Pope Francis opened the conference General States of Birth in Rome, on Friday, 14th of May. In his opening speech he addressed the most pressing issues of today’s demographic trends in Europe. The conference took place one day before the International Day of Families, which is celebrated every year on May 15.

The initiative that was organized by the Forum for Family Associations intends to discover and study the demographic crisis in Italy, which has been made even worse by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Holy Father stated that Europe needs a shift in tendencies and emphasized that if families are not in the center of our present, we will be left without a future. The Pope centered his message around 3 key thoughts: the gift of life, the importance of generational sustainability, because paying attention to the families can we only succeed in stopping the climate emergency, and the third one is having solidarity among all the structures of our society, in order to support families and help to increase the birth rates. He said that society should support families to have as much children as they wish for: “most young people want to have children, but their dreams of life…clash with a demographic winter, still cold and dark: only half of young people believe they will be able to have two children in their lifetime.”

In the meantime, the European Union’s FEMM Committee voted on the controversial Matić report that intends to promote the so-called “right of abortion” all over the European Union – the absolute opposite of what Pope Francis drew attention to. While the European Union keeps on working on deepening the ideological crisis within Europe by promoting radical views on “sexual and reproductive rights”, more and more recognize that only families can provide us a stable future.