Church and State in Italy (and Paraguay)
Here’s a story about a controversy now underway in Italy over proposed legislation that would grant certain rights to unmarried couples: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0700931.htm
Concern that Cardinal Ruini, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, might intervene and urge Catholic members of Parliament to vote against the law, a group of Italian Catholics is circulating a petition warning that such an intervention–said to be of unprecedented seriousness– would return Italy to the unfortunate situation that prevailed between the unification of the country and the Lateran Accords, decades which, because the Vatican would not allow Catholics to participate in the new political regime, saw conflict between being a believer and being a citizen The petitioners plead with the bishops “to avoid so great a disaster, which would place our Church and our Country outside of history. While the proposed law may not be thought to be the best, it is also indispensalbe to distinguish between what for believers is obligatory, both in conscience and canonically, and what must be regulated by the lay State for all its citizens. We invite the Bishops’ Conference to take more balanced positions and Catholic members of Parliament to remain faithful to their cosntitutional obligations as legislators for all.”
This appeal immediately provoked a counter-appeal from other Italian Catholic intellectuals, all lay people, it appears. They ask the bishops “to continue clearly and freely to bring moral doctrine and culture to bear on the question of family legislation. We regard as unjust any form of intellectual intimidation against the autonomy of religious thought. We consider it crucial, in order to enrich the pluralism of values in Italian society, that religion occupy a public space in the life of the community. We judge as inappropriate, a symptom of a political use of the religious sphere, the appeal of democratic Catholics that the Italian Church refuse an act of its teaching authority, which the free conscience of lay people and Catholics, including the members of Parliament, can evaluate serenely and with complete freedom.
“The new Concordat of 1984 assigns to the Italian Church, which is no longer the expression of a ‘State-religion,’ an independent role of civil, political and moral witness that is perfectly compatible with the State’s lay and, within its own order, sovereign role. The culture of this country has to free itself from the politicizing shackles of illiberal, old Concordat-style, ideas that seek by oblique arguments to censure religious freedom and its social function.”
The two manifestos can be found, in Italian, at http://www.ilfoglio.it/articolo.php?idoggetto=32312
The discussion has some distinctively Italian features, but it also echoes some features of the US discussion. I think in particular of the tendency on the part of some people here to think that a teaching-intervention by bishops is by itself a violation of the separation of Church and State. In another blog I saw someone protest that the resignation of Edwards’ two aides represented such a violation!
Today’s “La Repubblica,” reports that the Pope, in a speech to papal nuntios of Latin America, spoke of the need to defend the family against lobbies seeking to destroy it. It quotes him as saying that “it is not the role of churchmen but of mature Christian lay people to lead political groups,” but this is probably a reference to the retired bishop who has been suspended because he has decided to run for president of Paraguay–a whole other matter!.
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/01/sezioni/esteri/benedettoxvi-12/lobby-contro-famiglia/lobby-contro-famiglia.html
Joe,
Do you think it would go down better if they urged everyone to vote against the law, not just Catholic members of Parliament.? That would make it seem as if they were appealing to people–all people– based on the common good, rather than simply telling Catholics in power what to do.
Or maybe they did. My Italian’s limited to ordering coffee and gelato.
Cathy:
I don’t believe that Ruini or the Italian Bishops’ Conference has yet issued a statement; there apparently was an announcement that one was being prepared. At least one Italian bishop has requested that there be widespread consultation before any such statement is issued.
Giuseppe Alberigo, one of the originators of the first manifesto, has long been haunted by the Vatican’s threatened excommunication of anyone who voted Communist–this in the immediate post-war years when there was some fear that Italy (and France) might go the way of Czecho-Slovakia. That is why it is a stretch to think of the feared intervention of the CEI as of (“inaudita gravità”–unheard-of seriousness), but Italians like to exaggerate. Or is that a temptation that attends the political everywhere–think of the rhetoric of our political debates–one could think the Eschaton is at stake.
The number of non-Catholic parliamentarians is probably not high. How many believers are among the Catholics is another question….
You must have noticed that Giolitti’s one of the best gelateria in Rome is not far from the main political buildings. Coincidence?
I gather from the Tablet that the retired Bishop of San Pedro, Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, had requested laicization but had been refused and told he would be suspended if he ran for president.
About the same time Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who is retired, was invited to serve as chair of a Council of National Reconciliation in Nicaragua by President Daniel Ortega. The Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference Socrates Sandigo thought this would be inappropriate as did the Archbishop of Managua, Leopoldo Brenes, who observed that priests were not allowed by canon law to accept government posts.
I also recall hearing that the Archbishop of Westminster was offered a seat in the House of Lords and declined for similar reasons.
Is it true that this prohibition is new and first appeared with the revision of Canon Law under JPII? Surely Fr. Drinan would not have run for office had these strictures then been in force nor would JPII have have contrived his departure from office by appeal to Jesuit obedience rather than reference to canon law.
Should not the age of concordats and papal rerpresentative be over since they have been more symbols of power and worldly benefit.?The teaching intervention of bishops should certainly remain everywhere but a line has to be drawn when the bishops actually engaged in Partisan tactics as was clear in the last election.
Despite the fantasies of American Catholics, (especially Italian-Americans) Italy has not been that religous for a long time. The low esteem for the clergy that is now a world wide fact has been in italy for at least a century.
It is much easier to lead by legislation than by example.
I found it interesting that here in New Mexico, our three Catholic Bishops sat down with Governor Richardson for breakfast; they indicated their posture was not to “demand” or “command” but to try to persuade.
In the legislative session thus far, the proposed embryonoc stem cell proposal by Richardson (which he then told the Bishops he would reconsider) is not moving along, there is an equiprobable chance on death penalty repeal and we may at last get rid of cockfighting.
Just my take: how you say something is frequently, if not more frequently, important as what you say – at least un the world of politics.
“It is much easier to lead by legislation than by example.”
I never thought of this. Is this why, in Italy and elsewhere, advocates for gay rights are pursuing legislative remedies rather than changing hearts by their example?
In the Italian case, it’s not the bishops who are proposing legislation.
Blocking legislation is just the same and the Vatican has an infallibly miserable history in blocking United Nations Effort to bring needed health care to third world countries. Fortunately the members of the UN have been ignoring the Vatican, the only religious body with status there, and provided humanitarian aid to sick and hungry third world people with reference to population control and the use of condoms. The strange fact is that there are less abortions when there is organized poplulation control.
Finally the Vatican is giving in on condoms, at least a little, so that married women do not have to go to certain death having intercourse with their husbands who have aids.
The sad history of Rome with women’s causes is reason enough to bar them from this type of involvement.
It’s a nice thought that the free consciences of lay people and Catholics might evaluate “serenely and with complete freedom” whatever teaching statement the Bishops might put forward. But such statements too often are used to punish and coerce those in public life who differ on the point at issue.
And ist it justi to deprive unmarried people in stable domestic partnerships of benefits that their fellow citizens, fellow employees, fellow purchasers of housing are eligible to receive because they are able to marry and choose to do so?
I didn’t report on the controversy so much because of the particular legislation involved as because of the two different attitudes of Catholic intellectuals toward a possible statement by the bishops. I was mainly interested in possible comparisons with how similar debates are carried on in the USA. One manifesto seemed to oppose bishops’ addressing the issue; the other seemed to think it within their province, but asserted the right of others to react to any such statement serenely and freely. Perhaps the question is: are statements by bishops on such matters inherently coercive?
Given current attitudes I would not call statements by bishops inherently coercive. Bishops certainly have both a right and a duty to speak out on matters that fall within their province. It would be useful if they would always also make an effort to speak plainly and persuasively.