Pope Francis says choosing pets over kids is selfish

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Cat ladies across the world are shaking

The phrase is "man's best friend" not "man's best baby" - yet despite this, Pope Francis has stated that those who choose pets over having children are actually selfish. While discussing parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, the 85-year-old did not hold back, saying: "Today ... we see a form of selfishness," adding "we see that some people do not want to have a child". He continued: "Sometimes they have one, and that's it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. "This may make people laugh, but it is a reality." He added that the idea of replacing kids with four-legged friends is, in fact, "a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity." While parenthood should ultimately be a choice, there are of course those who biologically cannot have children. In those instances, the Pope urged people "not to be afraid" and potentially consider adoption. This must be an enormous issue for the Catholic Church, as the Pope had previously spoken on the issue in 2014 - and then again in 2015. In 2014, the sovereign of the Vatican City said that choosing pets was "another phenomenon of cultural degradation." He also noted that the relationship between owner and pet was "easy" compared to the "complex" relationship between parent and child. Currently, the world is home to around 7.8 billion people and while the Pope may take the opposite position to Marvel's mega-titan Thanos when it comes to population problems, does the world really need more people? For context, the UN believes there are currently 690 million people categorised as malnourished and a further 1.6 billion are thought to be living in inadequate housing.