Sandro Magisters newsletter today is devoted to the upcoming administrative elections in the region of Lazio, which includes the diocese of Rome. Emma Bonino, a woman well known for her opposition to Church teachings is the candidate of parties of the left. Magister contrasts the absence of general and strong opposition to her on the part of Italian Church leaders to Pope Pius XIIs effort in 1952 to get the Christian Democrats to enter into an alliance with rightist parties in order to prevent a communist victory, a coalition refused by the leader of the DC, de Gasperi. Both the Communist Party and Christian Democracy are defunct now, and Catholic voters are scattered across the whole political spectrum. A key paragraph:

So how is the Church reacting to this challenge represented by the Bonino candidacy? Certainly not as it did in 1952. In part because today it is unthinkable that the pope should personally dictate to Catholics a specific political "mechanism" for confronting the danger.

There are several other aspects of the Italian situation that alsobear comparison, and contrast, with the U.S.

Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, professor emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

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