Just as Pope Francis landed on Iranian soil as part of his Middle East Tour, Iran has scrapped its birth control program, He was greeted at the tarmac by Anatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader, whom the Pontiff immediately congratulated on closing down women's health centers and making it difficult to obtain IUD's and other contraceptives.
The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the Pope that Iran's two-decade-old policy of controlled growth must end and that Iran should aim for a population of 150 to 200 million.
"We now view women as essentially being baby factories," said the Ayatollah.
"Yes, in a sense, that's what they are," said Pope Francis. " We agree, on outlawing contraception. Holy Mother Church is opposed to allowing sacred sperm from entering holy vagina to fertilize the blessed egg. This is because there are then souls created for Holy Mother Church to indoctrinate."
Yesterday when birth control centers were first shut down in Iran there was a backlash. " This not only undermines the position of women in Iran, in order to fight AIDS, our only route is to distribute and teach people to use condoms," Dr. Minoo Moharez, head of the AIDS Research Centre at Tehran University said.
When told of this today at the airport, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded, "What do you expect a woman to say? By the way, I wonder if she's of an age to bear children, stay at home and rear them?"
"We have our own problem with women with the American nuns who won't accept their traditional roles of shining priest's shoes," said His Holiness.
