{"id":482173,"date":"2025-12-31T10:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T10:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/482173\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T10:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T10:35:08","slug":"pope-leo-gambling-ruins-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/482173\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo: Gambling ruins families"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo XIV meets with mayors from across Italy, calling on them to promote \u201cauthentically human relationships\u201d in order to combat gambling and other forms of loneliness.<\/p>\n

By Joseph Tulloch<\/b><\/p>\n

The \u201cdemographic crisis\u201d, the \u201cstruggles\u201d of families and young people, social isolation among the elderly, the \u201csilent cry\u201d of the poor, environmental pollution, and \u201csocial conflicts\u201d are among the biggest problems faced by towns and cities across Italy, Pope Leo said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Pope was speaking during a meeting with mayors from the\u00a0Assocazione Nazionale dei Comuni Italiani (\u2018National Association of Italian Local Authorities\u2019) in the Vatican on the 29th December.<\/p>\n

Tackling these problems, the Pope said, requires first of all listening to the voices of the weak and the poor. Otherwise, he stressed, \u201cdemocracy atrophies, becomes just a name, a formality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo greets the mayors \u00a0 (@Vatican Media)\n <\/p>\n

\u2018Major\u2019 increase in gambling <\/p>\n

Pope Leo then said he wanted to \u201cdraw attention in particular to the scourge of gambling,\u201d which has \u201cruined many families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStatistics show a major increase in Italy in recent years,\u201d the Pope stressed, highlighting a recent Caritas report which described gambling as a \u201cserious problem\u201d for education, mental health, and societal trust in the country.<\/p>\n

Describing the issue as a form of \u201cloneliness,\u201d Pope Leo called on public authorities to combat it by promoting \u201cauthentically human relationships between citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing Don Primo Mazzolari, a 20th-century Italian Catholic priest and social activist, the Pope stressed that Italy \u201cdoes not only need sewers, houses, roads, aqueducts, and pavements,\u201d but also \u201ca way of feeling, of living, a way of looking at one another, and a way of coming together as brothers and sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n The Pope reads his speech in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall \u00a0 (@Vatican Media)\n <\/p>\n

Christmas and \u2018authentic power\u2019 <\/p>\n

In his address, Pope Leo also reflected on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, celebrated the day prior, on which the Church remembers the young children massacred by King Herod in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus.<\/p>\n

This massacre, the Pope said, is a manifestation of an \u201cinhuman power,\u201d one which \u201cdoes not know the beauty of love because it ignores the dignity of human life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 birth, on the other hand, \u201creveals the most authentic aspect of all power, which is above all responsibility and service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV meets with mayors from across Italy, calling on them to promote \u201cauthentically human relationships\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":482174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[158013,2219,50,80,3417,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-482173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-audiences","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","13":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115813739694248274","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}