Everyone in Italy and the rest of Europe will “soon be Muslim” because of the country’s “stupidity”, a prominent Italian archbishop has said.

Monsignor Carlo Liberati, Archbishop Emeritus of Pompeii, said that Islam will soon become Europe’s main religion thanks to the huge number of Muslim migrants alongside the increasing secularism of native Europeans.

Speaking to Italian Catholic journal La Fede Quotidiana, the archbishop said: “In 10 years we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity. Italy and Europe live in a pagan and atheist way, they make laws that go against God and they have traditions that are proper of paganism.

“All of this moral and religious decadence favours Islam.”

“We have a weak Christian faith,” he added. “The Church nowadays does not work well and seminaries are empty.

“Parishes are the only thing still standing. We need a true Christian life. All this paves the way to Islam. In addition to this, they have children and we do not. We are in full decline.”

The archbishop added that the problem is not just Muslim immigration. The number of Eastern Europeans arriving over the past few years has also hit the quality of life for native Italians, he said.

“We help without delay those coming from outside and we forget many poor and old Italians who are eating from the trash,” the archbishop said. “We need policies that take care of Italians first: our young people and the unemployed.

“I am a protester. If I were not a priest, I’d be out there demonstrating in the squares. What is the point of so many migrants that instead of thanking for the food we give them, they just throw it, spend hours with their cell phones and even organise riots?”

He even criticised the Catholic Church for giving money to migrants.

“Giving money to migrants wandering around town is not only wrong, but morally harmful because we encourage their behaviour and they get used to that, not mentioning the fact that we already feed them.

“I think sometimes this creates a beggars’ network. I remember that my father went to work very hard as a migrant in Australia so I could go to seminary. So he has experienced in his own skin the discomfort of poverty and the noble virtue of gratitude.”