press review" "
“The Pope’s frailty is causing concern in the Vatican”. That’s the front-page headline of the Herald Tribune of 16/10, which just on the day on which John Paul II was celebrating the completion of the 23rd year of his pontificate, brought back into the spotlight of international debate the question of the papal “succession”, or of John Paul’s possible “resignation” (though not provided for by the Church) in the event of grave problems of health. According to the analysis of Daniel Williams in the American daily, “Vatican watchers” are apparently concerned because the precarious state of health of the Pontiff “could incapacitate him and leave the Church without guidance or in the hands of aides acting on behalf of an unconscious pope”. “The numerous Vatican laws and regulations the author of the article points out make no provision at all for the incapacity of a pope. There does not exist any mechanism able to remove a pope who becomes chronically ill, senile or even comatose. No one has the authority to put an end to the life of a pope in the event of his being put on a life-support machine and of the diagnosis offering no hope of a recovery. For the time being, only a death certificate can put an end to a papacy”. But “a slow papal illness or a mental decline”, Williams stresses, “could, in time, prevent important ecclesial functions and even curb the role of the papacy in the world”. The editorials and comments on the conflict in Afghanistan continue of course. “Towards a new cold war?” is, for example, the title of an article signed by Patrice de Beer in Le Monde, in which it is pointed out that the American objective as repeatedly declared by political, diplomatic and military exponents goes far beyond the territorial confines within which the military offensive is being conducted at the present time. Does the “new world” resemble the old one? Not at the tactical level, is the response of the author of the article: “Concertation within a formal alliance, like NATO, would seem superseded by an administration that wants to exploit the advantages provided to it by a coalition without having to submit to its institutional constraints”. “Violence is always a risk for humanity”, is the headline in La Croix of 12/10, with reference to an exclusive interview given by Msgr. Jean-Louis Tauran to Jean-Marie Guénois. Tauran, in particular, recalls the conditions which the military offensive needs to meet if it is to demonstrate a response commensurate with the gravity of the terrorist attacks of 11 September: namely, “protecting the life of innocents and not taking civilians as the direct objective of the attacks; the recourse to force must be proportionate to the evil that is being combated, and ought not to repeat the means used by the adversary; the utilization of weapons of mass destruction is in any case to be excluded, in view of their devastating long-range power”. According to the exponent of the Holy See, moreover, “we have sufficient juridical means to resolve the political problems and provide a just and peaceful solution to the conflicts that bedevil the Holy land, just like other conflicts in course elsewhere in the world”. The cover of Der Spiegel of 15/10 carries the headline “War of the worlds”. The German weekly adopts a polemical attitude to the simultaneous dropping of bombs and basic food rations, in a report on Afghanistan signed by several journalists: “According to oriental rules says the magazine the Afghans would accept something dropped by a plane of a foreign enemy only in cases of extraordinary need”. Negative too is the assessment of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, of 12/10 which, in an article entitled “Don’t mix military and humanitarian actions” reports the negative judgement of the German NGOs on the operation: “The humanitarian organizations the article declares – profoundly disapprove of the operation”, whereas the government has described it as “a positive component”. Dedicated to an analysis of the relations between Islam and the West is the front-page editorial in the same paper of 15/10, with the telling title “The image of the enemy”, which affirms: “Islam must not be confused with Islamism, still less with terrorism. The religion of Islam deserves our respect, and its believers in Germany have a right to those civil liberties which everyone else enjoys”.¤
