From the National Journal on today's Encyclical "On Care for Our Common Home". Who else will pick up on this? #1 on National Journal's "six points from the Encyclical."
Population Control Is Not the Answer
For Pope Francis, caring about the environment goes hand in hand with taking a strong stand against abortion. "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion," the encyclical says. "How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?"
Francis suggests that efforts to slow population growth are misguided and a distraction from the underlying cause of the world's environmental crisis—the hoarding of the Earth's resources by the rich and powerful. "To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues," the encyclical says.
I expected the encyclical to say something along these lines – for Catholics it should be self-evident.
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