"A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children and the young has no future"

Pope Francis has sent a strong pro-life and pro-family message to the participants in the annual Social Week for Italian Catholics, held this past weekend in Turin on the theme of The Family: Hope and Future for Italian Society.

He said: "A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children and the young has no future, because it abuses both its memory and its promise".  He also said that the family based on opposite-sex marriage open to life is the basis of society. [John Smeaton, 16 September]

Other stories:

• Thousands of US pro-life mourners gathered at hundreds of graves of aborted babies on Saturday [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 September]
• 84-year-old pro-lifer fined 10,000 euro for seeking to counsel women at abortion clinic: France [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 September]
• Prosecute pro-life websites that provide 'ambiguous' abortion info: French gov. report [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 September]
• Archbishop: Abortion and contraception threaten 'the stability of our civilization' [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 September]
• Doctors told me to abort my baby, but now she's the light of my life [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 September]
• Leading UK abortion boss defends legality of sex-selective abortions [Spiked, 16 September]
• Stephen Hawking's advice on decriminalising assisted suicide should be given short shrift [Peter Saunders, 17 September]
• 67% of American doctors oppose the legalisation of physician assisted suicide [Peter Saunders, 16 September]
• Research article confirms Belgian euthanasia law is significantly abused [Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, 16 September]
• Sir David Attenborough: If we do not control population, the natural world will [Telegraph, 18 September]
• Nigeria's Catholic bishops speak out against foreign promotion of abortion, condoms [Culture of Life Africa, 16 September]