Catholic Church announces welfare scheme for families having five or more children

“In recent years, the birth rate in the Christian community has decreased to 14%,” read the letter, issued by the Archbishop Mar Joseph Perumthottam.

Even as the controversy over the measures to curb population growth in Uttar Pradesh continues to rage, a Catholic church diocese in Central Kerala has come up with a welfare scheme for families having five or more children. The initiative, launched by the Family Apostolate of the Pala diocese under the Syro-Malabar church, seeks to offer a monthly financial assistance of Rs.1500 to the couples who are married after the year 2000 and have five or more children. Women who are delivering their fourth children onward are entitled for free delivery care at a hospital run by the church while the children who are born as the fourth or subsequently in a family will be given scholarships at an engineering college run by the church. The scheme, announced as part of the year of the family celebrations by the Syro Malabar church, is now going viral in the social media and has evoked mixed reactions from the public.