Daniel Payne, National Catholic Register
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
“Life is not a problem. It is a gift.” Those were the words of Pope Francis last year when he addressed an audience at the 2024 Italian “General State of the Birth Rate” conference. The annual event is meant to address in Italy what is happening everywhere – namely, a fertility crisis, with too few people being born every year. But some U.S. Catholics are defying the trend, and there are parishes where families tend to be large, where parish life is vibrant and expanding, and where many husbands and wives embrace what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls an “openness to life.”
