George, on the day in question, there were a number of press reports
claiming that is what he did say. I was not there to hear every
word of what he said. Clearly that is how the press understood it.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/14/1215887540778.html

I have seen no press reports that he disagrees with what the press
claimed he said, have you?

Well I think that it is a worry. We live in a democracy so majority rules. Muslims have lots and lots of children, if the Catholics and other religions do not also have lots and lots of children we will be the minority and we will be ruled.

Yabby,
>> I have seen no press reports that he disagrees with what the press claimed he said, have you? <<
No, but as mentioned before, I could not find a press report claiming that Pell used the expression "populate or perish", or any other form of similarly explicit exhortation. I could find the phrase "populate or perish" only as part of a headline, not as a direct quote.

A politician X could make a statement about a politician Y which might look reasonable to interpret as "Politician Y is a fool". However, this interpretation should not be reported as if he/she actually said it, making conclusions from it how rude politician X was. On the other hand, biased reporting is not restricted to only where the Catholic Church is involved. Cardinal Pell is certainly well aware of that, and would probably not react unless the matter had legal implications, which this one obviously does not have. Nevertheless, one should be permitted to point out the difference between a quote and its interpretation. This is all I wanted to say.

Yabby is absolutely correct.

Population is the single cause which promotes

Global Warming (if you believe it exists)

UnSustainable resource use (something that I do believe is happening)

Environmental degradation across the planet from Acid rain to Acid oceans, decimation of fish stocks, deforestation and soil erosion etc etc. things which are clearly visible and indesputible.

Now the population of the world is around 6 billion +

If the population of the world were one tenth that amount would the gene-pool, the thing which the successive breeding of the species depends on, be adversely effected?

NO

So why the quest for numbers?

More of the faithful to give tribute to the Papists?

The sooner people realise the real danger to their childrens future and welfare is the number of other peoples children they are competing with, the sooner will people come to the party and give away the stupidity of the Pope.

About 30 years ago, before I had children, I lived in UK.

UK, 60 million people in half the size of Victoria (or whatever).

I migrated not solely for myself but for the future of the children I had then still to father and one day my grandchildren, so they could be part of a continent with only 20 million or so, folk on it.

Competition of numbers matters. Look at the quality of life and expectations of people in UK and Europe. All that history might look nice but they buy it at the price of the fundamental expectations of life qualities which they can aspire to and which are a lot less than what we take for granted in Australia.

George, the thing is, the headline clearly states that George
Pell "says" etc.

Now either he did or did not say it, I can only go by somebody
who seems to have been there, to tell me what he said.

Perhaps he only implied it, then the journalists got it wrong.
Fair enough, that is possible, journalists don't report that
accuractely and so far nobody has produced a transcript of
what he actually said, whole speech, word for word.

On the other hand, organisations associated with the Vatican
spend alot of time and lobbying effort encouraging people to
have larger families. The dogma of the Church and the fact
that it runs many hospitals, also means that many third worlders
can't have the snip or similar, its against church doctrine.
Condoms etc are still actively campaigned against.

So Pell, even if he only implied it and did not actually say it,
could well believe the dogma of his church, given that
he is a cardinal in it.

Pell said;

"No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable."

George said;

“This is just a statement of an undeniable fact.”

My goodness George! How terribly wrong you are.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1961#40772