The risk of “a country adrift”, a country without a compass and a common sense of direction in which to guide the efforts of its various social and cultural components was pointed out by Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, in his address to the permanent Bishops’ Council on Monday 17 September. He touched on various questions in his speech, including youth, the family, protection of life, development of Southern Italy, professional training, housing, and the ethical emergencies of our time (abortion, euthanasia, therapeutic over-treatment, etc.). Referring to the Pope’s recent meeting with hundreds of thousands of youth at Loreto (1-2 September), many of them coming from various European countries and also from other continents, Bagnasco emphasized the quality and the quantity of the participants. After recalling the Pope’s decision to re-introduce the possibility of celebrating the Latin Mass, i.e. the Mass according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and updated by the Blessed John XXIII in 1962, the archbishop went on to reflect on the “great educational emergency” that is being registered not only in Italy but in virtually all Western societies. Msgr. Bagnasco invited everyone to Christian coherence, particularly politicians whom he reminded that they cannot “ignore – whether out of opportunism, or convention, or other reason – the intrinsic ethical requirements of our faith”. Among the more typically Italian questions, he cited the need to safeguard professional training for the young who do not intend to continue in higher education and invited banks and legislators to promote innovative policies to ease the housing crisis. As regards the theme of bioethics, Bagnasco spoke of the risk of the “disintegration of the conscience of man”.
