In response to the “world threat” of terrorism, “we are all put to the test, as individuals, as peoples, as international community and also, and more specifically, as Christians”, said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, on opening the permanent Council of Italian bishops, now being held in Rome until 23 September. According to Ruini, “the international community, and within it each nation, must oppose the organizations of terror with greater energy and determination, without even giving the impression of submitting to their blackmail and extortion. At the same time it is called to remove the causes of terrorism whether they be cultural and moral, or economic and political”. “Three years after 11 September 2001”, Ruini continued, “the taking of hostages is increasing” in Iraq, and “the hostages are often barbarously murdered, even with the gruesome staging of their execution as media events. Many nations pointed out the cardinal have had to pay a tribute of blood and Italy is among them; most recently it lost the journalist Enzo Baldoni in Iraq, and now it fears for the fate of the two young women Simona Torretta and Simona Pari. We ask with all our heart for their liberation and intensify our prayer to this end”. Among the priorities on the Italian “agenda”, the cardinal cited the need for a “change of gear” in politics, to take forward the constitutional reforms with “as wide a consensus as possible” and without compromising the “unity” of the country. He also spoke of the need for a “collective effort” for economic recovery, and commented on the question of the referendum against the law on medically assisted procreation, which has been the object, he said, of “remorseless polemic” by the media, dominated by the “incapacity or the inability to take into consideration the magnitude of what is at stake, which revolves in the last analysis around the question of the nature and dignity of the human being”.
