The pope might know a thing or two about morality and even family planning, but he doesn’t know the first thing about rabbits, a man who breeds rodents charged yesterday.
Erwin Leowsky, president of the Central Association of German Rabbit Breeders, said that he wants to set the record clear about rabbits and their sexual proclivities – regardless of what the pope says.
“Some people believe that to be good Catholics, we need to be like rabbits,” Francis said in a press conference on the plane that took him back to Rome from the Philippines, as quoted by Italian news agency Ansa.
The pontiff instead pointed to the principle of “responsible fatherhood”, recalling that he recently scolded a woman in a church who was expecting her eighth child after undergoing seven Caesarean births.
But Leowsky says such comments highlight a longstanding misunderstanding of rabbits. Not all rabbits are busy breeders, he said.
Such behaviour, said Leowsky, can generally only be attributed to wild animals. Domesticated animals usually breed under controlled circumstances.
“He should maybe think about doing away with those kinds of figures of speech and instead let people use birth control. By my opinion, that would be more useful than firing off dumb sayings like that,” said Leowsky.
