Photo: Tony Gentile/Reuters/Corbis
Pope Francis revealed a very moderate interpretation of the biblical exhortation to be fruitful and multiply on Monday, when he told reporters aboard Pope Force 1 that Catholics shouldn’t feel like they have to have enough children to cast a TLC reality show. “Some think, excuse me if I use the word, that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits — but no,” he said, instead casting a vote for “responsible parenthood.” While the pontiff didn’t quite come out in favor of the pullout method or capping anything in latex, he did reaffirm that there are Church-sanctioned ways of staving off unplanned pregnancies: namely, monitoring a woman’s fertility cycle to know when pregnancy is a risk.
