Pope: Europe Faces Bleak Future Without God, More Children
Pope Benedict XVI told thousands of Catholics on Saturday that Europe faces a bleak future unless more children are born on the continent and its people return to faith in God and traditional values.
Around 30,000 Catholics braved the cold and rain to hear the pope preach in an outdoor mass at a 850-year-old pilgrimage site in Austria, where the Catholic Church has been losing members.
Cardinals and bishops wore clear plastic rain protectors over their vestments as Benedict spelled out the challenges facing the Catholic Church in an era of diminishing membership, low birth rates and dominant consumerism across modern-day Europe.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Europe has become child-poor," he said, according to Reuters. "We want everything for ourselves and place little trust in the future."
During his three-day visit to traditionally Catholic Austria, the 80-year-old pope had also called on European leaders to do all they could to raise the birth rate across Europe by pursuing and introducing more child-friendly policies.
In an address at the Hofburg Palace, the seat of the Austria presidency in Vienna, Benedict reminded diplomats and representatives of international organizations that European history and culture had been forged out of its Christian roots.
He also reiterated the Catholic Church's strong opposition to abortion, saying that it was not a human right.
On Saturday, the pope said that the future of Europe depended on its people restoring faith in God and traditional values.
"Where God is, there is the future," he said, appealing to the drenched crowd live a "responsible life" of love.
Statistics show the Austrian Church has lost about one million followers since 1983, and only 67 percent of Austrians are still officially Catholic, compared to almost 92 percent in 1900, noted Agence France-Presse.
A Gallup opinion poll published in Oesterreich newspaper Sunday said that only 47 percent of Austrians are satisfied with the pope's way of running the Catholic Church.
