Pope Francis, dismayed by news of Italy’s declining birth rate, recently joined the chorus urging Italians to give serious consideration to having more children.

“The birth of children, in fact, is the main indicator for measuring the hope of a people,” Pope Francis said during this year's annual Foundation for Natality and the Italian Forum of Family Associations meetings, the National Catholic Register reported. “If few are born, it means there is little hope. And this not only has repercussions from an economic and social point of view, but also undermines confidence in the future.”

The two-day conference focusing on the General State of the Birth Rate took place last week, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has since put out a statement recapping it.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone posted a link to coverage of the conference and said in a tweet, “Each of our mothers are each a sign of hope.”

Italy is caught up in a trend where the birth rate is declining while the mortality rate is increasing, the USCCB statement said. The Italian National Institute of Statistics presented numbers showing only 393,000 births – a record low – in Italy in the latest year data was recorded for. Italy has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe, as well, with only 1.24 live births per woman.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also addressed the trend on the second day of the meeting. She said it’s time for Italians to view parenthood with more respect and called raising children “a socially recognized value.”

Studies have identified the contributing factors behind Italy's declining birth rate. The top two cited reasons are: the financial challenges of raising a family and the increased burden of caring for elderly parents.

Meloni has said she is behind a plan to boost the country's birth rate to 500,000 per year within a decade, Yahoo News said in a report.