A street clash between demonstrators and police accompanied the closing day of the Nativity Conference in Rome with the participation of Pope Francis, against which left-wing youth groups protested on Friday.
Italian family associations organized a conference on the demographic situation and increasing the number of births in the congress center near the Vatican. The two-day meeting was entitled "Exist, more youth, more future".
Not far from the venue of the conference, left-wing youth organizations marched. The demonstration was allowed, but the participants changed the original route of the march and wanted to reach the congress center.
Riot police stood in the way of the march. On their social media pages, the organizers of the demonstration reported five injured people who, according to their reports, were hit by their police with a rubber baton. According to the authorities, several protesters and two police officers were injured. Organizers called the demonstration a "transfeminist" protest, saying they wanted to express their anger at the birth conference.
The participants of the demonstration burned printed copies of the previously issued decree of Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara on sex and relationship education in schools.
The first day of the birth conference on Thursday was also accompanied by protests, when a group of young people protesting in favor of the right to abortion entered the congress hall and shouted, preventing the Minister of Family Affairs, Birth and Equal Opportunities, Eugenia Roccella, from delivering her speech.
"Human life is a gift"
Pope Francis spoke on Friday. The head of the church has been a permanent guest of the birth conference since 2021.
Human life is not a problem, but a gift
the pope declared.
He emphasized that hunger and environmental destruction in the world are not caused by unborn children, but by egoism, blind and unbridled materialism, the fever of consumption, which satisfies, but makes people lonely and unhappy.
The Pope said that the homes are full of objects and pets, "the only thing missing are the children [...], the number of births gives the hope factor of peoples. Without children and young people, a country loses its desire for the future".
The Pope reminded that the average childbearing age in Italy is well over forty years, while in the central European countries it is well below thirty. He drew parallels between arms manufacturing and contraceptives, saying that these two industries were the most profitable.
The first destroys life, the second prevents life
Pope Francis declared.
MTI/ Index
