Because of comments that were inappropriately attributed directly to the Pope and not Peter Raven as they should have been I have decided to retract my post as well.
It has been brought my attention that lifesitenews.com has printed this correction of the article I quoted at the begining of this post:
“March 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – On March 3, LifeSite published an article originally titled: “‘Pope Francis has urged us to have fewer children,’ claims Vatican academy member.” That article misquoted botanist and environmentalist Peter Raven, who was reported to have said at a Vatican press conference that, “Pope Francis has urged us to have fewer children to make the world more sustainable.” After reviewing audio recordings of the press conference, LifeSite has amended the story to accurately reflect Raven’s words.What he actually said was, “We need at some point to have a limited number of people which is why Pope Francis and his three most recent predecessors have always argued that you should not have more children than you can bring up properly.”
This however does not change my suspicion of this Pope in regard to his alliance with environmentalism. It would not surprise me if over time he actually did publicly accept the overpopulation myth. But to date there is no official evidence it.
I still do not agree that the Pope allowed an avid forced abortion promoter to speak and I do believe the overpopulation ideology had a wide audience at this Vatican summit. Something the Pope should never have allowed.
Biblical Gender Roles 
What I don’t understand is environmentalists and the like going after intact, stable, married couples-the only people who should be having children- instead of the unwed, and the homosexuals (using surrogates or artificial insemination).
Hi BGR
Was the command to bear fruit and multiply given to believers through the promise of Abraham or was it given to all including the pagans?
In the OT, we see God exacting judgement on pagans for their unrepentant debauchery and this involves the death of their children in many occasions either through natural or supernatural means. I believe that young children were given to death to spare them a life of sin that their parents were trapped in. A merciful justice.
Similarly would you think that the ‘be fruitful and multiply’ command applies to pagans today also? Isn’t it better for them to not bear children and/or abort them than raise them up in sin and lies?
I meet a lot of atheists and they are all ignorant of the word of God. Should they continue to bear children and pass on their ignorance to the third and fourth generation?
I would want their reconciliation to Christ but if they reject Christ, is death for them, their offspring and their tribe not their eventuality?
@ Rohan
God’s moral law applies to all. He is the I AM, creator and sustainer of the universe. The moral law is that which is in accordance with His will, which is by definition right and good.
So it is still not right that pagans abort their children, which is a clear violation of his moral law and the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” We cannot see men’s hearts; only God can do that. Perhaps God has chosen some among the pagans to be saved through faith in Christ. We cannot know. He is the Judge – not us. Still, we do know that God will judge these unbelievers harshly at the Second Coming.
Perhaps God is purging unbelievers in this world through abortion, but again we cannot fully know His will. He has not explicitly told us this is His will, unlike how He explicitly told us through Scripture His will with regard to those pagans in the Old Testament. We can perhaps try to make some claims based on historical precedent, but we should be very careful about putting words into God’s mouth.
We are all in a life of sin. All of us are sinners and cannot justify ourselves through the law. A child born to Christians is a sinner just as a child born to pagans. The difference is not that one will live a life of sin while the other does not sin, but rather that the pagan will live life as an unrepentant sinner who turns away from God’s grace, whereas the Christian has a contrite heart and glories in the grace of God.
Rohan,
I agree with Broderick that God’s moral law applies to all mankind – not just believers.
Murder is always murder whether it is committed by an unbeliever or a believer. Broderick is right that at times God ordered the destruction of entire peoples(men, women and children). I agree in a way it was a mercy of sorts to the children being killed but also there was another reason. If the children were allowed to survive and left to themselves they could one day rise up against Israel to avenge their families. This is why the Palestinian/Israeli conflict will never end without some type of supernatural interference because the Israelis can’t do what they actually need to do and wipe out the Palestinians. Each year a new generation of Palestinians is born that hates Israelis as much as the previous one. I know that sounds harsh and if a person is a Palestinian that sounds completely unfair. But no nation can tolerate a people in its own borders that want to destroy it.