The Religious Consultation
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United Press International , June 15, 2005 Church blocks
Italian referendum DATELINE: WASHINGTON The 26 percent voter turnout in last week-end's referendum to ease Italy's strict fertility laws even surprised the Italian bishops who - backed by the pope himself -- had campaigned hard for the national boycott. With less than 50 percent plus one going to the polls, the referendum was declared void and annulled. "What? It's as low as that?" one bishop was quoted as saying in the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, sounding more dismayed than pleased that the Italian church's strategy had worked all too well. Only one out of every four Italians went to the polls, but commentators warned the church against claiming victory too quickly. They said other key factors also had to be taken into account. In fact Cardinal Camillo Ruini, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, said it would be a mistake to call the outcome a victory. He would have preferred a resounding "no" majority rejecting the proposed changes altogether. But one other factor was public indifference, particularly in southern and central Italy, where the birthrate remains high. In reality, the Vatican and the Italian church had little to be pleased about, one analyst wrote in the paper La Stampa. "The church faces the problem that half (of Italian) civil society remains outside the walls of its teaching: young people who live together, re-married divorced people -- millions of couples, as recent population surveys have revealed, swallowers of birth control pills and users of contraceptives, ordinary men and women," he wrote. The 2004 law bans the use of donor sperm and eggs, embryo freezing and research, and surrogate mothers. No more than three eggs may be fertilized at one go and they must all be transferred to the uterus simultaneously. Because the law also gives embryos the same rights as babies, many suspected that the church's opposition to the referendum was a back-door attack on the law allowing abortion - an allegation denied by Cardinal Ruini. Originally a project of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-of-center coalition, the measure was eventually pushed through by a cross-party alliance of Catholic parliamentarians. Women from all sides of the chamber opposed it, and the left-wing Radical party forced a referendum by collecting a million signatures. The ballot asked four questions requiring straight yes/no answers. The questions centered on whether or not key elements of the law should be revoked. When opinion polls showed that a win for the "yes" vote seemed likely bishops throughout the land launched a vigorous campaign urging Italians to boycott the referendum. Pope Benedict XVI, who in addition to being pontiff is also bishop of Rome, publicly backed the boycott campaign. One reason behind the bishops' strategy was that the Vatican does not have a record of success in blocking measures it opposes in Italy. In 1974, a divorce law was passed despite strong church opposition; and in the 1980s the church failed to block a measure legalizing abortion. Berlusconi Tuesday claimed that the cancellation of the referendum was a victory for the center-right coalition. The prime minister himself had abstained, saying that he did not want to be seen to be favoring one view more than the other. But the deputy prime minister and leader of the second largest coalition party, Gianfranco Fini, voted in favor of changing the law, and now faces calls to resign from within his own party. Fini, who is also Italy's foreign minister, has said he does not intend to step down. But observers say church-generated opposition to the referendum reunited a broad spectrum of Catholic politicians from right and left in an alliance that recalled the old, multi-faction Christian Democrats. This was the party of Aldo Moro and Giulio Andreotti that dominated Italian politics from 1945 until its collapse in the early 1990s, and that had close ties with the Vatican. The referendum also revived an old criticism from the left that the government takes its orders from the Vatican and the Italian Episcopal hierarchy. "Those who voted "no" accept that the (Italian) Conference of Bishops dictates the (government) line on fundamental questions," wrote leading commentator Barbara Spinelli in another La Stampa article Tuesday. "Those who abstained don't know that laicism is a precious gift, and that the separation of church and state is embedded with Europe's roots." << United Press International – 6/15/05 >>
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