ROME — Pope Francis lamented Italy’s plummeting birthrate Sunday, calling the situation a “tragedy” on the day the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family.
“I have a concern, a real concern, at least here in Italy: the demographic winter,” the pontiff said following his midday Angelus address in Saint Peter’s Square.
“It seems that many couples prefer not to have children or to have only one child. Think about this. It is a tragedy,” he declared.
The pope went on to say he just watched a program on Italian television exploring the serious fallout to be expected from the nation’s population implosion.
“Let us do everything possible to regain an awareness to overcome this demographic winter that goes against our families, our country, and even our future,” he said.
Ten days ago, the Italian statistics bureau ISTAT reported that the nation’s birthrate fell to a record low in 2020, with the country registering just 1.17 births per woman among Italian citizens.
Pope Francis adjusts his face mask during a conference on Italian demographics in Rome on May 14, 2021. Italy has long suffered one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, but the situation has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. (ANDREW MEDICHINI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Italian births in 2020 dropped well below a half million (404,892), falling by 15,000 from 2019 figures.
Italy’s fertility rate of 1.17 children per woman is significantly below the replacement level of roughly 2.1 children per woman. Globally, Italy is ranked 216 out of 227 countries for new live births as a percentage of the total population, with just 8.4 live births per 1000 citizens.
On Sunday, Pope Francis published a letter to married couples in which he urged them to see the arrival of children as a gift of God.
“Children are always a gift; they change the history of every family,” the pope wrote. “Being parents calls you to pass on to your children the joy of realizing that they are God’s children, children of a Father who has always loved them tenderly and who takes them by the hand each new day.”
“Children need a sense of security that can enable them to have confidence in you and in the beauty of your life together, and in the certainty that they will never be alone, whatever may come their way,” he declared.