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This will put the Church at odds with the national population policy and Family Planning program mandated by the government of India and could lead to persecution by the government itself.

So true.

Besides, India doesn't need any more children, as the children there don't have enough....of everything.
I think this call for "more Catholics" is off the mark and not in the spirit of Christ. The call should be to be better Christians and help their fellow Indians with the children in need.

My Population Geography professor was born and raised in Calcutta. She knows what "crowded" is.

She taught us that unless birth rates are reversed, and the trend linking industrialization with infertility is broken, the entire world will face "catastrophic depopulation" in fewer than five generations.

We examined what will happen after the "population bubble" bursts ... total system failure. When women stop having babies, the entire social structure comes unglued.

We also learned about the "The Emergency." During that time, the Indian government was desperate for development aid ... which was linked to adherence to WHO standards of population control ... so in order to meet their "sterilization quota" and get their development money, the government started rolling up to villages, chasing down all the young women therein and forcibly sterilizing them.

My Professor (full blown feminist type) believed Population control was racist, western Imperialism at its worst. I agree. The underlying thought behind it is:

"Must stop these nasty coloured people from breeding. No more mothers. Need to get their women out of the house and into sweatshop factories, so that their nations will develop as we wish them to, into our economic dependents. "

I quite agree with Starfish. Asking for "more children" is clumsy at best. What's wrong with helping the ones already there? Can't Christians, Catholics, be made by conversion as well. Mother Theresa had the right idea, go out and tend the sheep first.
As far as "overpopulation" goes, yes, the earth could hold more people and do so very well. But why would we want to? Call me a tree hugger, but what's the good of having so many people when other good things, such as the Amazon, or the Arctic ice, or the like, have to be lost? Don't animals and men already scramble for land and resources already? Yes, big familiess are wonderful, I don't deny that they can be a great source of love/resourcefulness. All I'm saying is not everyone is up to this.