I find this analysis by John Thavis very disappointing, because it is superficial, and it reads like a liberal commentator's run-of-the-mill simplification of the central issue. Worse, IMHO, it is based on false premises. For contrast, I suggest reading the analysis of the Times of India Vatican correspondent and Giuliano Ferrara's editorial on this issue which I posted in the NOTABLES thread last week.
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=872...
Vatican tiptoes around
latest Berlusconi scandal
By John Thavis
VATICAN CITY, January 28 (CNS) -- The uproar over the latest sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has found Vatican and other Church leaders
mostly keeping mum, hesitant to be perceived as meddling in politics.
[They have not 'kept mum': They simply have avoided publicly condemning Berlusconi by name - something which, in any case, I don't believe the Vatican has ever done with any individual, at least not in the modern era. As the Church does, she condemns the sins but not the sinner.
This Christian attitude towards sinners has nothing to with being 'hesitant to be perceived as meddling iin politics' - especially when, for the first time, everyone who wants to bring Berlusconi down, including the liberals who are most touchy about Church 'interference', have been calling publicly on the Vatican and the Pope to denounce Berlusoni by name, and do not understand why the Church has not excommunicated him outright!]
Although clear moral issues are involved -- Berlusconi is being investigated on accusations of having relations with an underage Moroccan and paying other women to engage in sex parties --
the Vatican's media have yet to report on the saga, which has been front-page news in Italy for weeks.
[That is also not true.. The OR published borh of President Napolitano's statements on the issue, its editor Vian gave an interview to Corriedere della Sera about it, and Avvenire - which reflects the position of the Italian bishops conference - criticizes Berlusconi directly for the bad example he sets for the nation.
Just because Berlusconi has a morally questionable personal lifestyle does not mean the Vatican must single him out for moralizing, because by that logic, it would have to moralize on each and every prominent Italian's moral shortcomings. Other than having to be reminded of the responsibility by public officials to lead by example, Berlusconi's private morals primarily concern him and his confessor, if he goes to confession at all, and his conscience as a Christian.]
Italian bishops have limited themselves to oblique references to morality in civil life, choosing not to mention Berlusconi's name.
[IMHO, the rest of this analysis, even if it cites historical facts, is flawed by its fundamentally mistaken premise that the prudence shown by the Church in its statements is motivated by a desire not to be seen as meddling. After all, she is instantly denounced and excoriated as 'meddling' whenever she speaks up in defense of life and the traditional family, and other Church doctrines that are opposed by the dominant secular-liberal mentality.]
The episode illustrates the limitations on the Church's role in a country that, despite its overwhelmingly Catholic population, has a long history of resentment over clerical interference in politics.
"Toward the Holy See, (Italian) political power has a mixed attitude: reverence for its huge moral influence, and
indifference or even impatience when it tries to enter the political arena,"
[What a monumental understatement!! The secular politicians scream "Interference!' against the Church at the slightest pretext - that's hardly indifference or impatience!], said Massimo Franco, who covers the church and politics for the newspaper
Corriere della Sera.
[Massimo Franco is not a reporter but a commentator for Corriere; he writes a daily column and is also an editorialist for them.]
Franco told Catholic News Service that
one reason the Vatican has been cautious is that it doesn't see any real alternative to Berlusconi, at least not yet.
"It considers the Italian center-left too liberal and hostile. But that creates a slippery situation: moral divergences and political alliances are more and more at odds," he said.
[And that is applying purely political logic to something that is more fundamental: to say iut once more, the Church differentiates between the sin and the sinner. Besides, by the political logic that Franco uses, the Church should have attacked former Prime Minister Romano Prodi directly for the Zapatero-like policies his government tried to legislate, but it never did - even if Berlusconi was always a viable political alternative waiting in the wings.]
The Berlusconi scandal centers on his relationship with a young Moroccan known as "Ruby," who at the age of 17 attended parties at the premier's residence and, in exchange, reportedly received gifts, including jewels and large amounts of money. According to Italian press reports, she and other girls told investigators that Berlusconi hosted what he called "bunga bunga" parties that involved stripteases and sexual acts.
Berlusconi has defended his pleasure-seeking lifestyle but denied paying for sex. He has portrayed himself as the victim of politically motivated prosecutors, who are also investigating him for allegedly using his office to cover up the scandal.
Reactions to the revelations have threatened Berlusconi's hold on power, and Italian and other media have tried their best to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the fray.
When the Pope, addressing Rome policemen in mid-January, made a bland comment on the need for morality in civil society, one headline the next day read: "Ruby: The condemnation of the Vatican."
In fact, the Pope and his aides have been careful to avoid any hint of taking sides.
[The Christian equivalent of 'A pox on both your houses!' in this case.]
The head of the Italian bishops' conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, tried to walk a middle line
[He didn't just try, he studiously did, finding fault on both sides, because those who want to take Berlusconi down have obviously over-exploited this scandal for their own political interests] by referring to reports of "behavior contrary to public decorum," but also questioning why these reports have received so much attention from investigating magistrates.
Anyone expecting the Church's "excommunication" of the prime minister has been disappointed, the Italian newspaper
Il Giornale commented.
[Actually, the comment was by Andrea Tornielli on his blog, as noted earlier on this thread, and was not an editorial position of the newspaper.]
The Church's low-profile approach may reflect the fact that when the Vatican or the bishops take too specific aim at political figures, there's often a public backlash. [Baloney! Is there any example to back that statement at all? In the Prodi government, cabinet ministers, including Catholic ones, were denounced in the Catholic media for their advocacy of anti-Catholic policies like euthanasia and same-sex marriage, but that did not cause any backlash at all. In fact, it probably contributed to the defeat of the liberals by Berlusconi's conservative coalition in the 2008 elections. More recently, Prodi's most liberal Catholic minister, a woman, was defeated for the presidency of Lazio region by a more orthodox Catholic lady.]
"
The Church is not looking for sinners to hang from poles or to burn in the public square. It is seeking the salvation of souls, the good of individuals and the good of all," Father Piero Gheddo, an Italian missionary and commentator, told the newspaper
Il Foglio.
"The Church evaluates politicians on the facts, not so much on their private life," he said.
[There you are. Thavis should have cited this earlier in the article.]
In short, the prevailing attitude among Italian Church leaders is that a politician's personal moral failings are best addressed in the confessional, not in the pulpit.
[DUH!]
The problem posed by Berlusconi is that he claims to work in the Church's best interests -- which may be true on certain issues like aid to private schools, but not when the premier, now twice-divorced, shows up for the Church's annual "Family Day" celebration of traditional values.
[But he has consistently acted to support the Church's conservative and traditional line on most social issues, and has held the line against euthanasia, same-sex marriage and liberalizing laws on abortion and assisted reproduction. Of course, as a Catholic, he must be faulted for his divorces and his libertinism, but that is his personal problem with his confessor and with God. Are his dalliances and sexual proclivities any worse than all the dcoumented disclosures that have emerged about the private lifsteyles of John Kennedy and Edward Kennedy? I think shortsightedness clouds Thavis's analysis in this respect.]
After meeting Pope Benedict in 2008, Berlusconi proclaimed their common views on "the sacred nature of the human person and the family" -- and gave the Pope a jewel-studded crucifix.
[Berlusconi has never hidden the fact that he is most anxious to be in the good graces of the Pope - he has gone out of his way on at least two occasions to meet with the Pope in unscheduled circumstances. But I would not think of his gift as a 'bribe' - as a billionaire, he was presenting a gift worthy of the person he was presenting it to.
However, like all men who are wealthy and powerful beyond common imagination, he does not see his own faults - in this case, the glaring, heedless amorality of his private life. Of course, persons like him are very much in need of a comeuppance, but that will come from other factors that he himself provokes and which he will not always be able to control, not from the Church, which is not in the business of playing 'Gotcha!' but of saving souls.]
The German Pope has tended to de-emphasize the Church hierarchy as a political player in Italy. In a major address to Italian Catholics in 2006, he said it was the responsibility of Catholic laypeople -- and not the church as an institution -- to bring the Gospel to political life, operating "as citizens under their own responsibility."
There are historical reasons why such a strategy makes sense in Italy, where the Church's temporal and political power of past centuries is still a source of resentment.
[To whom, though? To seculars, liberals and dyed-in-the-wool anti-clericalists, not to the general public!] In March, Italy is celebrating 150 years as a unified nation, and for the Church it's a reminder of a painful transition that included the loss of the Papal States.
After decades of revolts that were resisted by Popes, the first Italian Parliament proclaimed an Italian kingdom in 1861 and declared Rome to be its capital. Pope Pius IX told Catholics not to support this effort, under threat of excommunication. Rome was defended by the papal army for years, but was captured in 1870.
Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican -- a situation that was repaired only in 1929, when the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made a treaty that regulated the Church's position and its much-reduced territories in Italy.
[A rather cavalier way of describing the Lateran Pacts and their enduring significance for the Church, if only for conferring sovereignty on the Vatican. The Fascist Mussolini is hardly ever given credit for this! And it would be foolish to think that any of the modern Popes, including Blessed Pius IX, has ever mourned the loss of the papal States, and thereby, of temporal power!]
Italians often point to those events to explain persistent anti-clericalism and antipathy toward the Church as a political actor.
The upcoming 150th anniversary celebrations will give Vatican and Italian Church leaders a chance to revisit that chapter of history, and perhaps draw some lessons in Church-State relations.
[Which have never been better. The italian electorate has rejected liberal politicians in the most recent national and regional elections, and there is unusual harmony between Italian President Napolitano and Pope Benedict.]
If the past is any guide, "Rubygate" and "bunga bunga" will not be part of that reflection.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/01/2011 20:01]