Numbers down,will help family 8216;unplanning8217;: Kerala church

The KCBC,Fr Kottayil said,had announced last year that the church would encourage bigger families. It had then suggested that Catholic dioceses would explore the possibility of providing educational incentives for a fourth child.

Following a campaign by dioceses,he said many couples have come forward for recanalisation. At present,hospitals are charging Rs 40,000 for this surgical intervention. We want to bring down the cost below Rs 10,000 in church-run hospitals, he said.

In Kerala,Christians constitute 22 per cent of the population. Nearly 60 per cent of the Christians in the state are Catholic. In the last census,the Christian population had shown a decline of 0.32 per cent.

Some hospitals in Kerala have already undertaken recanalisation in a big way. We are getting a good response for recanalisation. The pro-life movement of the Catholic Church has prompted a section of the women to undergo the reversal process, said Marceles,a nun-cum-gynaecologist at Lourds Hospital at Kidangoor in central Kerala.

According to Fr Kottayil,another area of intervention would be infertility among young couples. Addressing infertility will be a tightrope walk. The issue has to be tackled from a Christian point of view. Medical interventions such as semen donation cannot be allowed as these would infringe upon moral teachings of the church. But we will try all possible means, he said.

The Thalassery Archdiocese in north Kerala recently held a gathering of parents who had a fourth child. Fr Benny Puthennada,Director of Family Apostolate in the diocese,said around 600 families attended the gathering. We have adopted the fourth child from economically backward families to give financial assistance for education, he said.