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Catholic Church ‘counts for something’ in Italian elections
By Gina Doggett, Agence France-Presse
VATICAN CITY: The Roman Catholic Church
professes to be neutral in Italy’s elections next week, but its
influence on social issues is keenly felt across the political
spectrum.
The Italian Church “is not in one camp or the
other,” the secretary of the bishops conference, Giuseppe Betori,
said late last month, but added: “If you are searching for our
involvement, that means we must count for something.”
In debates running up to the elections Sunday
and Monday, social issues such as abortion, assisted procreation and
euthanasia have dominated largely because of the influence of former
leader Camillo Ruini, historian Alberto Melloni told AFP.
Catholic politicians have been “castrated”
because “no one expects them to speak on other subjects such as
foreign policy or the economy,” Melloni told AFP.
Rome-Vatican ties
Relations between Rome and the Holy See grew
increasingly strained over issues ranging from euthanasia to gay
rights after Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s center-left
government came to power in 2006.
A case in point was a flap in January over a
planned appearance by Pope Benedict XVI at Rome’s secular Sapienza
University, which he decided to cancel because of a burgeoning
student protest.
Many scientists criticize the intellectual,
conservative pope, a respected theologian, for a series of positions
he has taken that they say subordinate science and reason to faith.
Euthanasia came to the fore late last year when
the Italian Catholic Church denied a religious funeral for
Piergiorgio Welby, a muscular dystrophy sufferer who ended his life
by having a doctor remove him from his artificial respirator.
The pope seizes every opportunity to defend the
traditional family and the right to life, in his phrase, “from
conception to natural death.”
Three weeks ago the Italian Church, quoting the
pope, warned against “political choices that contradict
fundamental values and anthropological and moral principles rooted
in human nature.”
The statement opposed all that could
“destabilize the family,” in an oblique reference to a left-wing
bid to grant legal recognition to gay couples.
The initiative for the recognition of gay
couples was stillborn under outgoing premier Prodi, and barely
mentioned in the platform of his successor, former Rome mayor Walter
Veltroni.
Some say Ruini was behind a falling out between
Berlusconi and Pier Ferdinando Casini, who is standing alone in the
Sunday-Monday vote at the head of his small centrist UDC party,
openly espousing “Christian values.”
US Catholics demand Pope act against
predatory priests
By Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON: A victim support group for some
9,000 Americans who say they were sexually abused by Catholic
clergymen pressed Pope Benedict XVI Tuesday to take action to
protect children from pedophile priests.
“We are looking for the holy father to hold
the enablers and wrongdoers accountable,” Barbara Blaine, head of
the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told
reporters outside the papal nuncio in Washington ahead of
Benedict’s visit next week.
In January, SNAP sent a letter to the pope,
calling on him to meet with victims of predator priests when he
visits Washington and New York from April 15 to 20, “to assist in
the unfinished healing that needs to occur,” said Blaine.
“We are extremely disappointed that we
didn’t hear back. We believe the pope will meet with victims, but
those victims will have been hand-picked by US bishops,” Blaine
said, accusing the bishops of protecting predator priests.
Thousands abused
“Across the United States, we know that
thousands of predator priests have been named . . . we know that
tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of children have been abused
by predator priests,” said Blaine, who was herself sexually
molested by a priest when she was 12.
“We assume that hundreds of bishops either
covered up for predators or turned a blind eye when they had
information about predators. Not one of those bishops has faced any
punishment.
“When a predator is enabled and empowered,
those who give him that power are equally culpable and we would like
the Holy Father to take action to hold them accountable,” she
said.
The US church was plunged into the worst crisis
in its 200-year history in 2002 when the Archbishop of Boston
confessed he had protected a priest who had sexually abused young
members of his church.
Last year, the church paid out $615 million (400
million euros) to settle child sex abuse cases involving members of
the clergy, or 54 percent more than the previous year, the US
Conference of Catholic Bishops said.
Benedict XVI, the leader of the world’s 1.1
billion Catholics, is expected to address the sex abuse scandal
during his visit, but will not make it a focal point of his trip,
church insiders have said.
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