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S i d e b a r
Family Day in Italy
A Case Study
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This Rock
Volume 19, Number 2
 February 2008 
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More than a million Italians celebrated "Family Day" in Rome on May 12, 2007. Participants hoped to increase public respect for marriage and family life. Homosexual activists denounced the event as an "anti-gay day" engineered by the Catholic Church, but supporting family life is hardly the same thing as expressing negative sentiments toward homosexual persons. Moreover, the truth is that the list of participant groups included everything from trade unions to the Association of Moroccan Women. Organizers pointed out that support for families is a civic matter, not solely of interest to people of faith. The breakdown of family life has led to social and economic distress, scarring contemporary Italy (and the entire West).
Birthrate Crisis
Italy, once a solidly Catholic nation, reports one of the lowest birthrates in the world: 1.2 children per childbearing-age woman. The demographic slide is a dire threat to the economy. One response of the Italian government is the "Bambini Bonus," a 1,000-euro stipend to women who have a second child. In the village of Laviano near Naples, Mayor Falivena frets that the village is dying despite the bonus. So the mayor and city fathers offer an additional 10,000 euros to women for each additional child.
All over Europe, governments are in a scramble to find family-friendly economic policies. But in themselves these are not tempting enough. In Laviano only four babies were born last year, and that included one set of twins. A similar woe threatens hundreds of Italian towns. The familiar image of large Italian families gathered around Mama’s pasta is but a memory.
"Where will our next craftsmen, teachers or farmers come from?" ask public officials.
These questions are all the more crucial as the Italian Parliament considers passing a same-sex union bill. Last year such a measure was defeated; it has resurfaced in 2007 as a "stable union" bill that grants marriage benefits to unions (heterosexual or same-sex pairs) that register with the government as intentionally stable. But few imagine that so-called "stable unions" will increase respect for marriage and family within the Italian culture. Already the devaluation of marriage—from divorce, cohabitation, and abortion—has dissuaded couples from marrying.
The economic equation is simple: Fewer children today mean fewer workers tomorrow; the nation will be without a sufficient labor force to maintain the economy or national services. Fewer taxpayers will be around to fund the nation’s obligation to the pension trusts of the retired citizens.
A Bleak Vision
Socially, as they themselves age, today’s young Italians will face a lonely middle age and elder years since they are only children, bereft of siblings and cousins. Loneliness and a sense of alienation are among the primary sources of depression and substance abuse, further eroding productive capabilities and drawing on already strained social services. That bleak vision of the future drove thousands to participate in Family Day.
Not all were Catholics, and many had no religious affiliation. But all were convinced that Italy is in an urgent economic and social crisis. The perilous demographic decline is the direct result of an erosion of family values. Fewer young women perceive marriage and motherhood as a respected "life choice." Far more spend their fertile years focused on a career path, only to discover later that fertility is not a commodity that can be purchased at will. In addition, fewer young couples marry because they can opt for cohabitation and abortion. And now, "stable unions" threaten to devalue actual marriage and deplete part of the tax benefits once earmarked for families, while giving nothing back to the society.
Italian Family Day participants understood that whatever one’s views on same-sex unions, the Bible, or the Catholic Church, the natural family makes a unique, irreplaceable contribution to a nation’s social and economic health. That is a basic human truth that has been lost in a generation of sexual liberation as an experiment in social policy. In short, it’s not just a "religious" issue any longer. Gradually, respect for marriage has declined. No longer does any special pride come with joining the community as a married pair. Where people fail to marry because marriage is devalued, a succession of relationships displaces or eliminates marriage for many men and women altogether. That in turn causes declining fertility.
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