O Italia Fortunata!
Not even three months after the resignation of the government of Romano Prodi, Italians will vote this Sunday and Monday in national elections. What a contrast to our interminable primary season. Admittedly, it would be a purgatorial penance to take endless months of Silvio Berlusconi. But then Jeremiah Wright from here to eternity is no nirvana either.
Today’s Wall Street Journal Europe has an interesting piece on the role of the Church in present-day Italian politics. Here’s an excerpt that refers to Pope Benedict’s anticipated United Nations Address:
Four days after the Italian elections, the pope will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In his speech, he will almost certainly raise a global range of concerns, as specific as the war in Iraq and as broad as the protection of life “from conception until natural death.” As he has done in the past on such occasions, Benedict will argue not on the basis of Catholic teaching but on the ethical principles of “natural law,” common to all humanity.
It is in those same terms that the pope and his followers must learn to address Italy and its neighbors, since the church’s traditional heartland is shrinking. By replacing confessional parties with issue-driven coalitions, Catholicism may yet restore itself as a potent political force in secular Europe.
“By replacing confessional parties with issue-driven coalitions, Catholicism may yet restore itself as a potent political force in secular Europe.”
Sounds like a good recipe for the US, too.
To the general reader of that article, I wonder if the notion of “Catholicism … restor[ing] itself as a potent political force” conjures an image of bishops and cardinals secretly plotting in a back room to control the levers of the democratic process. In fact, were such a thing – the development of Catholic-influenced “issues-driven coalitions” – to occur, it would be driven by the laity — led by lay Catholic politicians, and driven at the polls by a disciplined and committed lay Catholic electorate.
The Cardinal Van Thuan Observatory at http://www.vanthuanobservatory.org, looks at Italian politics from the point of view of Catholic Social Teaching. Most of the articles are in Italian, but a few are in English, if you press the English button at the top of the page.
Posted now is an article on the national elections in Italy by Director (of the Observatory) Stefano Fontana. The title is National Elections in Italy Democracy is Not the Search for the Lesser Evil. He asks questions and makes statements. Then he gives a secular response and a Catholic response to each question and statement.
He concludes, “It is incumbent on lay persons active in politics to work in order to bring non negotiable principles into the mainstream of politics, freeing themselves of compromise as a forgone conclusion. . . Urgently needed are new Catholics and new laicists able to engage in dialogue not to limit one another, but for purposes of mutual enrichment, not to adapt to the status quo, but to project ambitious goals and meet together on common grounds regarding life, the family, freedom of education and freedom of religion with a view to a fully human life.”
I can’t summarize all of it in a few sentences, but it is interesting to read and compare with Faithful Citizenship of the US Bishops. No concern about whether consciences are correctly formed here, that is a forgone conclusion.