In a Tuesday appearance on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show, former Sen. Rick Santorum lamented that it is “very difficult to listen” to Pope Francis from time to time. The former GOP candidate was responding to Pope Francis’s remark that Catholics shouldn’t be procreating like rabbits.
“Some think, and excuse the term, that to be good Catholics, they must be like rabbits,” the pontiff said while returning from a trip to Asia.
Santorum took exception to the remarks, saying that just because the Pope said this doesn’t mean “people shouldn’t be fruitful and multiply,” while adding that he doesn’t “know what the Pope was referring to.”
HEWITT: I’ve got to ask you this, because you’re like me, Roman Catholic, Pope Francis flying back from the Philippines today said, “some think, excuse me if I use the word, that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits, but no.” People Magazine has run this as Pope – Catholics shouldn’t breed like rabbits. He didn’t actually say breed like rabbits, but he said like rabbits. What do you make of this, Rick Santorum?
SANTORUM: Well, I mean, it’s sometimes very difficult to listen to the Pope and some of the things he says off the cuff, and this is one of them. And I just, I keep coming back to the Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church, and when he speaks as the leader of the Catholic Church, I’ll certainly pay attention. But when he speaks in interviews, he’s giving his own opinions, which I certainly will listen to, but from my perspective, that doesn’t reflect the idea that people shouldn’t be fruitful and multiply, and that people should be open to life as something that is a core value of the faith and of the Catholic Church. And I don’t know what the Pope was referring to there. Maybe he’s speaking to people in the third world, but the problem certainly in most of the Catholic world is not procreation. I mean, in Europe in particular, you have birth rates that are only over, just a little over one for every two people. So this isn’t a global problem, and I don’t know what the Pope was referring to.
