” “We publish this week’s note by SIR
” “The stir (basically on papers) about Pope Benedict XVI’s audience with the European Peoples Party, due in late March, seems to have gone away like a gust of March wind. While most political leaders kept their cool, the general outcry that accompanied the prospect (then withdrawn) of a papal photoopportunity for three political leaders just few days before the elections of Aril 9th and 10th, deserves some comments.” “One obviously concerns the old Italic reflex of our small-town mentality: the European political agenda does not move around the Italian elections, which are not insignificant anyway, in the complex scenario of the political balances of a Union which is looking for direction and for an impacting structure in such a difficult international situation.” “The second comment concerns a media-political circuit, which a few months ago was already the start of the referendum campaign (about in vitro fertilisation) on opposite positions to those consistently taken by the Catholic world. Even then, there were widespread rumours of alleged interference, both before and after the date of the referendum. As if a given media-political circuit tended to inflate and at the same time to denounce, overemphasising it, the Church’s action, no matter if true or alleged.” “These are cultural reflexes, more than political reflexes, which come from afar, from the long nineteenth century of Italy and Europe, but which now frankly sound more and more outdated, even if, from time to time, they tap into the issues of the political debate.” “Here is, then, the third comment: before our eyes, we see a long-term movement coming to an end, the demand to get rid of Christianity although capitalising on its values, on the consensus cemented by the Christian legacy. It’s a centuries-old journey that the new lifestyles (and their legalisation, which subverts the traditional institutions) and the new biotechnological potentials seem to encourage. But just when everything seems to prove true this radical progressivism, the pattern blows up, as everyone has clearly understood after September 11th. The centrality of religion in the processes of reassertion of the identity on a worldwide scale, as well as on a personal scale, is self-evident. Benedict XVI is saying extraordinarily powerful, serene, open and far-sighted words about this. Politics has new potentials and new responsibilities. And the citizens now seem to be well aware of this. So, the elections of April 9th come back with an agenda of partly-new questions: perhaps it is just on these issues that the selection will play.” “
