Pope Francis has suggested that people who get cats and dogs instead of having children are selfish.

       Speaking to an audience at the Vatican, he said that substituting children for pets was a “denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity.”

       Pope Francis continued: “Today... we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have a child. 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 argued that if people chose not to have children then “civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers.”

       Pope Francis acknowledged that some families may be unable to have children for biological reasons but said that those couples should consider adoption. He referenced Jesus’s father Joseph as an example of an adoptive father, given that Jesus was the son of God born to Mary.

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       “How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them! We must not be afraid to choose the path of adoption, to take the risk of welcoming children,” he said.

       “Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child,” he added. Pope Francis warned people that their worries about who would care for them in older life are justified and that children play a crucial role in this.

       He added: “Many couples do not have children because they don’t want them, or have just one because they don’t want any more, but have two dogs, two cats - oh, yes, dogs and cats take the place of children.”

       He also spoke of a “demographic winter”, possibly referring to declining birth rates in some countries.

       Just over 23 per cent of the population is now 65 or order, but this is due to increase by 35 per cent by 2050.

       It is not the first time that Pope Francis has criticised people who prefer pets over children.

       In 2014, the Pope said that choosing to have pets over children was “another phenomenon of cultural degradation” and claimed that emotional relationships with pets were easier than the “complex” relationships between parents and their children.

       In 2015, Pope Francis’s visit to the United States was marked by pet owners dressing up their dogs in mini papal outfits.

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       Dog owners shared photos of their pets papal outfits with the hashtag #popedog.

       When asked if the Pope was aware of the trend, a Vatican spokesperson said: “I don’t know if he’s conscious of that. I imagine he has more important things to think about.”