Said Pope Francis, quoted in
"Francis Urges Ban on Surrogacy, Calling It 'Despicable'/The pope said that an unborn child must not be 'turned into an object of trafficking,' expanding his condemnation of a practice already illegal in Italy and some other European countries" (NYT).
Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy and compensated surrogacy is also illegal or restricted in much of Europe.... Surrogate mothers in the United States and Canada are often hired by Europeans, including same-sex couples, seeking to have children, though some American states have outlawed the practice.
Francis, a constant critic of consumerism’s corrosive effects on humanity, is deeply wary that a profit motive will warp the traditional creation of life....
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The horse is already out of the barn.
Should have complained about 40 years ago.
I suppose the Pope is looking for a "make up call" on his decision to allow a blessing of same sex marriages. That doesn't work in basketball games and won't work here.
The first job for the next Pope is to reconvert Europe. Forget about climate change and all this political stuff.
It's a crying shame that my friend, the Jesuit Fr. John Schlegel, wasn't Pope. He had a clear vision of what's important. Francis is clueless.
How oh how did Queen Victoria have 9 children and reign over an empire at the same time?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descendants_of_Queen_Victoria
Surrogate parenting has long been routine among those with servants and slaves and wet nurses and nannies...just a hundred years ago...many of us can now afford better lifestyles than the monarchs of that era.
Given the low birth rates around the world, anything that motivates more people to have children is probably a good thing on balance.
Seems no different than adoption. Sounds like the babies are going to decent parents with above-average means. Not like breeding kids to become soldiers or chimney sweeps.
The pope should be much more concerned about the Islamization of Europe. But he’s a fucking moron.
What to do with the left's favorite Pope?
Surrogacy bad. Blessing homosexual marriage is blessed by Christ.
Catholics are pissing on the Robs of Jesus Christ.
Normally I have zero opinion of others persons Faith. But Catholics, and Christianity, are firmly tethered to the Bible and The New Testament specifically. If they are not, then they are as spiritual adrift as any hedonist.
The problem with the Pope is he's said so many divisive things, and upset so many good catholics, that when he does say something right and in line with Catholic teaching, it goes over like a lead balloon.
He reminds me of GOPe. When they say something conservative, their moderate/liberal followers don't care. And the Conservative ones dislike the messagenger.
Rent a Womb
In this country gays that buy babies are celebrated and hold high political office.
He is the most anti-principled Catholic pope, ever. And if this is his cause, after blessing homosexual unions, well......
So he's concerned about infants being trafficked, you say? Let's ask him for an update on investigation in Italy that has uncovered a major conspiracy between officials in the church and the open-borders, human trafficking empire that is currently inundating Europe:
https://rairfoundation.com/major-scandal-rocks-italian-catholic-church-bishops-accused/
….”A significant scandal has recently emerged within the Italian Catholic Church, implicating high-ranking church officials, including cardinals and archbishops, in a scheme of organizing and financing illegal migration from Africa to Europe. Investigations led by the prosecutor’s office in Ragusa, Sicily, have uncovered troubling connections between several Italian dioceses and the George Soros-tied NGO “SOS Mediterranea,” accused of aiding and abetting human trafficking under the guise of refugee aid.”
The, maybe we can get an update on the North American efforts after that.
This communist Pope thinks that the West is entirely too well-off, and ought to share more. That's what these actions say.
I find it despicable that he isn't that upset about murdering millions of babies
When Francis speaks decisively he's on fire. It's the mushy pope speak that makes a mess of things.
I see the NYT quote glosses over the "violation of dignity" statement and goes instead for the traddie bashing.
That's the hill he chooses to die upon? Bringing new, desperately wanted life into the world?
Drunkenly screwing in the back of a car is a sacred act, but deliberately conceiving a child for a living family is immoral. That's the bizarre conclusion one reaches when one is guided by magical thinking, rather than real human relationships.
The "Pope" prefers communism.
Since I don't pay for the NYT, I found a free article on the Washington Post. After reading the article, I read the comments which, instead of a thoughtful discussion of the issues, I found some of the most unhinged comments I've seen on any topic. He really set off a hornet's nest on this one.
Jenny has two fathers and absentee mother... rent-a-womb. Ethics, empathy, and social progress in modern families. You've come a long way, baby... fetus.
The pope finds it despicable that a woman might chose to help a couple who desperately want to be parents but can't have children of their own to become parents? Is adoption despicable too? The only difference is timing.
Add this to the growing list of things that the current Pope is wrong about. If he had purposely set out to demonstrate that a Pontiff is not infallible, not in spiritual or secular matters, I’m stumped as to what he would have done differently. He has faddish and boneheaded ideas about how politics, economics, family dynamics and marriage work and is working overtime to prove the old retort “is the Pope Catholic?” to be the height of postmodern irony.
Thank God bears still shit in the woods.
One thing that is never mentioned when people bemoan the increase in atheism is how bad our religious leaders are. America used to have reverends like MLK Jr. Now we have Al Sharpton. Once there was John Paul II. Now we have Francis. Why?
Should have complained about 40 years ago.
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They did.
People miss the point behind "child as commodity". The strict Biblical view is that man marries woman and has children. Anything other than that is a deviation from the ideal. The question is what is the implications of that deviation. Adoption is far different than surrogacy. It's not just a matter of "timing". Adoption is meant to help a child who is parentless - focused on the child, not the parents. This is not in all cases, sometimes it is just another form of transaction with "timing" being a factor, but if the goal is to meet the desires of the parents, rather than the needs of the child then there is an opening for exploitation. I am speaking from the perspective of a person who adopted 6 children. We did not ask someone to bring into the world a new child to service our desires. We instead saw children without parents and chose to become theirs.
The Pope is correct to make a stand on transactional child bearing. It is more likely to exploit the vulnerable to feed the desires of the wealthy, and it perverts the family.
In a way, the Catholics and all Christians (set aside the ancients with Zeus and his antics) embrace a form of surrogacy (natural mother but a different father). The name of the baby was of course Jesus. Key players were Mary, God, Holy Spirit and Joseph. Mary had to agree to the insemination process and Joseph had to agree to let 9 months roll by before he and Mary could get together (at long last)! Surrogacy worked out in that instance so why can't the Pope not see that? I suspect the Orthodox church might see things differently than the Pope. They do not rely on the infallibility of one person.
Is adoption despicable too? The only difference is timing.
Adoption rests on the people who want to be parents taking advantage of - in a good way - the free (one hopes) decision of a girl or woman to carry an unwanted baby to term, after her free (one hopes) decision to have sex. At least in Texas, the birth mother can't get paid by the adoptive parents either for giving the baby up for adoption or for her expenses during pregnancy. (She can receive financial aid through various organizations, I gather.)
I don't have a problem with altruistic surrogacy. I do have a problem with paid surrogacy, as I do with pay-the-mom (or even pay-the-organization, if not a domestic adoption) adoption - the incentive structure is dangerous. Both make me deeply uneasy.
I've also seen what people go through to adopt - they pay, even if no money changes hands. Do parents using a surrogate pay that emotional price? I'm sure some do, especially if the "fault" lies with the woman; I imagine watching another woman do the thing you can't it must be a constant grain of sand in the contact lens, if nothing else. But the (perhaps mythical?) "We're hiring a surrogate so I don't get stretch marks" people?
And I really need to meet a couple of gay men who really, really want to have and raise a child, because I've only ever known one straight man - not my husband, btw, who was quite uncertain about the prospect until I told him it was non-negotiable if he wanted to be with me - who did before having one.
I've never looked into how surrogacy works, but I assume it involves something other than vaginal sex with one's married partner. Multiple mortal sins right there!
If only he would speak out as strongly against abortion.
I remember hearing Dave Rubin declare "We had a baby!"
Some have brought up sound moral positions to support the Pope. If only the Pope had done that, instead of go off on a rant.
The real problem is the Pope making any room for homosexual marriage/relationships. The Pope getting ignoring abortion. The Pope supporting communism.
The Pope should be the conduit between The Word, and the People. The Word is universal and timeless. It does not require "updating" for the times.
Serious question: how did this guy ever get voted in as Pope? Do the cardinals have mail-in voting?
A lot of you are very wrong on surrogacy.
Organ donation is okey-dokey with the Church. So a surrogate could just donate an entire full term fetus to the new parents as a full set of organs and other bits and pieces, after its removal from the womb via vaginal or Caesarean birth.
The confusion on the face of the old guy when he is informed of this loophole would be a delight to behold.
@planetgeo: "how did this guy ever get voted in as Pope?"
Yeah...someone I know used to regularly say "Is the Pope Catholic?" instead of answering "yes" to a question. It's not so clear now.
Offhand, I'd guess two factors pushed Francis up: (1) widespread anger and disgust over the decades of childhood sexual abuse, financial issues, other sins of the priests, and official cover ups, and (2) he likely appeals to leftist political factions in Catholic growth countries (read: the tropics). See the Catholic reaction to the Protestants and counter-reformation of the renaissance.
Modern surrogacy requires the egg of one woman to be placed into another (the incubator) so that someone else (not the egg haver in most instances or the womb either) can have a child. And yes , enormous amounts of money are changing hands. It IS human trafficking. And the baby will not know a mother because as has been mentioned this is being used most frequently by gay men.
You can not like this Pope and recognize that what he said was good. And I'm not even Catholic!
tim maguire: The pope finds it despicable that a woman might chose to help a couple who desperately want to be parents but can't have children of their own to become parents? Is adoption despicable too? The only difference is timing.
"The issue is the well-being of a child—a living, breathing human being—who was created for the sole purpose of being sold and ripped away from her mother.
"Unlike adoption, which seeks to heal a wound, surrogacy deliberately creates one. And if there’s one thing modern ears hate to hear, it’s that a refusal to reason beyond whatever feels good or whatever one desires right now is what actually paves the road to Hell."
- Sean Davis
All the commenters saying something like "lol can't believe pope thinks he's infallible" are blockheads. Francis wasn't claiming this statement was infallible. Catholics don't think the pope is infallible every time he opens his yap about something (even regarding faith & morals).
I know it's asking a lot, but maybe people commenting on and criticizing religions they don't belong to should make a conscientious effort to understand what they're talking about.
But isn't a form of proto-surrogacy mentioned in the Bible?
When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!"
Jacob became angry with her and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?"
Then she said, "Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family."
So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her,
and she became pregnant and bore him a son.
Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son."
Meaning no disrespect to anyone who feels either pro- or anti-surrogacy, but I'm surprised this Biblical episode has gone unmentioned in the debate.
Mary and Joseph were not available for comment….
Good to see that this Pope is right on at least a few things. There's a reason why the most forlorn of humans has long been conceptualized as a "motherless child."
He's not right about a lot, but he's 1000% right on this. And as others have commented, surrogacy and adoption aren't remotely related, as the former is all about the parents and the latter is (or should be) completely about the child. Even then, adoption is traumatic for the child even when it's the best solution; losing your birth mother is harder than it looks, for various reasons. Creating that situation deliberately is beyond cruel.
NeggNogg,
The passage you cite isn't mentioned because it's not in any way relevant. Like many such similar passages where the Bible is recording historical events, it's missing that vital phrase: "Go thou and do likewise."
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