“Far more difficult than its persecutions will be when Christianity loses its appeal, when it becomes a mere rite, and many Christians abandon the faith for the private rituals of life” , writes Father Augustyn Pelanowski in an article dedicated to the danger of the “eclipse of faith” published in number 47/2006 of the Polish Catholic weekly GOSC NIEDZIELNY . Another Polish weekly PRZEWODNIK KATOLICKI emphasizes that Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey will be a journey “to a profoundly Islamic country where the persecutions of Christians are still the order of the day” recalling the recent case of the killing of a Catholic priest by an under-age youth. The daily GAZETA WYBORCZA (22/11) published the results of a survey that show a radical change of opinion regarding abortion in Polish society over the last 10-12 years. Two thirds of Poles are now opposed to abortion if the woman intends to have recourse to it merely out of fear for the future. The author of the article points out, however, that “ an equally numerous group admits the legitimacy of abortion if the life of the woman is in danger and over half of those interviewed are not opposed to abortion if the pregnancy is the effect of rape (cases for which provision is made by the law introduced in Poland in 1993)”. According to the author of the analysis, “Polish society however does not seem willing to support the absolute prohibition of abortion as might happen in the event of the introduction into the Polish Constitution of the principle of the defence of life from the moment of conception to natural death”. The paper further notes that “ the anti-abortion attitude differentiates Poland from other European countries. Only 21% of Poles, in contrast to 67% of Germans, expect Benedict XVI to extend the admissibility of abortion to other particular situations”. In Germany there is a good deal of heart-searching in the press about the possible causes of yet another school massacre, perpetrated by an 18-year-old youth with a passion for violent videogames, who later took his own life. The positions of the papers differ. Stephan Hebel writing in the Frankfurter Rundschau (22/11) comments: “ The causes of these excesses cannot be banned. It is certainly not wrong to think of a better control, also by the State, of the media that foment violence. But it is wrong if this is used as a surrogate for a serious discussion“. In Die Welt , Matthias Kamann comments: “ However precipitous certain requests for tougher laws may seem, it is unacceptable that the murderer in Emsdetten was able to express on the Internet his own violent plans without anyone wishing to intervene… it is inadmissible that violence, normally forbidden, should be considered inoffensive in videogames solely controlled by the industry that produces them”. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Jürgen Kaube opines: “ The discussion on violence in the media, and how the lower classes and youngsters are ruined by their consumption of it, often shows an immense degree of hypocrisy, since obviously both the academics and the employees of the industry themselves make use of a part of these things. But in these cases it is called art. We organize learned symposia on de Sade, but if someone should use fragments of de Sade as criteria for his own relations with others, we would obviously be furious. So is it therefore impossible for all children to learn a capacity to distinguish between different situations? The aesthetic blunting of the evil, the reputation enjoyed by hatred, so long as it is expressed in a stylistically adequate way, makes the youth world insensible to an antipathy to it. We see this everywhere, we argue about it, millions of people do the same… And yet we seem to have already forgotten that we are dealing here not with adults, nor even essay writers, who in any case take nothing seriously, but with teenagers and children“. The assassination in Beirut, on 21 November, of the Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Christian Maronite Party, monopolizes the front pages of the French dailies. “ Lebanon taken hostage” is the title of the editorial in the daily LE MONDE (23/11). “Gemayel’s murder – says the paper – was committed when the process of the creation by the UNO of a special tribunal for the Lebanon had almost reached its goal after the international community had given its go ahead on Tuesday 21 November“. According to the author of the editorial, “ in this perspective, the assassination could have been aimed at dissuading the majority of the Lebanese government from completing this process”. In fact, apart from the presumed assassins of the previous Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, “ the special tribunal could also sit in judgement of the perpetrators of the other thirteen terrorist acts committed in Lebanon over the last two years”. While there are strong suspicions about the involvement of “ some high-ranking Syrian representatives”, the Lebanese “ are holding their breath and are convinced, not without reason, of once again having been taken hostage by a group whose aims are unclear to them“.
