Pope Francis and the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition

Last updated on: January 13, 2022 at 11:28 am by Fred Clark

Pope Francis and the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition 2022-01-13T11:28:32-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Let me start by stating that I generally and genuinely admire Pope Francis. That’s not to say I don’t often disagree with him — he is, after all, distressingly un-Baptist. But when Francis uses the familiar papal device of addressing not just the faithful but “all people of goodwill,” it usually seems as though he’s allowing the possibility of such a category and genuinely welcoming the rest of us to meet him there. So mostly I like the guy.

But I don’t like this, not at all: “Today … we see a form of selfishness,” Francis said last week in Rome. “We see that some people do not want to have a child.”

Choosing not to have children, Pope Francis says, is “a form of selfishness.” He doesn’t say that such a choice can sometimes be selfish, but that it is categorically a selfish choice. And all those who have made this choice, he says, have demonstrated that they are selfish people who deserve to be condemned for their immoral selfishness.

Well, that’s what Pope Francis said — and this isn’t the first time he has said this — but it cannot possibly be what Pope Francis meant. Because, after all, Pope Francis is himself someone who has deliberately chosen not to have children. The same is true of all of his cardinals and bishops, and of a large percentage of those who work for him and with him in the Vatican. And of course Francis did not mean to include either himself or any of those cardinals, bishops, priests, sisters, or brothers among the self-evidently selfish who stand condemned as such for having made the same choice they have made not to have children.

“My choice is good, your identical choice is bad” is an embarrassing argument. But this isn’t hypocrisy or what we usually mean when we speak of a “double standard.” It’s worse than that. And far more pernicious. It is, rather, exactly the sort of thing that C.S. Lewis warned us is “the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.”

Francis wasn’t suggesting that there is some objective ethical rule that applies to others but not to himself. He was, rather, saying that this choice — his choice — is sometimes good when it is made by responsible, virtuous people for responsible, virtuous reasons, but that the very same choice is bad when it is made by irresponsible, vicious people for irresponsible, vicious reasons. And thus he is saying that everybody who isn’t him is presumed to be irresponsible and vicious.

That’s bad. It’s morally bad in that it involves a willingness and a desire to presume the very worst of everyone who isn’t you, thus causing Francis to bear false witness against millions of his neighbors based solely on his presumption that they cannot possibly share his own exceptional virtue. And it’s intellectually bad in that it thereby distorts his perception of the rest of the world — and of himself — leading him to incorrect conclusions based on false premises.

If this were merely hypocrisy, then Francis would merely be guilty of the same thing he says everyone else is guilty of: selfishness and inhospitality. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. His personal, deliberate choice not to have children does not seem to have anything to do with selfishness or inhospitality. His choice, I think, demonstrates one way in which that choice can be an expression of selfless generosity — of giving up some personal benefit for the greater good of others. His own choice and his own life, in other words, stands as proof that the choice not to have children can be a responsible, wise, loving, and morally praiseworthy choice. But he refuses to allow that what is obviously true for him is just as obviously true for others.

The trap into which Francis has stepped here is the prideful temptation of assuming that his own motives are exceptionally virtuous and therefore are incomprehensible and inaccessible to most people. And he thus assumes and presumes that others making the very same choice he is must be doing so for the worst possible reasons.

As we noted, the choice not to have children can be and often is responsible, wise, loving, and morally praiseworthy. In other circumstances, it may also be the opposite of all of those things. It’s not impossible, or even difficult, to imagine a scenario in which some person or couple chooses not to have children for reasons that are selfish or shallow or inhospitable. But it’s one thing to say “Some people making this choice might be doing so for the worst possible reasons” and quite another to say “Everyone making this choice must be doing so for the worst possible reasons and none of them could possibly be doing so for any of the many good and responsible reasons we can just as easily imagine.”

To do the latter — as Francis has just done — is, again, to bear false witness against one’s neighbors. And it is also to engage in a form of vain self-flattery that makes one foolish. It is morally vicious in its contempt for others while also being morally silly in the way that all undue self-congratulation is ridiculous.

This is the same mixture of contempt and vainglory that we see in the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition.

As always, the first thing that we need to say about the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition is that they are 100% on the right side of the issue. Burning kittens is wrong and they’re not afraid to say so, emphatically, unambiguously, without fear or hesitation. I wholeheartedly commend them for standing firm against the burning of adorable little innocent kittens. No one can accuse them of wavering on that issue.

What makes the AKBC ridiculous, though, is that they’ve convinced themselves, somehow, that everyone is accusing them of wavering on that issue. Even more ridiculously, they’ve convinced themselves that everyone else disagrees with them about their bold and heroic moral stance against the burning of kittens. They’ve convinced themselves that their opposition to kitten-burning makes them exceptional. They’ve convinced themselves that their embrace of a bare-minimum, lowest-common-denominator, nearly universal and unanimous moral view sets them apart from and above everyone else.

It doesn’t. The only thing that makes them different from everyone else is their mistaken belief that they’re different from everybody else.

The pompous peacocking of the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition is clownish and ridiculous but, alas, it is not only that. It also produces real, tangible harm to themselves, to others, and to society as a whole. People who are convinced* that everyone else is irredeemably depraved and untrustworthy tend to set about creating the kinds of rules and laws and governments that such an unruly, monstrous mob would seem to require. Those kitten-burning, selfish, inhospitable others who cannot be trusted with freedom and agency and choice must be denied freedom and agency and choice. And because everyone else is cruel, selfish, and inhospitable, it seems recklessly foolish and unsafe to extend to them any form of kindness, selflessness, or hospitality. To survive among such people, one must become like them — at least outwardly. One must build walls, build prisons, lock doors, hoard resources, and live in a constant state of fear and suspicion.

It’s not a pretty picture. But it’s a familiar one.

* Never wholly “convinced,” mind you, but wholly committed to pretending to be convinced.

Uncategorized

Satanic baby-killers

Previous Post

January 13, 2022

Jan. 13 Flashback: Telling people to stay away from church

Next Post

January 14, 2022 Jan. 14 Flashback: You are not a neurotic gerbil

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the only disciple who was not martyred?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John James Peter Thomas