Pope joins Meloni in urging Italians to have more kids, not pets

Pope Francis delivers his speech flanked by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni during a conference on birthrate, at Auditorium della Conciliazione, in Rome, Friday, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis joined Italy’s conservative premier on Friday in encouraging Italians to have more children, denouncing the financial precariousness facing young couples and “selfish, egotistical” choices that have led to a record low birth rate that is threatening the country’s economic future.

Francis urged concrete political action to invert the “demographic winter,” which in population terms resulted in the disappearance of a city the size of Bari last year. Blasting couples who have pets instead of children, Francis called for resources to be dedicated to helping couples grow their families, saying it was necessary to “plant the future” with hope.

“Let us not resign ourselves to sterile dullness and pessimism,” Francis told an annual gathering of pro-family organizations. “Let us not believe that history is already marked, that nothing can be done to reverse the trend.”

Pope Francis greets a pregnant woman at the end of a conference to discuss the "demographic winter" and "empty cribs" problem Italy is facing. Panel introduced by Gigi De Palo, president of Birth Rate Foundation, at Auditorium della Conciliazione, in Rome, Friday, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Italy recorded a record low number of live births last year, 392,598, which combined with an elevated number of deaths, 713,499, has accelerated the demographic trend that threatens to crash the country’s social security system. The government of Premier Giorgia Meloni is backing a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing by growing the wage-earning population as retirees draw on their pensions.