Theo-Dems in Italy
October 25, 2006, 8:17 pm
Posted by John McGreevy
John Allen is intereresting on the Italian Theo-Dems. Why such a moderate tone toward the center-left in Italian politics, and, among some bishops, such a bellligerent tone toward the center-left here?
My knowledge of things Italian is quite out of date, but I would suggest three possible factors —
The Italian Center-Left would have been seen for a long time as a viable alternative to a hard left (not just the PCI but the parties to the left of it, many of them quite anti-clerical).
The Center-Left (or the left of the DC) goes back to liberal priests like Don Sturzo.
I think Americans tend to underestimate the earthquake in the European church caused by the moral discredit of Fascism after the second world war. It’s always struck me that this is the prime difference in the American reading of Vatican II from the European, specifically Italian one. Also, the church (think of the priest in Roma Citta Aperta) rushed quite successfully to fill a moral vacuum in the immediate aftermath of the war.
My mother-in-law was Italian-American, and I may be WAY off base here, but might Italians have a whole different relationship with the Church than Americans do?
It always seems to me that Italians are loyal to the Church, love it, and even have passed laws to mollify it. But they do not seem especially rigid in their beliefs.
I’ve often wondered whether the Church in America has been influenced by those rule-bound Puritans.
I’m sure books have been written on this.
More like being influenced by the Irish who sought to “out-Puritan” the Puritans. You know the Irish can’t be second-best at anything.
Gene’s point about fascism makes sense when you see how the CDU in Germany, which has its power base in mostly-Catholic Bavaria, dealt with the accusation of Stoiber having fascist leaning. The same can be said for the conservative People’s Party in Austria in regard to Joerg Haider.
Is it too much to say that when American bishops speak out, they often come across as either banale or gauche? If there is some truth to this impression, could it be in some part because they are Americans? Note the embarassing situation in the New York Archdiocese. Cf. American politicos generally.
It may be that the “slippery slopes” that Allen mentions are more slippery in the US than in Italy or elsewhere. Eugene Volokh has interesting comments on the slippery slope phenomenon as it just played out in the New Jersey gay marriage or civil union decision. Those who are called alarmists when they warn of the logical consequences of seemingly harmless departures from institutional practices turn out to be not far from the truth.
Volokh, himself a defender of gay marriage, argues that in the New Jersey case the “alarmists” were vindicated. He writes: “If we take the New Jersey Supreme Court at its word, it sounds like in New Jersey antidiscrimination laws, domestic partnership laws, and hate crime laws did indeed help bring about same-sex civil unions, just as they did in Vermont and, as to same-sex marriage, in Massachusetts.”
It would be interesting to find out if Italy avoids sliding all the way down slippery slopes. Italian courts probably have less of a mandate to extend the reign of abstract principles to all the corners of society and this might explain the measured acceptance of the center-left by segments of the Italian church (though there does seem to be some “belligerent” opposition as well). The guess would be that moves along the political spectrum, either to the right or to the left, are more likely in Italy to remain on a local and not an express train. In the US even slight moves have to be monitored closely and “alarmism” becomes normal and almost routine. Institutional change occurs with breathtaking rapidity.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_10_22-2006_10_28.shtml#1161812027
The issue seems more complex than the way Allen frames it. I don’t agree with his assessment but it is difficult to develop a real theme to all this.