(CNA. Matthew Santucci).
When Pope Francis took to the stage on Friday to speak at a conference on the state of birth rates in Italy and the wider West, he did not equivocate.
“The problem of our world is not the children that are born — it is selfishness, consumerism, and individualism, which make people full, lonely, and unhappy,” the pope said to the audience gathered in the Auditorium della Conciliazione in Rome.
This year’s edition of “Stati Generali della Natalità,” or “General State of the Birth Rate,” is based on the theme “More Young People, More Future.” It is the fourth edition of the gathering, which was launched back in 2021 as a joint project with then-Italian premier Mario Draghi and Gigi De Palo, the president of the Forum of Family Associations.
Italy, like many countries in Western Europe, has been facing an acute demographic crisis in recent years. Births in Italy dropped to a historic low in 2023. Italy’s national statistics bureau recorded 379,000 births last year, a 3.6% decline from 2022 and a 34.2% drop from 2008.
