Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right government reacted angrily on Thursday to speculation in a Roman Catholic weekly that Italy may be witnessing the re-birth of fascism.
The Vatican distanced itself from the editorial in Famiglia Cristiana.
Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said it “does not express the views of the Holy See” or of Italian bishops.
The government had already accused the magazine of being “Catho-communist” after its last editorial said tough new anti-crime measures would hurt the destitute.
Rather than backing off, the magazine hit back with a piece citing a report on racism in Italy in French magazine Esprit.
It concluded: “Let’s hope the suspicion is unfounded that fascism is resurfacing in our country under another guise.”
The magazine, which ex-president Francesco Cossiga termed “the publicity arm of the Catholic left”, is sold at churches and news stands and has a circulation of 600,000 copies a week.
The center right is often labeled “fascist” by opposition politicians and intellectuals — partly because of the unapologetic former fascists in its ranks and partly because of its stand on illegal immigrants and crime.
It has been accused of racism by rights groups and EU politicians and officials for plans to fingerprint Roma children living in illegal camps, and one of the coalition’s main partners, the Northern League, uses xenophobic rhetoric.
Roberto Cota, a lawmaker with the Northern League contended that despite the magazine’s comment, “the Catholic world agrees with the security measures adopted by the government and approved by parliament.”
The head of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in the upper house of parliament, Maurizio Gasparri, said he would sue the editor of the magazine.
The government’s undersecretary for family affairs, Carlo Giovanardi, said “the only fascism present in Italy today are the brutal tones which Famiglia Cristiana uses.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS