Pope Leo XIV urges Italian mayors to combat rising gambling, which ruins families, by promoting authentic relationships amid broader social crises.
Newsroom (29/12/2025 Gaudium Press) In a poignant address to mayors from across Italy, Pope Leo XIV on Monday highlighted the destructive power of gambling, describing it as a “scourge” that has “ruined many families” and linking it to deeper forms of societal loneliness.
Speaking in the Vatican to representatives of the Associazione Nazionale dei Comuni Italiani (National Association of Italian Local Authorities) on December 29, the pontiff outlined a series of pressing challenges facing Italian towns and cities: a deepening demographic crisis, the struggles of families and young people, social isolation among the elderly, the “silent cry” of the poor, environmental pollution, and escalating social conflicts.
To address these interconnected issues, Pope Leo emphasized the necessity of prioritizing the voices of the vulnerable. “Otherwise,” he warned, “democracy atrophies, becomes just a name, a formality.”
The Pope reserved particular attention for what he called a “major” increase in gambling across Italy in recent years. Drawing on a recent Caritas report, he noted that the phenomenon poses a “serious problem” for education, mental health, and societal trust nationwide.
Framing gambling as an expression of profound loneliness, Pope Leo urged public authorities to counter it not merely through regulation but by actively promoting “authentically human relationships between citizens.”
Quoting the 20th-century Italian priest and social activist Don Primo Mazzolari, the pontiff reminded the mayors that Italy requires more than material infrastructure. “It does not only need sewers, houses, roads, aqueducts, and pavements,” he said, “but also a way of feeling, of living, a way of looking at one another, and a way of coming together as brothers and sisters.”
The address also touched on the liturgical context of the Christmas season. Reflecting on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, observed the previous day, Pope Leo contrasted the “inhuman power” exemplified by King Herod’s massacre of children — a desperate attempt to eliminate the infant Jesus — with the true nature of authority revealed in Christ’s birth.
This event, he explained, manifests a power “which does not know the beauty of love because it ignores the dignity of human life.” In contrast, the Nativity discloses “the most authentic aspect of all power, which is above all responsibility and service.”
Through his words to Italy’s local leaders, Pope Leo XIV issued a call for governance rooted in fraternity, attentive listening, and the cultivation of genuine community bonds as antidotes to the isolation and destruction wrought by modern vices like gambling.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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