knows how to help me’ and perhaps some of them are not prudent, this is true. Responsible paternity, but let us also look at the generosity of that father and mother who see a treasure in every child.

“A child is a treasure”: the pope says it three times in just this one reply. And there are many other times in the interview when he remarks on what a great gift a child is.

Does no one, anywhere, ever, make even the least effort to get the facts right, or to know what they are talking about, before they open their mouth or write their copy?

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