From Madrid to Rome: The Secularist Offensive and the Church's Fears
In Spain, the reforms of Zapatero; in Italy, the referendum for the free selection of embryos. The bishops are uncertain about how to respond. But Cardinal Ruini and some non-Catholic intellectuals are in agreement: a vision of humanity is at stake
by Sandro Magister
ROMA – The news arriving from Spain worries the Vatican more and more each day. Easy, quick divorce, gay marriage and adoption, embryo selection, legalized euthanasia, the downgrading of Catholic religious instruction, reductions in Church funding. Few of these prospects are already a matter of law, but they are all in development, announced at a relentless pace. When, last June 21, John Paul II received in audience the socialist Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero – the winner of the March 15 elections that took place a few days after the massacre in Madrid – he did not anticipate that Zapatero's secularist "road map" would be put into action so soon. But "secularist" is too mild a description – the plan is "nihilist." This is the stamp that the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, "Avvenire," applied to the "subversion" underway in Spain: "an elaboration of nothingness," the "suicide of the cultural and Christian identity of an entire country."
But in the Vatican, there is further cause for alarm. It is feared that what is happening in Spain will be reproduced in Rome and Italy. And the Church is uncertain how to face this.
THE TARGETED LAW
In Italy, the principal target of the secularist offensive is Law 40, on artificial procreation, approved on February 19, 2004, by a large parliamentary majority, including exponents of the left-wing opposition, both Catholics and others, among whom was a 2001 candidate for prime minister, Francesco Rutelli.
Law 40 does not coincide with the prescriptions of the Church, which is against any form of unnatural procreation. But it does establish some important limits: one may not produce a child "in vitro" with sperm obtained from outside the couple; one may not produce more embryos than will be implanted, and three at the most; one may not conduct diagnoses on an embryo prior to implantation; one may not produce children at an advanced age or after the death of the donor; one may not clone human beings, and so on.
The law is binding in terms of the "rights of all the subjects involved, including those of the conceived being" (art. 1). And it is above all this benchmark that the law's opponents want to strike down. They want full freedom to produce excess embryos to be selected, used for the greatest range of purposes (even ones that are noble in themselves, like curing terrible illnesses), and eliminated.
OPERATION REFERENDUM
The instrument that has been adopted to overturn Law 40 is that of the popular referendum. The small radical party – the avant-garde of secularism in Italy – presented last spring a request for a referendum overturning the entire law. Another committee presented four referendum requests to obtain partial revocation. 500,000 signatures, due September 30, were necessary to validate each request.
To obtain the signatures, the radical party and the committee asked for the help of the mass parties and organizations, and in particular the Leftist Democrats (DS), the leading opposition party.
Initially, the mobilization of the DS was modest. At the beginning of the summer, the news went around that a meeting had been held by the secretary of the DS, Piero Fassino, and the secretary general of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI), Bishop Giuseppe Betori. The CEI's hope was that, without the massive support of the DS, the referendum's promoters would not succeed in obtaining enough signatures.
But this hope evaporated in September. "Avvenire," the bishops' newspaper, commented with disappointment several times on the entry into full action for the collection of signatures not only the DS, but even the leading labor union, the CGIL. At the end of September, the radicals and the committee announced that they had submitted a number of signatures well in excess of the 500,000 necessary for each referendum request.
In September, the media campaign of the opponents of Law 40 was also very vigorous.
And the bishops? And the organized Catholic movements? They were nearly silent. The Vatican authorities were also taciturn.
RUINI SPEAKS
Among the official and representative voices of the Italian Church, the only one raised has been that of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope's vicar for the diocese of Rome and president of the CEI.
On September 20, in a demanding speech to the permanent council of the bishops' conference, Ruini recalled with preoccupation the decisions by Spain about the family, by Great Britain about human cloning, and by Holland about euthanasia for children.
And in regard to the offensive in Italy against Law 40, he said:
"In many media outlets, polemics against the law on medically assisted procreation continue at a relentless pace, even with the intent of promoting the collection of signatures for the referendum which would abrogate the law or modify it on substantial points. What is particularly striking is the incapacity or lack of will to take into consideration the seriousness of what is at stake, which in the final analysis revolves around the question of the nature and dignity of the human being. The customary emphasis given to cases that are certainly painful, conducted in a unilateral way and not rarely by forcing the data, ignores among other things the simple but rather weighty observation that, by applying the criteria presented as the only ones that respect the human desire for happiness, many men and women who today carry out their lives joyfully and with success, like some who have personally taken the initiative to testify, would never have been born. These are the reasons why we may not be unconcerned about such problems."
But even in the weeks following this appeal from Cardinal Ruini, the Italian Church has continued to treat the question timidly, and in hushed tones.
Two historic precedents weigh upon the memories of the Italian bishops: the 1974 referendum for the abrogation of the law on divorce, and the 1981 referendum for the abrogation of the law on abortion, one of the most permissive in the world.
Both of these referendums were promoted by Catholics; the first even with the support of the reigning pope, Paul VI. And both ended in resounding defeat.
Today, the sides of the battle have been switched. The referendum is promoted by the opponents of a law that the Church would like to remain in effect. But in this case as well the Church is afraid that it will lose. Its predictions on the outcome of the eventual referendum agree in foreseeing the victory of those who wish to strike down Law 40. The Church's fear is that "smiling mothers with beautiful children chosen 'in vitro' from among the best" would decree the inexorable success of an "unsuspecting eugenics," with "A great weight of emotion smothering logical reasoning" (the title of a September 19 editorial in "Avvenire").
THE TWO TEMPTATIONS
In all probability, the referendum will take place in the spring of 2005. Unless, that is, the parliament modifies the law in question on substantive points.
Romano Prodi, a Catholic, the outgoing president of the European Commission, and the center-left's probable candidate for prime minister in 2006, has declared himself as being against the referendum, which he says "would tear the country apart." He favors an undefined modification of the "bad" Law 40.
Another cherished hypothesis in ecclesiastical circles is that the referendum would be held, but that less than fifty percent of qualified voters would participate: in this case, the result would not be valid.
Both the modification of the law and the wager on abstention are very uncertain and risky courses of action. But as temptations they work. And they contribute toward perpetuating the Italian Church's stalling tactics.
"Many bishops, in the face of the referendum on artificial fertilization, prefer silence, 'dribbling', and avoiding the obstacle, and run away from their own responsibilities," charges Francesco Agnoli, a scholar of the philosophy of science, and a Catholic who is very active in this debate.
It is a matter of fact that in Italy, apart from a few exceptions, those who debate most strenuously – and with most attention to the Church's vision – the major questions brought into play by the referendum against Law 40 are not Catholics, but secularists.
LOGICAL REASONING
One of these non-Catholics is historian is Ernesto Galli della Loggia, who wrote in a front page editorial in "Corriere della Sera" on September 17:
"The genetic selection of embryos inevitably re-echoes, at least in principle, the eugenic practices of National Socialism, and some less cruel but longer-lived European and American legislation."
And again:
"The advent of the mass practice of genetic selection of embryos represents a gaping fracture with our entire history. Whole realms of thought and sentiment, entire moral and artistic worlds are destined to become insignificant and, arguably, to disappear. The first of these, naturally, is the Christian spiritual world, with its idea of the unrepeatable preciousness of each human being and of the mysterious mimetic link that binds him to God the creator, the source of that heritage of mercy and love for all beings that is at the basis of the universalistic idealism upon which the West has nourished itself for twenty centuries."
Another non-Catholic, even a declared agnostic, is Angelo Vescovi of the Saint Raphael Hospital of Milan, one of the greatest specialists on stem cells in the world, who said in an interview with the weekly "L'espresso" on August 26:
"Cloning human beings and then destroying them is madness. Life begins at the moment of the formation of the zygote, or even with fertilization. From that moment on, there is a human being. And for me, a scientist after the manner of the Enlightenment, reason says two things: that embryos are human beings, and that creating them to destroy them is a defeat."
Also non-Catholic are Gian Enrico Rusconi, Edmondo Berselli, and Giulio Sapelli, intellectuals whose work is widely followed by secularist and progressivist Italians, and who in different ways have said and written lofty and deep – even theological – things, and have denounced "the cynical frivolity with which one dances upon these extremely weighty themes."
Another non-Catholic: Giuliano Ferrara, who has made of the "neoconservative" newspaper that he runs, "Il Foglio," the forum of an intense debate, and has exhorted the bishops not to be afraid of the referendum and its results, but on the contrary, to accept the challenge, to transform it into a moment of cultural action and lofty preaching, to "equip themselves for a sincere, vigorous, correct, unyielding battle, not so much in defense of a law as in defense of an idea of humanity that is in danger."
The Italian bishops' conference has been engaged for a decade in an effort to align the society of today with the faith, an effort it has called "a cultural project of Christian inspiration."
The referendum on Law 40 will be one of its decisive proving grounds.
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The complete text of law no. 40, declared February 19, 2004:
> Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita
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The two Catholic organizations that were decisive in the formulation and approval of Law 40, and are now decisive in defending it:
> Forum delle associazioni familiari
> Movimento per la vita
And on this website, an article about the action of the MPV, the main pro-life organization in Italy, to combat abortion:
> La carica dei 55mila. Il Movimento per la vita rompe il tabù (7.11.2002)
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The complete text of Cardinal Camillo Ruini's speech on September 20, 2004:
> Prolusione al consiglio episcopale permanente, sessione 20-23 settembre 2004
And an interview with him on the challenge posed by "naturalistic man":
> Exclusive Interview with Cardinal Camillo Ruini: “My Battle for Man” (16.12.2002)
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English translation by Matthew Sherry:
> traduttore@hotmail.com
Go to the home page of
> www.chiesa.espressonline.it/english, to access the latest articles and links to other resources.
Sandro Magister’s e-mail address is
s.magister@espressoedit.it
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4.10.2004
