Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco said that Italy needed a ?correction of habits and lifestyles.?
ROME ? Over the last several years, the Italian Catholic Church has largely looked the other way as reports emerged of a series of sex and corruption scandals among the Italian elite, many of them centered around Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But a recent published account of a party at Mr. Berlusconi?s home where one female guest performed a striptease dressed as a nun, apparently was more than the Church could stand.
This week the Church lashed out, issuing its strongest reprimands yet of Italy?s ruling class, deploring ?behavior that not only goes counter to public decorum but is intrinsically sad and hollow.?
Italians ?look on their public leaders with consternation and the image of the country abroad has been dangerously weakened,? Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishop?s Conference, told his fellow bishops on Monday. On Tuesday, he called for an ?upright lifestyle,? saying that the country needed a ?correction of habits and lifestyles,? to help it emerge from a ?culture of nothingness.?
Though Cardinal Bagnasco did not single out Mr. Berlusconi ? who is facing charges of having sex with a minor, is on trial in four separate corruption trials and has lately become embroiled in a scandal involving prostitutes paid to attend parties at his villas ? the cardinal spoke of ?licentious conduct and improper relationships that damage society.? And he blasted a governing class preoccupied with self-preservation while normal Italians struggled financially to make ends meet.
On Wednesday, the lower house of parliament rejected an opposition no confidence vote against Agriculture Minister Saverio Romano who is under investigation in Sicily for alleged ties to the Mafia.
The public reproaches are the perhaps inevitable response to a Catholic audience ?that is increasingly intolerant of the ostentation of lifestyles that are shamelessly immoral,? said Father Antonio Sciortino, editor-in-chief of the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana.
Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant?Egidio, a liberal Catholic group, broaded the critique, arguing that Italy?s political elite does not seem to be seriously interested in tackling the nation?s deep economic problems.
?The church is observing the gradual impoverishment of Italians alongside a growing abyss between people and politics,? he said. The church is asking for something new. It fears for Italy?s future.?
Italians are beginning to understand the fallout from the euro zone debt crisis, with the government having passed a series of austerity measures over the past two months that will trim public services and pensions, as well as raise taxes. However, these pledges to cut government costs as well as political posts have yet to be enacted, further fueling public disaffection with the ruling class.
?If the government is going to ask for sacrifices, they should be the first to give an example,? said Francesco Zanotti, the president of the Italian Federation of Catholic Weeklies, which groups nearly 200 diocesan publications. He added that editorials urging for greater moral rectitude on the part of the political class have been surfacing ?for some time now.?
The situation is so serious ? on both the economic and moral levels ? that the church could not help but speak out, said Marco Politi, a papal biographer and commentator for the left-leaning daily ?Il Fatto Quotidiano.? And he noted that Cardinal Bagnasco spoke out just days after Emma Marcegaglia, the head of Italy?s business lobby Confindustria, slammed the government for not doing enough to help overcome Italy?s faltering economy.
?These two great powers in Italian society are finally making their move,? he said.
Last week, Ms. Marcegaglia said that time for the government was running out. Unless it comes up with a ?number of serious, weighty and unpopular measures,? she said, the government should resign. Italy is a serious country, with serious businesses, ?but we are fed up with being an international laughing stock,? she said.
Critics like Mario Staderini, a member of the Radical Party who has been fighting to eliminate fiscal privileges for the church, say that the Church has tread lightly in past years to avoid alienating a center-right government that has continued to offer tax-breaks for church owned properties and commercial activities, while supporting Vatican positions on questions like Catholic education, common-law marriage, living wills and some forms of assisted fertility, all of which are illegal in Italy.
But Father Sciortino of Famiglia Cristiana said that the Church had become disenchanted with the government more recently over its inability to deliver on a number of promises to support programs that help families.
?These things haven?t happened,? he said, chiding Catholic politicians for allowing allegiance to political parties to take precedence over their religious beliefs. ?They remained quiet, or worse they justified the prime minister?s indefensible behavior,? he said.
Officially, the government has not responded to the church?s criticisms. But on Wednesday, Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League and a key Berlusconi ally, said that instead of chiding the government, ?bishops should say more masses.?
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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=05fed28ba158e06887885169ecb3f665
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