{"id":1157622,"date":"2021-12-26T13:34:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T18:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1157622"},"modified":"2021-12-26T13:34:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T18:34:18","slug":"pope-francis-decries-italys-record-low-birthrate-as-a-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pope-francis-decries-italys-record-low-birthrate-as-a-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Decries Italy\u2019s Record-Low Birthrate as a \u2018Tragedy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpope-francis-decries-italys-record-low-birthrate-as-a-tragedy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1157622&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">ROME \u2014 Pope Francis lamented Italy\u2019s plummeting birthrate Sunday, calling the situation a \u201ctragedy\u201d on the day the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a concern, a real concern, at least here in Italy: the demographic winter,\u201d the pontiff said following his midday Angelus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/content\/francesco\/en\/angelus\/2021\/documents\/papa-francesco_angelus_20211226.html\">address<\/a> in Saint Peter\u2019s Square.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt seems that many couples prefer not to have children or to have only one child. Think about this. It is a tragedy,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n<p>The pope went on to say he just watched a program on Italian television exploring the serious fallout to be expected from the nation\u2019s population implosion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet us do everything possible to regain an awareness to overcome this demographic winter that goes against our families, our country, and even our future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Ten days ago, the Italian statistics bureau ISTAT <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2021\/12\/16\/crisis-italian-citizen-birthrate-fell-to-record-lows-in-2020\/\">reported<\/a> that the nation\u2019s birthrate fell to a record low in 2020, with the country registering just 1.17 births per woman among Italian citizens.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19266938\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1232879214.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-19266938\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1232879214-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"990\" height=\"660\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>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)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Italian births in 2020 dropped well below a half million (404,892), falling by 15,000 from 2019 figures.<\/p>\n<p>Italy\u2019s fertility rate of 1.17 children per woman is significantly below the replacement level of roughly 2.1 children per woman. Globally, Italy is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexmundi.com\/g\/r.aspx?v=25\">ranked<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Pope Francis published a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/content\/francesco\/en\/letters\/2021\/documents\/20211226-lettera-sposi-anno-famiglia-amorislaetitia.html\">letter<\/a> to married couples in which he urged them to see the arrival of children as a gift of God.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChildren are always a gift; they change the history of every family,\u201d the pope wrote. \u201cBeing parents calls you to pass on to your children the joy of realizing that they are God\u2019s children, children of a Father who has always loved them tenderly and who takes them by the hand each new day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChildren 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,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdwilliamsrome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @tdwilliamsrome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROME \u2014 Pope Francis lamented Italy\u2019s plummeting birthrate Sunday, calling the situation a \u201ctragedy\u201d on the day the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family. \u201cI have a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1157622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1157622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}