The babies came one after the other in my family, six in eight years’ time, then a miscarriage, a seventh, and finally a dire medical warning: An eighth child might leave the rest without the young woman who had brought us into this world. My mother went to her general practitioner first, then the Roman Catholic bishop. The doctor said stop. The cleric said shame if you do.

In our neighborhood, we were the small family, at least among the Irish and Italians. A few doors down, there were 12 kids in one house, 14 in another. We could almost field a full baseball team. But the Flynns, they could put an entire football lineup on a snowy field at Thanksgiving, with reserves.

My mother agonized over what to do. She was devout, though starting to read progressive Catholic magazines like Commonweal, which published the essays of Hannah Arendt and the poetry of W.H. Auden. We loved Robert F. Kennedy’s family: 11 kids, and Ethel looks great. Bobby himself was the seventh of nine. Of course, they had money, so it looked glamorous.

If only Pope Francis had been around then. His words from the papal plane returning from the Philippines earlier this month . that good Catholic parents did not have to “be like rabbits” . would have landed like angel dust on the shoulders of my ever-pregnant mom. Just before his breeding advice, the pope told a story about a mother in remarkably similar circumstances as my own.

“I met a woman some months ago in a parish who was pregnant with her eighth child, who had seven C-sections,” said Francis. “But does she want to leave the seven as orphans? This is to tempt God.”

As a father of two children, I can’t imagine having seven. Growing up, nobody in our neighborhood had a big house. Kids were stuffed into tiny rooms, racked and stacked on bunk beds, crammed into a windowless space next to the boiler. My dad put in a little room in the basement next to where he brewed beer in 55-gallon plastic barrels. The non-Catholics, and even some of the Catholics from tonier parts of town, made fun of us . don’t those people know how to control themselves?

But beyond the strain to a house, adding another child, in our case, was a life and death matter. As Francis said, the question was whether to tempt God.

Church teaching, then and now, was against all “artificial” forms of birth control. As loyal Catholics, my parents practiced the “rhythm method,” and you can see how well that worked out. Even an operation that was vital to the life of the mother was frowned upon, if that would make it impossible for her to get pregnant again. If she did what doctors insisted she do, she would be a bad Catholic. The bishop left my mother in tears. Hadn’t she done her share?

She decided to ignore the admonition from on high. She had the operation, in her mid-30s, and the baby train came to halt. She never lost her faith. But she did come to a conclusion, shared by an overwhelming majority of American Catholics, that men in clerical authority have no business telling women what to do with their bodies. For that matter, neither do politicians.

Today, some people with big families have taken offense at the pope’s comments. Rick Santorum, a Catholic father of seven with a persistently medieval worldview, questioned what the pope was trying to accomplish. The National Catholic Register quoted a woman with nine siblings, who said, “We are left to wonder whose side Pope Francis is on.”

He’s on the side of reason . well, halfway there. The pope later clarified his remarks, saying his stance did not mark a fundamental shift from the church’s position. If only. Opposition to birth control and condoms in places like the Philippines poses serious public health risks, tempting God again.

The pope’s rabbit remark did not bother me, as one of seven children, in the least. What bothers me is church dogma that disrespects people who are forced to go through what my mother went through.

Religions are at their best when they deal with the theological realm or big global issues. Religions are at their worst when they muddle in sex, and question whom you can love. Many interpretations of Islam, regarding women, are an abomination. Mormons, until about an hour ago, had long made gays feel immoral and inferior . this from a religion where the founders were men who had 50 wives. Strict Catholic doctrine about sex, still on the books, could not be preached by Pope Francis with a straight face.

The People’s Pope is the most popular man on the planet. He’s been on the cover of Rolling Stone, and was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2013. His words matter far beyond the flight of doves in St. Peter’s Square. His off-the-cuff remarks continue to display a vigorous Jesuit mind at work, trying to resolve reason and faith, but above all . showing humanity.

As it turned out, my mother didn’t need a scowling bishop to make up her mind. She had a mind of her own, and used it. Because of that, she lived to a ripe old age.