Pope Francis has lamented the current state of democratic affairs throughout the world. Calling for the fostering of greater inclusion and a system in which no one is marginalised, his comments follow a spate of recent elections, including for the European parliament and in the UK, Iran and France.

Speaking on Sunday 7 July to participants at Italy’s 50th Catholic Social Week in Trieste, the Pope said: “It is evident that in the world today, democracy, let’s tell the truth, does not enjoy good health.”

This diagnosis, he said, is based on a definition of democracy given by Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo, a renowned Italian priest who launched Catholic Social Week in 1907, and who defined democracy as “that civil order in which all social, juridical and economic forces, in the fullness of their hierarchal development, cooperate properly for the common good, flowing into the final result to the prevalent advantage of the lower classes.”