{"id":4751,"date":"2015-08-12T15:10:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T19:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=4751"},"modified":"2015-08-13T14:18:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T18:18:28","slug":"fr-bimbi-paying-the-baptized-to-have-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=4751","title":{"rendered":"Fr. Bimbi Pays the Baptized to Have Babies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4771\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/messy-baby-eating-spaghetti.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4771\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4771\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/messy-baby-eating-spaghetti.jpg?resize=580%2C386\" alt=\"Still good for 88 bucks a month.\" width=\"580\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stumblingblock.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/messy-baby-eating-spaghetti.jpg?w=620&amp;ssl=1 620w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stumblingblock.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/messy-baby-eating-spaghetti.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4771\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still good for 88 bucks a month.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Canadian <em>Catholic Register<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicregister.org\/home\/international\/item\/20707-italian-catholic-priest-offers-baby-bonus-with-strings-attached?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCatholicRegister+%28The+Catholic+Register+-+Canada%E2%80%99s+Catholic+news+source+since+1893%29\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div class=\"itemIntroText\">\n<blockquote><p>A Tuscany priest is offering a baby bonus of more than $2,000 to Italian Catholic families who have three or more children. But there are strings attached.<\/p>\n<p>The gift to parishioners in Staggia, a village close to Siena, was announced online as an \u201cextraordinary contribution\u201d by Fr. Stefano Bimbi, the local Catholic priest.<\/p>\n<p>The $2,210 (2,000 euros) will be handed over only when the children are baptized. Additionally, the offer applies strictly to Italian couples who were married in the church, are residents of the village and have three or more children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>Incentives to have more children are a good thing and this is a wonderful gift for young families open to life, but I must ask:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How did we get to a point where we were forced to pay people to do the right thing and to accept the gift of children?<\/li>\n<li>Should we reward people simply for not sinning, for refusing to contracept or abort children?<\/li>\n<li>Isn&#8217;t money generally the same incentive people have for thwarting childbirth?\u00a0 Doesn&#8217;t that actually pay better?<\/li>\n<li>Is this about money or about honor, duty, love, and Heaven?<\/li>\n<li>Aren&#8217;t beasts the creatures who will do things for treats?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Nonetheless, Bimbi said the decision had the potential to help Catholic couples. \u201cOur parish wants to give concrete help in this moment of crisis for families, that with courage accept the gift of a child!\u201d he wrote in the announcement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The language of reverse pastoral care permeates the Synod documents. The message of softness is immoral.\u00a0 Childbirth is a moment of crisis?\u00a0 Is caring for the family you created some kind of heroic courage or is it just decent?\u00a0 Must we be paid not to be negligent or criminal?<\/p>\n<p>Get up in the pulpit Fr. Bimbi and lay them straight!\u00a0\u00a0 Tell them there&#8217;s far more joy in raising a holy child with love than in being paid to sit there and shove food in their face like some government nanny.\u00a0 And if they can&#8217;t hear you because they&#8217;re not at Mass, why are you giving them 2,000 euro?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The parish coffers are not all \u201croses and flowers,\u201d the priest said, so its economic affairs council had allocated an unspecified limited sum for the baby project. Bimbi was not immediately available when contacted by Religion News Service to discuss whether anyone had yet taken him up on the offer.<\/p>\n<p>The financial incentive follows a similar initiative by the Italian government, which promised low-income families $88 (80 euros) a month for each child under 3 years old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Talk about baby factories!\u00a0 If the Italian Gov&#8217;t could bump that up to about 1,000 euros there&#8217;s be some high living in those noisy houses.\u00a0 What say you, Pope Francis?\u00a0 It&#8217;s fine so long as there&#8217;s not too much <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/2015\/08\/08\/pope-francis-laments-forests-destruction-in-argentina\/\" target=\"_blank\">soy <\/a>in the formula and the diapers are sustainable?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Canadian Catholic Register reports: A Tuscany priest is offering a baby bonus of more than $2,000 to Italian Catholic families who have three or more children. But there are strings attached. The gift to parishioners in Staggia, a village close to Siena, was announced online as an \u201cextraordinary contribution\u201d by Fr. Stefano Bimbi, the <span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <span class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=4751\" class=\"more-link\"><span>Read More &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[623,621,619,622,620],"class_list":["post-4751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childbirth-incentive","tag-fr-stefano-bimbi","tag-italian-priest","tag-siena-parish","tag-third-child-payment"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4751"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4795,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions\/4795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}