ACI Prensa Staff, May 9, 2024 / 16:35 pm (CNA).
During a May 8 audience at the Vatican, Pope Francis said that migration helps fight the crisis caused by low birth rates, especially in “rich countries.”
Addressing participants at an event titled “Care Is Work, Work Is Care,” promoted by the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, the Holy Father reflected on decent work and social justice.
Pope Francis called low birth rates “a very serious problem” and lamented, as he has on previous occasions, that despite the low birth rate “rich countries aren’t having children.”
“Everyone has a dog, a cat, everyone, but they don’t have children,” he lamented, noting that “the migration comes to help the crisis caused by low birth rates.”
The pontiff said that “many people emigrate in search of work, while others are forced to do so to flee their countries of origin, often torn by violence and poverty.”
According to Pope Francis, “these people, also due to prejudices and inaccurate or ideological information, are often seen as a problem and a financial burden on a nation, when in reality, by working, they contribute to the economic and social development of the host country and the country from which they come.”
Pope Francis stressed the need to offer decent work and food security while highlighting the crises suffered by war-torn countries, such as Gaza and Sudan, which have “the largest number of people facing famine.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Why is it the responsibility of poor countries to rescue rich countries from their suicidal anti-natalism?
Abortion and disinterest in Church doctrine on the family is mainly what’s behind low birth rates. Two realities poorly addressed by this pontificate, even in a visible manner encouraged with the dismantling of John Paul II’s doctrines on life and family and Ecclesial structures replacing them with inimical structures harboring abortion adherents and secular humanists. It’s entirely disingenuous to downplay these causes in order to support the destructive, secular humanistic policy of open borders.