Migrants are needed in Italy because
Italians are not having enough children, Pope Francis said
Monday.
"Today many countries need migrants. Italy does not have
children, it does not have children. The average age is 46.
Italy needs migrants and must welcome them, accompany them,
promote them and integrate them. We must tell this truth,"
Francis said while receiving the Scalabrinians in audience.
The pope, whose birth name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio as he is
descended from Italian immigrants to Argentina, defined migrants
as "teachers of hope."
He said: "I am the son of migrants, and at home we have always
experienced that sense of going there to make America, to
progress. They leave hoping to 'find their daily bread
elsewhere', as St. John Baptist Scalabrini said, and they do not
give up, even when everything seems to be going against them".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
