Assessments of the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel and analyses of the country’s problems continue to fill the pages of the German press. Nikolaus Blome writes as follows in Die Welt (18/01): “While the Chancellor bathes in adulation abroad, at home a distressing vibration agitates the coalition. The SPD quarrels with joint decisions in family policy; the [Christian Democratic] Union does not want to accept that things did not go as it wanted in terms of ‘de-nuclearization’ after the elections. The mélange is being seasoned by the results of opinion polls, probably negative for the Social Democrats and probably positive for the Union. What’s dangerous about these wrangles is especially the confusion they generate. Even quarrels go differently in a grand coalition. And the lessons of this need to be learned”. And writing in the same paper, the Professor of Economics at the University of Freiburg, Guy Kirsch, comments: “‘Kohl’s girl’ has become a real Chancellor. The surprise, even the admiration, is justified. But respect for Merkel’s successes must not lead us to ignore the risks that threaten her post. From this Chancellorship almost the impossible is being asked. On the one hand, Merkel must be responsible for solving the problems by now familiar to everyone: the balancing of the budget, the crackdown on unemployment, the reform of the labour market and social security systems. On the other, she must also liberate the hopes and dispel the unconscious fears of citizens by opening the way to the freedom that must be dared. So the Chancellor must tackle these challenges, which remain open to the eyes of everyone; and as a woman of State, she must help to overcome the fears and neurotic inhibitions, the puerile fantasies of assistance and the doubts that currently prevent many Germans from taking their own life in hand. On the one hand, she must help the individual citizen to dare once again to embrace greater freedom. On the other, Germans must learn to aspire to freedom. But it is doubtful if a single policy can fulfil both roles. It is right to have doubts about that”. The French Catholic daily La Croix (19/01) draws attention to the “tragic divisions” between Christians, especially in the enlarged Europe, just as the Prayer Week for Christian Unity, called by the paper “ an inevitable appointment for Christians”, is being celebrated. “Even in France writes Nicolas Seneze and without any claim of being exhaustive, the Bishops’ Conference has registered 159 initiatives in the various dioceses: prayer vigils, ecumenical celebrations, conferences … A significant number of testimonies that remind us that ecumenism is not merely present in high-level theological exchanges, but that there also exists an ecumenism ‘from below'”. Recalling that the Week for Christian Unity was prepared this year, at the invitation of the Vatican, by Irish Christians, Seneze notes that “the division of Christians is something about which the Irish are only too familiar”. Indeed he adds that, with reference to the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in that country, “it is painful to acknowledge that these conflicts testify to the tragic divisions between Christians”. Nonetheless there are also signs of hope notes the Catholic paper “as in the case of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church which has publicly supported a Catholic parish, victim of a bomb attack, and whose declaration of support was read out during all the Sunday celebrations in the same parish”. In The Catholic Herald (13/01) front-page coverage is given to a “European” theme. The banner headline is in fact “The European Union threatens the right of Catholics to refuse to take part in abortions”. As explained by Freddy Gray, author of the report, “the legislators of the European Union have attacked the draft concordat between the Holy See and Slovakia which would like to guarantee the right of Catholics to refuse to participate in abortions”. “Catholic politicians and supporters of the pro-life movements have expressed dismay at the news continues the article accusing the European Commission of wishing to impose its ‘secularist agenda’ on a new member state of the EU, 70 percent of whose population is Catholic”. “It is a deliberate attack to polarise Slovak society and represents an expression of intolerance towards religions and the churches”, says the article, which recalls that “the campaign against the draft concordat was coordinated by a group of pro-abortionists who say they are Catholics, although they have repeatedly been denounced by leaders of the local Church”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1444 N.ro relativo : 4 Data pubblicazione : 20/01/2006
