Pope Francis warns of Italy's low birthrate and 'demographic winter'

Pope Francis called Friday for politicians to find solutions to reverse Italy's declining birthrate, warning that young people faced a "Titanic effort" to start families in a precarious environment.

Pope opened the second day of a Rome conference involving politicians, business and social leaders focused on the dwindling number of babies born in Italy. For the first time last year, Italy's births fell below the threshold of 400,000, at 393,000, according to Istat, the national statistics institute. That compared to 713,499 deaths, in a population of around 58 million.