Maybe it was a Freudian slip: "Popeulate" - I love it!

Actually, Yabby's absolutely correct. The last thing the world needs is more people.

Yabby,
Could you please provide an exact quote where Cardinal Pell claims that the West needs to "populate or perish". The closest I could get was

>> "There is a crisis in the Western world," said Dr Pell, the head of the Catholic church in Australia."No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable." << (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24016420-5016672,00.html).

This is just a statement of an undeniable fact. Nevertheless, whatever his reasons for mentioning this aging population problem, (that now apparently can be remedied, if at all, only by an increased immigration from non-Western countries) I do not think complaining about the decreasing Western proportion of the world population was appropriate at a gathering where a large part of participants - perhaps the majority of non-Australians - came from non-Western countries.

Dear George,

If you were to google, "Populate or Perish: Pell,"
you'd find quite a few websites that confirm
the Cardinal's quote.

However, it also appeared in, The Sydney Morning Herald,
July 14, 2008, article by Linda Morris.

Cheers.

You've got a Catholic, telling a Catholic audience, that there aren't enough babies. It's pretty obvious he's saying Catholics aren't being sufficiently prolific breeders. Prolific in comparison to who else is open to interpretation, but the message to his Caffolic Yoof audience is fairly blunt I would have thought.

Cast off ye evil condoms and eschew ye pharmaceutical and surgical birth controls.

Go forth, multiply, and donate. Cash, cheques and all credit cards accepted.

The statement "Populate or Perish!" is Pell`s polite way of telling us to all to "get knotted!".....the offeratory plates must be turning up rather depleted, so it is time for all good Catholics to "have three for Pell and four for the country!"

The Churches of all denominations in the western world should be closely examining the reasons for the ever increasing drift away from modern religous groups, which have been wracked with money-grabbing, deceit, hypocrisy, paedaphilia and criminal cover-ups!

We have to suffer enough of that sort of painful treatment from Governments, over whose participatory performance we have no choice of avoiding!

The current Papal street-sweeping exercise in Sydney is doing nothing to win over the hearts and the minds of the disillusioned non-believer masses who see it simply as another shameful waste of taxpayers money, that could be put to better use by applying it to the homeless and the pending homeless!

Dear Foxy,
Thank you for your info. The googling you suggested, including Linda Morris' article, confirmed only Pell's statement of fact, that I already quoted.

In 2003 it was one thing to state that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and oppressor of his people, and another thing to call for an invasion that followed, though some people might interpret - either approvingly or disapprovingly - these statements of fact about Saddam as a support, or even call, for the invasion.

As said above, I think it was a wrong occasion for Pell to make such a statement, but as I read it, it is still just a statement of fact, lamenting about the status quo.

chainsmoker, Cuphandle,
Thank you for your colourful interpretation of the Cardinal's words, revealing your own emotional bias (as justified as it might be) rather than what he actually said.