Pope Francis Is Wrong: Pets Save People From the “Bitterness of Loneliness”

Since neither my human nor her boyfriend is a practicing Catholic, I don’t often hear about what goes on with Pope Francis. From what I gather, he has been good in a lot of different ways. But the other day he said something that was wrong.

Pope Francis was speaking to 15 long-married pairs of humans during Mass at the Vatican, and he criticized what he saw as “the culture of wellbeing,” in which couples choose to remain childfree. The Pope felt childfree couples were self-centered beings, more interested in vacation homes than being “fruitful.” He went on to say, “it might be better — more comfortable — to have a dog, two cats, and the love goes to the two cats and the dog… Then, in the end this marriage comes to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness.”

While my human and her boyfriend don’t have children and never will, what I have to say has nothing to do with them or their choices. I want to point out that having children is no guarantee that your old age won’t be solitary and lonely. I know this because I know someone who had a family (in fact, two) who is often quite lonely: my human’s father.

My human’s father has a son from his first marriage, and my human, from his second marriage. His wife — my human’s mother — died several years ago. The son works full time. My human runs a business. Their time with their father is very limited. My human finds visiting with him frustrating because there is a lot he does not comprehend well and their conversations are often difficult. He lives at an assisted living facility, but is having a hard time connecting with the other residents (who he feels are worse off than he is), so even though he has a family, he is lonely a lot. Except for someone who loves him and keeps him company always: his cat Smokey.

As you can see, Smokey is a fluffy panther, not unlike a female version of Spitty. She is always there for my human’s father. Since she is not gainfully employed and does not run her own business, her whole job is to hang out with my human’s father and she really enjoys it. They don’t need conversation to have a nice time. He plays the red dot game with her, and then they nap together. When my human’s father moved into the assisted living facility, my human bought Smokey a small cat tree, and even though it is less than two months old, it is already well used! Smokey is an awesome companion and my human’s father would be lost without her. Since she is 10 and my human’s father is 94, she will probably outlive him. Don’t worry, we will make sure that there is always a good home for Smokey.

So I’m just saying, instead of making it sound like pets have anything to do with human couples remaining childfree, why doesn’t the Pope realize that pets do a lot of good for humans of all ages? Especially elderly humans, with or without families, who are lonely. That is a very important and compassionate thing, and it is something that the Pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, understood very well.

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