Pope tells Italians they need to have more babies amid record-low fertility rates

Italy’s birth rate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling steadily for about 15 years and reached a record low last year.

Transcript

00:00 The Pope told Italians to have more babies.

00:06 The pontiff's call came at an annual gathering of pro-family groups in Rome on Friday.

00:11 "The investments that give more income are the arms factory and the contraceptives.

00:26 One destroys life, the other prevents life.

00:32 And these are the investments that give more income.

00:35 Here the future is waiting for us.

00:38 It's bad."

00:39 Francis also asked for more social policies to support families with children.

00:44 "The problem of our world is not the children that are born.

00:50 It's the selfishness, the consumerism, the individualism that makes people sad, lonely

00:59 and unhappy.

01:00 The number of births is the first indicator of the hope of a people.

01:06 Without children and young people, a country loses its desire for a future."

01:12 Italy's got one of the lowest birth rates in the world.

01:15 Experts warned this trend could drag Italy into financial collapse.

01:20 Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni insisted that boosting natality is top of her agenda, describing

01:26 it however as the government's biggest challenge.

01:28 [SWOOSH]