Thanks to Lella who credits her follower Elisabetta
for this item that appeared in an Italian blog.
I checked it out but it does not say how the blogger got hold of Cossiga's letter.
Cardinal Bagnasco and the Italian bishops' conference may think the Boffo case is more or less behind them but it never will be until they choose to tell all. A former Italian President who is well-known for being a devout Catholic has written Cardinal Bagnasco a letter on the Boffo case, among other things, on a matter that I personally believe needed to be spelled out the way Cossiga does to Bagnasco and the Italian bishops' conference.
I will translate the first part of it, for now. The second part, equally important but less pressing, consists of Cossiga's reflections on the Treaty and Concordat that regulate relations between Italy, on the one hand, and the Vatican and the Italian Church, on the other.
Ex-President Cossiga calls out
Cardinal Bagnasco on the Boffo case
Translated from
Sept. 22, 2009
Honorable Cardinal,
I read with great attention and deference the opening remarks you gave at the opening of the current session of the Permanent Council of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI).
You know that I consider myself an 'infant Catholic', namely, one of those who believe that Catholics must conform their decisions in politics, even at the parliamentary or national level, to the teachings of the Curch in doctrine and morals, as well as to natural law as accepted, illuminated and proclaimed by the Church.
[Cossiga coined the term 'infant Catholic' at the time former Prime Minister Romano Prodi described hismelf and his fellow leftist Catholic ministers as 'adult Catholics' who can make up their own minds whether they should apply Church doctrine to their political decisions at all.]
That is a position, of course, which is not shared by all Catholic politicians, some of whom (at lesat 60 members of Parliament), not too long ago - without any reaction from the CEI - signed a document rejecting criticisms of a law co-sponsored by some Catholic 'militants' which would give rights and responsibilities to de facto unions including those which are non-heterosexual.
You know that from the age of six, I was enrolled in Catholic Action, and that I did not resign from it until I was elected President of the Republic, that aftermy term, I wanted to rejoin it but I could not do so because its presidency at the time made it clear to me that my presence would not be welcome.
But you also know that I am a staunch supporter of the secular state, which years ago, a great Catholic theologian who later elaborated on 'positive secularity' had said that in the 21st century, the only kind of state compatible with the current social doctirne of teh Church - after Vatican II abandoned Robert Bellarmine;s theory of the
potestas indirecta Ecclesiae in rebus temporalibus (the church's indirect power in temporal matters), which had been sustained up to the 20th century Christian theoretician of democracy, Jacques Maritain.
The case of Avvenire's ex-editor Dino Boffo is a painful one. But to state as you did yesterday that the attack against him "had somehow struck at each of us" does not convince me at all.
I think that the Church in Italy, particularly the simplest of the faithful, have been more stricken by the climate of reticence and ambiguity with which the Boffo case has been treated by our responsible Curch hierarchy, reminding many of the dark omerta-like cloud under which some American and Irish bishops chose to deal with their sad cases of sex-offender priestss, thus creating perplexity among the faithful and bringing great spiritual and material damages to their dioceses.
In short, to the 'revelations' made by Il Giornale (clearly fed by some sources within the Church organization itself), all that was needed was a clear reply: Dottore Boffo is not a homosexual. Or, as the case may be, he is a homosexual who lives a chaste life, and as recommended by the Church, carries his innate tnedency as a Cross, since the homosexual tendency, even if it is a disordered feeling, is not a sin in itself if it does not lead to the commission of unnatural acts.
The same statement that condemns homosexual activity and the justifications made of it by persons and associations which call themselves Catholic, besides encouraging homosexuals to live chaste lives and consider this discreet behavior as a Cross to be borne, should also condemn anyone for committing a sin against charity and justice by showing contempt or discrimination against anyone for being homosexual, even those who do engage in homosexual activity.
And so, Dino Boffo, if he is homosexual (and even if not a 'chaste' one), should have been respected bot only by a secular newspaper like Il Giornale, but by the very Church authorities who then led him to resign.
In fact, given the total orthodoxy of his editorial line and his own writings, he should have been able to continue editing Avvenire. [That's all very well, in theory, but given the way the world is, I am not sure that having a confirmed homosexual editing the Catholic bishops' newspaper after the big brouhaha would have been feasible.
It might have, back in 2004, if the CEI had taken the aboveboard approach when Boffo first told Cardinal Ruini about his court fine. At the time, it might have looked to everyone as welcome candor for a change from the Church hierarchy about sensitive matters of a sexual nature, and Boffo - if a chaste homosexual - might even have become a cultural hero.]
Ecclesiasitcal authorities [i.e., Bagnasco primarily] could have shed definitive clarity on the matter by convincing Dott. Boffo to make public the judicial file on his case now kept under wraps in the Terni Tribunal. Files which neither the young woman who filed the complaint nor her mother, both devoutly observant and militant Catholics, would have objected to making public.
On the other hand, in terms of criticism and insults, whatever was printed by Il Giornale [against Boffo] take second place to those expressed in public more than once by the new secretary-general of the CEI who, overwhelmed by his new responsibility and in keeping with his last name [Crociata, which means 'crusade] has embarked on a crusade against the President of the Council of Ministers with accusations, criticisms and insults which would have already led to his arrest if he lived in France and had said anything of the sort about President Sarkozy and his wife, as he has about Prime Minister Berlusconi.
The latter is, after all, head of the executive department in a State whose relationships with the Italian Catholic Church (and not just with the Holy See) are regulated not only by a treaty [the Lateran Pacts] but also by a Concordat, which is an agreement in international law that is in force not only on the Italian juridical order and the Vatican's, but also on the Church's canonical order which I believe the said monsignor is subject to....
Wow, that's a lot to reproach Cardinal Bagnasco with - and I believe, rightly. I did not bother to translate anything on Mons. Crociata's anti-Berlusconi tirades but much of it was being 'more Popish than the Pope". Perhaps, however, Cardinal Bagnasco has already reined him in, because he stopped.
As for the case of Mr. Boffo, one of my first comments after Il Giornale's defamatory attack was this one, in a post on Sept. 1:
It must be made clear that the sense of Feltri's rash accusations was that Boffo had no moral standing to keep pounding on Prime Minister Berlusconi's alleged libertinism in Avvenire, since he himself has questionable morals.
Even if Boffo happens to be homosexual, which no one of his supporters has addressed in public, that does not make him immoral nor sinful in the eyes of the Church unless he habitually practises homosexual acts.
The only reason I can think of that Cardinals Ruini and Bagnasco have not pressured him to tell all in public is that he may indeed be a self-acknowledged homosexual, and no matter how chaste he has lived his life, the very label alone applied to the editor of the Italian bishops' newspaper would leave Avvenire and the CEI open to all kinds of unsavory inferences.
Human nature being what it is, that would unfortunately damage Avvenire's moral credibility - and nothing could be worse for a Catholic newspaper.
So will Cardinals Bagnasco and Ruini still get to do the right if difficult [perhaps to them, unthinkable] thing, or choose to be like Boston's Cardinal Law who will forever live under the shadow of ostensibly having enabled more priestly sex offenses in his diocese by covering up for erring priests.
Mr. Boffo would certainly help them by making a clean breast of everything. It's the price of being the tallest tree in the Catholic media forest, as he was before August 29: Sure, you are entitled to the sanctity of your private life from public scrutiny - until you commit any infraction that cracks that shell of privacy, after which, you become an open target.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/09/2009 02:34]