Pope urges Italians to procreate
ROME — Pope Francis pressed his campaign Friday to urge Italians to have children, calling for policies to help families and warning the country’s demographic crisis was threatening the future.
“The number of births is the first indicator of the hope of a people,” Francis told a gathering of profamily groups. “Without children ..., a country loses its desire for the future.”
It was Francis’ latest appeal for Italy to invert what he has called the demographic winter facing many countries.
Italy’s birth rate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling for about 15 years and reached a record low last year with 379,000 babies born.
With the Vatican’s strong backing, the rightwing government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has mounted a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing under the weight of Italy’s aging population.
Francis called for longterm political strategies and policies to encourage couples to have children, including an end to precarious work contracts and impediments to buying homes, and viable alternatives so women don’t have to choose between motherhood and careers.
“The problem of our world is not children being born: it is selfishness, consumerism and individualism which make people sated, lonely and unhappy,” Francis said.
Francis is expected to continue emphasizing his demographic call during the upcoming 2025 Holy Year, which has hope as its main theme. In the official Jubilee decree, or papal bull, that was promulgated Thursday, Francis called for a new social covenant among Christians to encourage couples to be open to having children.