Editing Jerry Pournelle (section)

==Faith and worldview==
Pournelle was raised a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]]. He converted to [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]] while attending Christian Brothers College.

Pournelle was introduced to [[Malthusianism|Malthusian]] principles upon reading the book ''[[Road to Survival]]''<ref name="auto1">{{cite web|url=https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/2012/03/05/|title=Mar 5, 2012 – Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle|website=www.jerrypournelle.com|access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref> by the ecologist (and ornithologist) [[William Vogt]], who depicted an Earth denuded of species other than humans, all of them headed for squalor. Concerned about the Malthusian dangers of [[human overpopulation]], and considering the Catholic Church's position on [[birth control|contraception]] to be untenable, he left the Catholic Church while an undergraduate at the University of Iowa. Pournelle eventually returned to religion, and for a number of years was a [[high church]] [[Anglicanism|Anglican]], in part because [[Anglican doctrine|Anglican theology]] was virtually identical to [[Catholic theology]], with the exception that the Anglicans accepted as moral the use of birth control.<ref name="auto1"/>

Pournelle eventually returned to the Catholic Church, as his other beliefs were consistent with the Catholic communion, although he did not agree with the Church's position on birth control.<ref name="auto1"/> Despite his estrangement from the Catholic Church, he opposed having the government require that Catholic institutions provide access to birth control or abortion.<ref name="auto1"/>  He wrote that Sunday attendance at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, in [[Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles]], was part of his family's routine.<ref name="auto2"/> Upon his death, his family arranged a memorial mass at the church, on 16 September 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/2017/09/jerry-pournelle-1933-2017/|title=Jerry Pournelle (1933–2017) &#124; The Heinlein Society|website=www.heinleinsociety.org|access-date=September 1, 2019|archive-date=February 14, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214183600/https://www.heinleinsociety.org/2017/09/jerry-pournelle-1933-2017/|url-status=dead}}</ref>