On Friday, May 14, Pope Francis will open, in the Foyer of the Auditorium on Via della Conciliazione in Rome, the first edition of the General States of the Birth Rate. The Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, announced this in a statement this morning.
“On May 14, Pope Francis will open the General States of Birth, an online initiative promoted by the Forum of Family Associations,” the statement began. “After his intervention, scheduled for 9:30 am at the Auditorium della Conciliazione, he will return to the Vatican,” it concluded.
According to the Forum, “It will be a great meeting dedicated to the future of demography in Italy, which is geared to launch an appeal to co-responsibility to make the country start over again, beginning with new births.”
The Holy Father will arrive at 9:15 am in the building on Via della Conciliazione to open the meeting “dedicated to the demographic destiny of Italy and of the World, a subject made even more topical by the dramatic effects of the pandemic, which has made over a million families poor in the country.”
Gigi De Palo, national president of the Forum of Family Associations convoked the General States, to put around a table the institutions, businesses, the media and the world of culture, to reflect further on the demographic challenge and to solicit a new narrative on the subject of the birth rate.
For over a decade, Italy has become more elderly and less populated, suffering from structural and legislative deficiencies at the fiscal, economic and social level, which spill over to the collapse of births.
According to this press release, after the Holy Father’s intervention, there will be institutional greetings by the Minister for the Family, Elena Bonetti, by the Minister of Education, Patrizio Bianchi, and by the President of the Lazio Region, Nicola Zingaretti. Immediately after, Gian Carlo Blangiardo, President of ISTAT will present unpublished data and projections on the birth rate in Italy in the coming decades.
Three thematic roundtables will follow: one dedicated to the business world, one to banks and insurance companies and one to the media, sport and entertainment world.
Among the guests are heads of companies, such as the Poste Italiane, Open Fiber, RAI, ENEL, Federcasse, Lux Vide, Generali Italia and the Mediolanum Onlus Foundation. The interventions of journalists won’t be lacking in the debate, among them the Director of Avvenire, Marco Tarquinio, the leader writer of Corriere della Sera, Aldo Cazzullo, and the journalist of La Repubblica, Annalisa Cuzzocrea. Talking among others about the family and birth rate will be soccer player Ciro Immobile, striker of Lazio, together with his wife Jessica and actress Anna Foglietta.
The event’s program can be found here at www.statigeneralidellanatalita.it. It will be possible to follow the whole event as it is streamed on its social channels.
The General States of the Birth Rate will end approximately 1:30 pm. Those with access will have temperature taken, hands sanitized and masks on.
