The withdrawal of a quarter of Britain’s armed forces from Iraq, announced by Blair, is commented on as follows by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (22/2): “ Basra is not Baghdad: to this simple recognition we can attribute Blair’s decision to withdraw 1600 troops from the south of Iraq in the next few months. In this way Blair would seem to be adopting a contrary position to Bush who, against the wishes of the opposition and the opinion of his own aides, has decided to reinforce the American contingent in and around Baghdad . […] The reality is this: the situation in Basra does not correspond to the images of civil war in Baghdad. The Iraqi security forces composed of Shiites have shown themselves to be a disciplinary power“. And in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Peter Nonnenmacher writes: “ Four years after the invasion of Iraq, Great Britain is beginning to withdraw from the occupied areas. Iraqi democracy, it is said in London, is sufficiently consolidated to permit it… Not all the British, however, recognize the Iraqi situation in the rosy picture painted by the premier Tony Blair. Even for many Labour MPs, the Blair campaign has been a disaster that has weakened the UNO, divided Europe, and left Iraq in a deplorable state and the region in a precarious situation”. The Equality Act , the law on equality that is due to come into force in the UK on 6 April and will also oblige Catholic adoption agencies to permit gay couples to adopt children, is deplored in the last number of the monthly magazine of the diocese of Glasgow (Scotland), FLOURISH (2/2007). “ An aggressive and combative secularism, with powerful friends in high places – says a comment on the new legislation – is seeking conflict with the Church on every occasion” and “ the consciences of millions of British citizens are being gravely injured, since political correctness is inexorably supplanting Christian values. There is no freedom of faith. No – insists the editorial – everything must conform”. “As Christians, what must we do when the government of our country decides to interfere in moral and spiritual spheres in which it has no jurisdiction? When our conscience is flouted?”. “ The more one reflects on the meaning and content of the Bindi-Pollastrini bill on so-called “Dico” – the rights of unmarried couples – the more it becomes clear that the effort of mediation – even within the government itself – has led to no appreciable effects. And this recognition can only reinforce the initial apprehensions. And it generates an alarm about which – once again – we as citizens cannot remain silent” . So writes Marco Tarquinio in an editorial in the Italian Catholic daily AVVENIRE (22/2). The paper underlines that the government’s bill on unmarried couples “needs to be re-thought”. It points out the opposition to it that crosses party divides, and that includes “MPs of the majority and of the opposition, professionals, representatives of church associations and ordinary citizens” due to “ the paradoxical anti-family and anti-community implications of a bill that on the contrary is being presented as an act of solidarity”. The paper also stresses the “civil” mobilization that is taking place in the Catholic world in opposition to the bill. The French Catholic daily LA CROIX (21/2) dedicates a dossier to marriages between citizens of various member states of the European Union. These couples, which represent on average 2.25% of the European total, with a maximum in Luxembourg (39%) and a minimum in Greece (0.6%), “ create – according to the dossier – families able to educate their children in what European citizenship really means in practice”. The main difficulties are those of “harmonising two different cultures, learning the language of the other spouse, deciding in what country to settle and hence to what family of origin to remain closer”. But questions of a legal nature are also posed: “ with the birth of a child, for example, its nationality is a decision that needs to be taken together, unless the two countries in question accept dual nationality“. What especially seems important, insists the dossier, “ is the capacity to give the family’s children a strong identity, founded on the elements of richness that derive from the meeting or fusion between the parents’ cultures”. According to MEP Evelyne Gebhardt , interviewed by the paper, “ a reform of family law to adjust to this reality is urgently needed”. “For whom is Lent?” asks the Polish Catholic weekly PRZEGLAD KATOLICKI (7/2007. “Lent is a sensible proposal only for those who are not afraid of silence and reflection, and those who think it is more important to be than to have. To people incapable of reflecting and to egoists it may be a cause for disquiet, whereas it can become a spur and an inspiration for those who, following in the footsteps of Jesus would like to think wisely, mature in love and work with honesty. Each Christian knows that a human being is great because he is loved by God and capable of loving in turn. But being Christian also means being threatened by cynicism, immorality and one’s own weaknesses (…) For realists Lent is the right time to strip oneself of everything that hampers personal growth and stands in the way of the achievement of happiness; the time to rid oneself of noise and foolishness”.
