The John-Henry Westen Show - May 21, 2019


Episode 10： Does Pope Francis want Catholics to have fewer children？


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

148.97705

Word Count

2,636

Sentence Count

154

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

Does Pope Francis disapprove of having large families? That is our topic today on the John Henry Weston Show. This episode is going out to my wife and all mamas, especially because I had to leave for Rome on Mother's Day. Today we're going to speak about one of the most controversial statements of Pope Francis' pontificate, which actually circulated the planet, gleefully carried by the mainstream media everywhere, who were overjoyed that the Pope was singing from their own hymn book. It was when Pope Francis said, Catholics don't need to breed like rabbits. That was said during a Q&A session on the Pope's return flight from Rome from the Philippines on January 19th 2015.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Does Pope Francis disapprove of having large families?
00:00:07.720 That is our topic today on the John Henry Weston Show.
00:00:10.400 This episode is going out to my wife and all moms,
00:00:13.040 especially because I had to leave for Rome on Mother's Day.
00:00:16.700 Today we're going to speak about one of the most controversial statements of Pope Francis' pontificate,
00:00:21.440 comments which actually circulated the planet gleefully carried by the mainstream media everywhere,
00:00:25.580 who were overjoyed that it seemed that the Pope was singing from their own hymn book.
00:00:30.000 It was when Pope Francis said, Catholics don't need to breed like rabbits.
00:00:35.360 So let's start, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:00:38.760 In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
00:00:44.180 The very first command God gave to man at his creation, recorded in Genesis 128, was this.
00:00:50.700 And God blessed them, saying,
00:00:52.980 Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
00:00:56.020 Rule over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
00:01:01.880 God is the author of life.
00:01:04.000 As the scriptures teach, he opens the womb.
00:01:06.500 As we read in Genesis 29, and we see again in the account of Abraham and Sarah, the parents of Isaac,
00:01:12.400 and also Zachary and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist in the New Testament.
00:01:17.240 Children are a blessing.
00:01:18.340 And in procreation, parents cooperate with God in creating new souls for heaven.
00:01:24.060 And it's a glorious teaching.
00:01:25.920 This constant teaching of the Church is what led to one of the greatest compliments to motherhood ever penned,
00:01:32.220 that by Cardinal Joseph Monsenti, the great apostle against communism.
00:01:36.420 Cardinal Monsenti said, and I quote,
00:01:39.460 The most important person on earth is a mother.
00:01:42.620 She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral.
00:01:46.060 She need not.
00:01:47.280 She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral,
00:01:50.780 dwelling for an immortal soul,
00:01:53.000 the tiny perfection of her baby's body.
00:01:56.020 Even the angels have not been given such a grace.
00:02:00.560 What is more glorious than this?
00:02:02.760 To be a mother.
00:02:04.320 End quote.
00:02:04.760 So, to get back to Pope Francis,
00:02:08.260 have a look at this video of what he said,
00:02:10.600 transmitted by news services all over the world.
00:02:17.500 Some think that, excuse me if I use this word,
00:02:20.960 that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits.
00:02:24.880 No.
00:02:26.300 Responsible paternity, that is clear.
00:02:31.540 This was said during a Q&A session
00:02:33.900 on the Pope's return flight from Rome from the Philippines on January 19th, 2015.
00:02:38.880 The journalist asked the Pope about the Church's teaching on contraception
00:02:42.280 in light of the large number of children in the Philippines,
00:02:44.780 which some believe have resulted in severe poverty.
00:02:47.720 The Pope began his answer,
00:02:49.320 noting that it's important to have three children
00:02:51.140 in order to sustain the population.
00:02:53.100 So watch this extended clip with subtitles so you can see his emphasis,
00:02:59.360 which actually makes clear his meaning.
00:03:00.980 The one that uses the Church always,
00:03:04.320 also I, is paternity responsibility.
00:03:07.200 How do you do this?
00:03:11.080 How do you do this?
00:03:11.660 With dialogue with each person, with each person, with each person,
00:03:15.580 with each person, to seek how to do that paternity responsibility.
00:03:21.580 That example that I mentioned a few years ago,
00:03:25.260 of that woman who was waiting for the VIII and there were seven children
00:03:30.180 who were born with the cesareo.
00:03:35.720 But this is an irresponsibility.
00:03:40.100 No, I confided in Dio.
00:03:42.120 But look, Dio gives you a lot of money.
00:03:44.560 Some people defended the Pope's words here with what seemed like
00:04:12.940 really a mental contortion, suggesting that the Pope was just saying
00:04:16.540 that having a large number of children by C-sections
00:04:18.640 is irresponsible, as he said,
00:04:21.200 but somehow wasn't suggesting
00:04:23.480 that having a large number of children itself was irresponsible.
00:04:26.800 But as you saw yourself,
00:04:28.140 that explanation does not fit the context
00:04:30.560 nor the content of the Pope's remarks.
00:04:33.260 But more than that,
00:04:34.240 it's contradicted by the witness of the new push
00:04:37.340 to have fewer children coming from the Vatican under Pope Francis.
00:04:41.060 It was at a 2017 Vatican conference
00:04:44.380 where a Vatican bishop, who's a close advisor to the Pope,
00:04:47.760 called for education for women
00:04:49.540 so they'd have one or two children
00:04:52.160 rather than seven or more.
00:04:54.700 That sounds incredible.
00:04:56.140 It was Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sarondo
00:04:58.680 who hails from Pope Francis' homeland of Argentina.
00:05:02.600 And he's the chancellor, actually,
00:05:04.800 of the two academies, Vatican academies,
00:05:07.900 the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences
00:05:10.920 and the Pontifical Academy for Sciences.
00:05:13.820 And I know it sounds hard to believe that he said this,
00:05:16.820 but I want you to listen to it yourself
00:05:18.900 because he's speaking at the Vatican in English,
00:05:21.800 albeit broken English.
00:05:22.900 The idea of the church that we need education
00:05:26.260 because it's not only the aims of the marriage
00:05:34.480 is not only to have children,
00:05:36.700 but to educate the children
00:05:38.460 and also the person to have children,
00:05:44.380 the woman and the man.
00:05:45.840 And many, many priests say to me
00:05:51.100 that the great solution for the question of procreation
00:05:57.160 is the education of the women.
00:05:59.160 Because when we have education,
00:06:01.580 we don't have children.
00:06:03.200 We don't have seven children.
00:06:04.700 Maybe we have one children, two children, no more.
00:06:08.720 Did you catch that?
00:06:10.520 Because when you have education,
00:06:12.920 we don't have seven children.
00:06:14.700 Maybe we have one children, two children, no more.
00:06:19.680 That's unbelievable coming from a Vatican bishop.
00:06:22.700 And this is the head of two Vatican academies.
00:06:25.940 Bishop Sirondo has invited many other speakers
00:06:28.260 to the Vatican who advocate having fewer children.
00:06:32.000 Watch Professor Wan Tse-li,
00:06:34.620 a member of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences,
00:06:36.760 speaking at the 2017 Vatican Conference,
00:06:39.500 rejoicing over the massive decline
00:06:41.560 in the numbers of elementary school children
00:06:43.460 due to population decline over 20 years.
00:06:46.440 You see,
00:06:48.700 if you just follow the religious belief
00:06:53.380 or philosophical thinking,
00:06:55.680 you say the population were to go down.
00:06:58.680 In Taiwan, it's amazing.
00:07:00.120 When I went back in 1994,
00:07:02.780 400,000 students entered elementary school.
00:07:08.240 And if you think that's bad, it just gets worse.
00:07:16.300 The Vatican has brought in a laundry list
00:07:18.400 of population control activists,
00:07:20.140 many of whom include abortion
00:07:21.700 as an appropriate means of population control.
00:07:24.220 The Vatican has invited population control advocate
00:07:28.240 Jeffrey Sachs to the Vatican to speak on numerous occasions.
00:07:31.440 He called legalizing abortion a cost-effective way
00:07:34.340 to eliminate unwanted children when contraception fails.
00:07:38.780 And that was in his 2008 book,
00:07:40.420 Commonwealth Economics for a Crowded Planet.
00:07:43.560 The Vatican invited John Bongartz,
00:07:45.760 the vice president of the pro-abortion population control,
00:07:48.640 pushing Population Council to speak
00:07:50.640 at their biological extinction conference.
00:07:53.240 The Vatican even invited the likes
00:07:55.040 of California Governor Jerry Brown,
00:07:57.260 one of the most pro-abortion governors
00:07:58.840 in the United States, to speak.
00:08:01.100 Brown, in a 2010 campaign speech,
00:08:03.820 said he'd been, and I quote,
00:08:05.660 an uncompromising champion of a woman's right to choose
00:08:09.200 and would continue to do so if elected governor, end quote.
00:08:14.600 I could go on and on with scandalous speakers
00:08:17.100 invited the Vatican, such as pro-abortion UN Secretary General
00:08:21.320 Ban Ki-moon, Professor Scott Peters,
00:08:23.600 a member of the U.S. House of Representatives,
00:08:25.820 who actually in 2013 co-sponsored
00:08:27.800 one of the most pro-abortion bills in U.S. history,
00:08:30.320 eliminating all limitations on abortion.
00:08:32.700 There was also Professor Lise Van Susteren,
00:08:34.980 who in her 2005 run for the U.S. Senate,
00:08:37.280 voiced staunch support for abortion and homosexual marriage.
00:08:41.380 There was also California State Senator Kevin DeLeon,
00:08:44.240 who revels in his 100% pro-abortion voting record
00:08:48.900 from Planned Parenthood.
00:08:50.500 But even more outrageous than all of them
00:08:53.160 was the invite to speak for the so-called
00:08:56.200 Father of the Population Control Movement, Paul Ehrlich,
00:08:59.460 who penned the 1968 scaremongering book,
00:09:02.320 The Population Bomb.
00:09:04.800 LifeSite News actually delivered a petition
00:09:06.900 of more than 10,000 signatures,
00:09:08.800 asking the Pope to rescind Ehrlich's invitation.
00:09:11.140 But he spoke, nevertheless, at the Vatican
00:09:14.280 on February 27, 2017.
00:09:16.800 The biggest problem we face
00:09:19.040 is continual expansion of the human enterprise.
00:09:23.080 You know, I would love to see
00:09:24.460 hundreds of trillions of human beings live
00:09:27.440 over the next few million years,
00:09:29.300 rather than see if we can cram
00:09:31.360 11 billion in by 2010,
00:09:35.860 2110,
00:09:37.380 and then let the whole thing go down the drain.
00:09:39.840 I mean, the sustainability is talked about a lot,
00:09:43.860 but a lot of people talk about things
00:09:45.440 like sustainable growth.
00:09:48.460 Perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell.
00:09:52.060 And we really have to look at the size
00:09:54.840 of the human enterprise
00:09:56.040 and think about why we're doing these things.
00:10:00.880 Ehrlich champions sex-selective abortion,
00:10:03.640 as well as mass-forced sterilization,
00:10:05.840 as legitimate methods
00:10:08.160 to curb population control.
00:10:10.200 He did this in his book,
00:10:11.440 The Population Bomb,
00:10:12.400 Ecoscience, Population Resources, Environment,
00:10:14.720 on page 837.
00:10:17.260 As he said, and I quote,
00:10:19.460 he has said,
00:10:20.500 nobody in my view has the right
00:10:22.680 to have 12 children,
00:10:24.000 or even three,
00:10:25.740 unless the second pregnancy is twins.
00:10:28.860 End quote.
00:10:30.040 Ehrlich has been inimical
00:10:31.620 to the Catholic Church
00:10:32.800 and her teachings on life,
00:10:34.320 especially under the pontificates
00:10:35.640 of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
00:10:37.960 In 2014, he wrote
00:10:39.280 that the Catholic Church's moral teachings
00:10:41.560 are, quote,
00:10:42.660 just as unethical
00:10:44.080 as a terrorist act.
00:10:47.500 Not surprisingly, though,
00:10:48.780 Ehrlich is fond of Pope Francis.
00:10:51.020 He actually told LifeSite in an interview,
00:10:53.360 and I quote,
00:10:53.860 I'm thrilled with the new Pope
00:10:55.860 moving the Church
00:10:56.640 in the right direction.
00:10:58.120 End quote.
00:10:59.480 Cardinal Raymond Burke
00:11:00.500 reacted to Ehrlich's speaking
00:11:02.020 of the Vatican,
00:11:02.680 saying it's simply a scandal.
00:11:04.280 He said, and I quote,
00:11:05.300 I'm scandalized by it,
00:11:06.780 and I don't see how
00:11:07.640 any good Catholic
00:11:08.580 wouldn't be scandalized by that.
00:11:10.560 I just don't understand it.
00:11:12.200 In reality,
00:11:13.080 the world is experiencing
00:11:14.060 a population implosion,
00:11:16.720 a demographic winter,
00:11:18.200 if you will.
00:11:19.260 Due to their population control measures,
00:11:21.380 China and India
00:11:22.100 have a massive 70 million woman deficit.
00:11:25.340 That's 70 million men without wives.
00:11:28.660 That's the equivalent
00:11:29.460 of the whole population
00:11:30.720 of the UK or of France
00:11:32.360 with all men
00:11:33.440 and no women at all.
00:11:35.380 Imagine the risks that poses.
00:11:38.680 Already, various nations
00:11:40.160 are reporting an epidemic
00:11:41.320 of loneliness.
00:11:42.300 The German news magazine
00:11:43.320 Der Spiegel reported
00:11:44.780 that gerontology researchers
00:11:46.740 have linked the epidemic
00:11:47.860 of loneliness among the elderly
00:11:49.680 to a contraceptive mentality.
00:11:51.480 They said, and I quote,
00:11:52.100 the fact that more and more people
00:11:54.980 are opting not to have children
00:11:56.380 threatens to worsen
00:11:57.640 the isolation experienced
00:11:58.880 by older people.
00:12:00.340 Indeed, childlessness
00:12:01.280 significantly increases
00:12:03.660 the risk of loneliness.
00:12:05.140 End quote.
00:12:05.880 That's from the German
00:12:06.640 Center of Gerontology,
00:12:07.780 director Clemens Tesch-Römer.
00:12:10.500 And in Germany,
00:12:11.420 over 20% of the people
00:12:12.960 aged over 70
00:12:14.080 have regular contact
00:12:15.680 with only one person or none.
00:12:18.020 Over 2 million Germans
00:12:19.480 aged over 80 live alone.
00:12:21.420 1 in 4 receives a visit
00:12:24.620 less than once a month
00:12:25.980 from friends and acquaintances,
00:12:27.700 and nearly 1 in 10
00:12:28.940 is not visited
00:12:30.000 by anyone anymore.
00:12:32.440 Der Spiegel reported that
00:12:33.560 in 2013 already.
00:12:35.340 According to the New York Times,
00:12:37.140 4,000 elderly Japanese
00:12:39.020 now die alone every week.
00:12:41.140 And every year,
00:12:42.280 there are news stories
00:12:43.140 in Japan of people
00:12:44.300 who die alone in their homes.
00:12:45.840 Often their deaths
00:12:46.560 go unnoticed
00:12:47.300 and unremarked
00:12:48.340 for weeks or months,
00:12:50.000 rent and utility payments
00:12:51.300 silently flowing
00:12:52.340 out of the deceased
00:12:53.080 person's bank account
00:12:54.160 until finally neighbors
00:12:55.240 complain about a bad smell.
00:12:57.700 There's actually now
00:12:58.820 a Japanese business
00:13:00.160 whose business
00:13:01.340 is to clean apartments
00:13:02.820 after the corpses
00:13:04.220 of lonelies
00:13:05.260 are discovered in them.
00:13:06.920 There's also
00:13:07.960 the Islamic takeover.
00:13:10.040 And I quote,
00:13:10.620 If you want to see
00:13:12.280 the face of Europe
00:13:13.180 in a hundred years,
00:13:14.720 barring a miracle,
00:13:15.760 look to the faces
00:13:16.600 of young Muslim immigrants.
00:13:18.540 End quote.
00:13:19.660 That was said
00:13:20.320 by Philadelphia Archbishop
00:13:21.720 Charles Chaput
00:13:22.640 at a 2017
00:13:23.760 Napa Institute conference.
00:13:25.920 Islam, he said,
00:13:27.260 has a future
00:13:28.000 because Islam
00:13:29.160 believes in children.
00:13:32.200 Finally,
00:13:32.980 with our anti-Natalist culture,
00:13:35.000 we are also depriving
00:13:36.140 young married couples
00:13:37.300 of the few years
00:13:39.340 they have
00:13:40.020 to beget children.
00:13:41.400 That short space of time,
00:13:43.020 some 20 years,
00:13:44.040 flies by,
00:13:45.240 as we know,
00:13:45.860 once we reach middle age.
00:13:47.900 So many young people
00:13:48.980 realize today
00:13:49.760 only after it's too late
00:13:50.980 the joy of having children,
00:13:53.320 of having many children.
00:13:55.480 God is indeed
00:13:56.260 the author of life.
00:13:57.620 It's indeed a command
00:13:58.640 to be fruitful
00:13:59.360 and multiply,
00:14:00.180 but it's also a blessing.
00:14:02.740 I'd like to conclude
00:14:04.140 this episode
00:14:05.080 of the John Henry Weston Show
00:14:06.320 with a personal test
00:14:07.280 because this issue
00:14:08.720 is so close to home
00:14:09.860 for my wife and I.
00:14:11.700 I pray this testimony
00:14:13.200 demonstrates for you
00:14:14.400 as it does for us,
00:14:15.720 that God opens the womb,
00:14:17.320 that God loves large families,
00:14:19.140 and that he indeed
00:14:20.360 gives children
00:14:21.760 as a blessing
00:14:22.380 to be lovingly received
00:14:23.720 and will give you
00:14:25.060 the needed grace
00:14:25.960 to raise your children
00:14:27.560 as citizens for heaven.
00:14:29.720 So, my wife and I
00:14:31.600 are the parents
00:14:32.280 of eight living children,
00:14:34.180 but my wife
00:14:34.780 conceived 11 children
00:14:36.180 and lost three
00:14:37.500 to miscarriage.
00:14:38.760 The first child
00:14:39.600 who died, Stefano,
00:14:40.600 was miscarried
00:14:41.320 on my wife's birthday,
00:14:42.800 and she felt God
00:14:44.160 had forgotten about her,
00:14:45.400 especially since
00:14:46.020 she lost the child
00:14:46.740 on her birthday.
00:14:48.920 We learned of the death
00:14:50.260 of the second child,
00:14:51.560 we lost, Bernadette,
00:14:52.680 on another day
00:14:53.380 when gifts are received,
00:14:54.680 rather than taken away,
00:14:56.680 our 16th wedding anniversary.
00:14:59.440 Likewise,
00:15:00.020 we learned of the death
00:15:01.080 of the third child,
00:15:03.440 Jesse Emanuel,
00:15:04.220 on Christmas Eve,
00:15:05.480 when our family
00:15:06.020 normally celebrates
00:15:06.860 Christmas and gift-giving.
00:15:09.220 By this point,
00:15:10.620 my wife expressed to God
00:15:11.880 that all these gifts
00:15:13.160 were taken from her
00:15:14.060 on days that she
00:15:14.820 should be receiving gifts,
00:15:16.740 had he indeed
00:15:17.480 forgotten her.
00:15:18.860 So, my wife begged God
00:15:20.420 that within a year
00:15:21.560 she would be able
00:15:22.120 to have another child
00:15:23.040 and that this child
00:15:24.220 should live.
00:15:25.400 And one year later,
00:15:26.260 we found ourselves
00:15:26.980 hosting a New Year's Eve party
00:15:28.340 attended by six couples,
00:15:31.040 some of our closest
00:15:32.120 friends actually,
00:15:32.900 and at the party,
00:15:34.200 five of the women
00:15:35.020 were newly pregnant.
00:15:37.340 And unbeknownst to me,
00:15:39.020 that was a very heavy
00:15:39.880 burden on my wife
00:15:40.780 and so she went away
00:15:41.660 privately and wept.
00:15:44.020 You forgot somebody, Lord,
00:15:45.780 she prayed silently
00:15:46.760 through her tears.
00:15:48.720 You've given the gift of life
00:15:50.000 to all those beautiful
00:15:50.860 daughters of yours out there,
00:15:52.180 but you've forgotten one.
00:15:53.700 You forgot me.
00:15:56.500 And a few weeks later,
00:15:57.800 we actually learned
00:15:59.020 that she too
00:15:59.820 was with child
00:16:00.520 and although we did not
00:16:01.800 know it,
00:16:02.460 at the time she was pregnant
00:16:03.580 at that New Year's Eve
00:16:04.440 party as well.
00:16:06.420 Having had three miscarriages
00:16:07.720 in a row,
00:16:08.680 ultrasounds were very routine
00:16:09.980 and one of them showed
00:16:11.440 that the child was a boy
00:16:12.500 and then we were
00:16:14.320 actually perplexed.
00:16:15.500 You see,
00:16:16.000 we already had five boys
00:16:18.100 and a family tradition
00:16:20.640 of giving each child
00:16:22.560 three names.
00:16:23.440 So, we had already
00:16:24.420 used up 15 boy names
00:16:25.840 and so after a while
00:16:27.600 my wife suggested
00:16:28.440 that we name
00:16:29.140 the baby Zachariah
00:16:31.440 but I preferred
00:16:32.840 the English version
00:16:33.780 Zachary
00:16:34.280 and we could not agree
00:16:35.920 so we debated
00:16:36.900 back and forth
00:16:37.600 for some time.
00:16:39.400 Now,
00:16:39.900 one of my wife's friends
00:16:41.600 called my wife
00:16:43.140 to relay a dream
00:16:44.640 that she had.
00:16:45.820 She said,
00:16:46.280 Diane, don't worry.
00:16:47.000 She dreamt that our baby
00:16:47.960 was born alive
00:16:48.880 but also that
00:16:50.020 Diane and I
00:16:51.120 were arguing
00:16:51.740 about the name
00:16:52.740 of the baby.
00:16:54.940 John Henry was insisting
00:16:55.980 the name should be Zachary
00:16:57.020 and you were saying
00:16:57.740 Zachariah,
00:16:59.060 she said.
00:17:00.660 Yet,
00:17:01.220 we had not told
00:17:02.060 anybody about
00:17:03.480 the debate
00:17:04.000 over the names.
00:17:06.000 Diane and I felt
00:17:07.000 the dream
00:17:07.540 was a kind of
00:17:08.220 heavenly confirmation
00:17:09.140 that Zachariah
00:17:10.040 or Zachary
00:17:10.640 was to be the name
00:17:12.180 God intended
00:17:12.760 for the child.
00:17:14.460 It was then
00:17:15.200 that Diane decided
00:17:16.060 to investigate
00:17:16.720 the meaning
00:17:17.420 of the name
00:17:18.060 Zachary
00:17:18.600 or Zachariah.
00:17:20.040 As she googled
00:17:20.860 the name,
00:17:21.420 tears began
00:17:21.920 to stream
00:17:22.420 down her face
00:17:23.200 as the meaning
00:17:24.440 of the name
00:17:24.960 appeared on the screen.
00:17:27.360 Zachariah means
00:17:28.480 the Lord remembers.
00:17:31.220 Her prayer,
00:17:32.500 Lord,
00:17:32.780 have you forgotten me,
00:17:33.640 was indeed answered.
00:17:37.440 Thank you for watching
00:17:38.540 this episode
00:17:39.140 of the John Henry Weston Show
00:17:40.340 and may God bless you.