In his ongoing quest to become cooler than The Fonz, Pope Francis has made breastfeeding moms feel right at home in the Sistine Chapel.
The guy who gave evolution his sorely needed stamp of approval, gay people some long overdue respect, and benevolently washed the feet of juvenile delinquents, has now worked his way into the hearts of moms everywhere — not to mention the bellies of their babies.
While baptizing 33 infants in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Francis “assured the mothers they would face no judgment for nursing during the service,” according to People.
“You mothers give your children milk and even now, if they cry because they are hungry, breastfeed them, don’t worry,” he said.
It was a fitting scene as he stood beneath Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment” fresco. His position was consistent with his past statements on the topic, including when he said simply, yet profoundly, in 2013 that humanity should “give people something to eat” as nursing moms do their babies.
Breastfeeding in public often makes news as women are increasingly being allowed to do it in formerly taboo places at the same rate that other locations disallow it indiscriminately at worst or frown upon it heavily at best.
However, in one afternoon the Pope has essentially re-framed the conversation and made it known that disallowing babies from feeding on demand is, well, sacrilegious. If starving children in third world countries had an opportunity to eat, no one would tell them it wasn’t an appropriate place or time. The same goes for breastfeeding babies, including in a church, where some of even the staunchest breastfeeding advocates might have previously feared to feed.
While judgement of breastfeeding in public will likely continue to come from the usual suspects, it’ll be hard to argue moving forward that pews aren’t the place to partake. Because if the Pope has given the nod to breastfeeding in the Sistine Chapel, God only knows who can really argue with that.
Image courtesy of Pacific Coast News