352. Italy: Who will be the next Prime Minister?
 | ||||
| ||||
As we know,
the Italian Church (CEI) has given full backing to Mario Monti’s list with the
centralist political movement led by Pier Ferdinando Casini.
Horror of
horrors! Unfair! The Church should mind her own business! The Church should not
meddle in politics! Neither should the Queen of England, says I- but have you
ever known of an English monarch support a left wing party, or deny a claim to
prefer the right wing?
However,
the Queen of England is not the Vatican, but neither is the Italian Episcopal
Conference CEI the Italian Church, the
Vatican; though the two institutions would hardly ever be in contrast with each
other- as the Italian Radio 3 commentator said, I do believe Monti has a direct
line (phone) to the Pope.
Abuse of
power, conflict of interest, call it
what you will, nevertheless the CEI, headed by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (with
whom I have been at logger heads with in the past), unashamedly declare their
full support of Monti’s political list for the elections in February.
I know it
goes against all, what nowadays is called “political correctness” and so on,
but what can I say? Those who invented those terms had better reinvent another
set for Italian politics because as a number of people sees it, in Italy at any
rate is, doesn't the Church have a right to say what they think? Express an
opinion? And don’t the Catholic people in Italy expect the Church to say what
it thinks, give some kind of guiding line, after all, it is almost impossible
not to get lost in all this fragmentation of political parties that is going
on and Catholics expect the Church to enlighten their way, one way or another.
It is fair
to say that in all democratic countries, everyone and every institution has a
right to an opinion and an equal right to express it- even judges, who should
be neutral by the very nature of their function nevertheless are, here in Italy
mostly left wing: that’s why it takes almost as long as in India to clear up a
case. Two of these judges are standing for the next elections, in left-wing
coalitions, of course.
So if in
Italy we have the legal system to the left, it levels the balance if we have
the Church to the right. Neither do I blame them, after all the Church is bound
to defend the family but with a couple of transvestites, gays and a lesbian or
two in the ranks of the left-wing, the Church has no choice but to keep clear
of the left and fight for the right to keep the words mum and dad in the vernacular
not abolish them like in France where they are substituted by parent no. 1 and
parent no.2.
However, unlike
what most people believe, the Church is not totally on the right in Italy; it
used to be during the post war years, but now, many priests are left wing and
make no bones about it.
And for
that matter Mario Monti is not right wing either- he just goes with the banks-
and as we all know, there are blue banks but there are also just as many red
banks too, and a variation of colours in between.
If nothing
is certain as to which group will win the national elections in February one thing can be
taken for granted, that none of the three major political movements will gain a
landslide majority. This means that two of the three must form a coalition, and
we all know that a coalition between Bersani’s left wing and Berlusconi’s right
wing is impossible, so the centrist movement will form a coalition either with
the left or the right. Therefore, either way Mario Monti will be the next Prime
Minister even if in Italy he is almost as much disliked as Berlusconi is.
