According to the latest available figures, no fewer than two million Iraqis, many of them Christians, have been chased out of their homes by the militiamen of the Islamic State, and now their tragic plight may fall into oblivion amid the indifference of international public opinion, especially in the West. But there are men who...
The international media have for some time depicted Finland as the black sheep of the European Union because of her reluctance to pay for other member countries’ debt and thus help to save the eurozone from its present crisis. This impression was reinforced by recent statements made by senior government officials in Finland, including foreign...
A unique exhibition was held from March 1 to April 15 in the Vatican’s Braccio di Carlo Magno (Charlemagne wing) next to St. Peter’s Basilica. Entitled Verbum Domini, it was dedicated to telling the story of the Bible amid a mounting wave of anti-Christian secularization. “This is the most valuable exhibition the Vatican has ever...
In his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, on “The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church,” Pope Benedict XVI challenged Islamic countries to offer the same religious freedom that Muslims usually enjoy in predominantly Christian countries. Alas, the news is far from encouraging in countries such as Iraq and Egypt, where...
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has come under ferocious attack for his alleged relationships with several women, including a teenage girl. These stories are surfacing exactly when one aspect of his policy—the fight against illegal immigration, which was part of the government program endorsed by the majority of voters in the last general election—is starting...
In a private conversation before the release of the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum,” a leading personality of U.K. Catholicism predicted that the reinstatement of the Traditional Latin Mass would grant again such an abundant flow of graces that it would even effect the restoration of society on sound Christian principles. While that outcome remains to...
Thanks, in part, to the presence of the Roman Catholic Church, Italy has remained one of the least secularized countries in the European Union. At present, however, the Italian government, led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi, seems hellbent on irking the Catholic Church with its legislative initiatives, including its attempt to legalize homosexual unions and...
Mr. Jan Eliasson, former Swedish minister of foreign affairs, is a good representative of the tradition of chivalry that Saint Bridget attributed to the Swedish people in the 14th century. From 1994 to 2000, Eliasson served as Sweden’s secretary for foreign affairs, a key position in formulating and implementing foreign policy. Earlier, he was Sweden’s...
If you thought that the end of the Cold War meant the end of the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (WMDs), well, actually, it’s not that easy. This was among the points underscored by Dr. Hans Blix, former chief U.N. weapons inspector and present chair of the independent Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission...
At the time of his election to the papacy, many thought that Pope Benedict XVI’s approach toward Islam would be, by and large, no different from that of his predecessor, the late John Paul II. But Benedict’s now-famous speech at the University of Regensburg and the ensuing reactions in the Islamic world have shown that...
The terrorist bombings on July 7, 2005, in London were widely described as proof that the British multicultural model is flawed; few, however, noted that this crisis has an illustrious precedent, the assassination of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands. On November 2, 2004, a young Muslim, born in Amsterdam to Moroccan parents, shot Mr....
In late 2000, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia. Under the law, passed by the lower house of the Dutch Parliament 104-40, a child as young as 12 can request to be put to death, provided he has at least one parent’s consent. In 1999 alone, according to the Associated Press (July...
The memory of the victims of communism has been honored with various initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic. To that end, a spate of symposia and panel discussions were held in November and December 2003 in Italy, mostly in Rome and Milan. The symposium “Memento Gulag—Communism in the history of the XIX century,” jointly...
What could a world-famous multibillionaire Hollywood star like Mel Gibson have in common with an unknown, cash-strapped, freelance journalist based in Rome? Virtually nothing, it would seem. Yet there is a common denominator: We are both Catholics and cherish the traditional Latin Mass, the primary liturgy of the Church before its post-Vatican II transformation into...
The Catholic Church as a whole does not support illegal immigration, at least in principle. However, an increasing number of clergy and prelates, especially in Italy, do grant de facto support to illegal immigration. For example, the bishop of Caserta, Msgr. Raffaele Nogaro, was one of the first high-ranking prelates to support a protest by...
Following the Danish rejection of the euro in September 2000 and the Irish rejection of Nice in June 2001, the Swedes have rejected the euro by an overwhelming majority, despite the “yes” side having outspent the opposition by more than five to one. For the first time in decades (possibly in centuries), the Swedes did...
The present rift between the United States and Europe on the war in Iraq has overshadowed widening divergences in other realms. One of these is the attitude toward crucial life issues; whereas the Bush administration is often reprimanded by antilife groups for such initiatives as the ban on partial-birth abortion, the European Union is busy...
The mid-December 2001 E.U. summit in Laeken, Belgium, will probably be remembered most for its “prosciutto war,” which began when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi refused to approve the new food agency to be located in Helsinki, Finland, since he was convinced that the Italian city of Parma was best suited to house the E.U....
On June 23, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that Italian police had smashed a Milan-based Islamic terrorist cell that was planning an attack on the Basilica of San Petronio. This church, the most important in Bologna, is dedicated to its patron saint, and it contains a fresco showing Muhammad being tortured by demons...
Don Fortunato di Noto is a well-known Italian Catholic priest who has served as a leader in the fight against pedophilia for years, so much so that even Newsweek has acknowledged his work in a lengthy article. As founder and president of the helpline Telefono Arcobaleno, he has forcefully decried the abuse of children as...
When the Taliban in Afghanistan were busy destroying ancient gigantic stone statues of Buddha, some commentators asked: What’s next? Now, a fundamentalist Muslim group known as Unione dei Musulmani d’Italia (Italy’s Union of Muslims) has demanded that a priceless 15th-century fresco, which they call “obscene and blasphemous,” be removed from San Petronio, the 14th-century cathedral...
From time to time, the Catholic Church has to address the thorny problems caused by those liberal faithful who challenge her principles and tenets. Much more rarely do we hear about initiatives coming from the other side of the spectrum, since these initiatives generally do not pose any threat to Church doctrine, but are limited...
The heated discussion of human cloning and related genetic issues is overshadowing another, equally crucial, debate, on organ donation and transplantation. The two debates have a common feature: They are increasingly dividing those who are called to deal with these problems, including medical doctors, academics, law experts, scientists, clergy, and theologians. Whereas the general inclination—with the...
E.U. Membership was rejected by 77 percent of the Swiss on March 4. Inevitably, parallels are being drawn with what happened in Denmark last September, when the Danes rejected further E.U. integration by saying “no” to the euro. The Swiss, however, did not even want to begin investigating incorporation into the European Union. As in...
The Danish vote against the euro last fall was a serious setback for the plans of Brussels eurocrats. The Danish “no” reveals the growing rift between the eurofanaticism of the globalist establishment and the reality of public opinion. On September 28, 2000, 53.5 percent of Denmark’s electorate rejected the euro. The result is even more...
Few people have been so hated that their enemies have disrupted their funeral processions in an attempt to throw their coffins into a river, but that is precisely what happened to Pope Pius IX on the night of July 12, 1881. Amid the heated debate surrounding Pio Nono’s beatification this past September 3, a few...
Vice President Al Gore did not bother to answer the letter in which a dozen or so prominent Italian pro-family leaders, intellectuals, and politicians called for him to withdraw his endorsement of the recent World Gay Pride parade in Rome (see “Letter From Rome,” August), but he did respond to a similar message from the...
Who says that conservative historians have to be old, hoary-headed men unable to produce anything innovative? A young Italian scholar named Massimo Viglione is proving the contrary with his two latest books, Rivolte dimenticate (Forgotten Revolts) and Le Insorgenze—Rivoluzione e controrivoluzione in Italia, 1792-1815 (Uprisings-Revolution and Counterrevolution in Italy). Viglione is a Catholic researcher in...
The European Union has reiterated its appeal to all member states to press ahead with the legalization of homosexual unions, but resistance to the homosexual agenda is growing—especially in Italy. The recently deposed government of Massinio D’Alema had proposed to prohibit discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” Persons or groups violating this law would have faced...
“Prodi, the Italian Kerensky?” was the intriguing headline of a full-page ad by a Christian-inspired group, Centro Culturale Lepanto (CCL), in two major Italian dailies, Il Giornale and Il Tempo, on May 14, 1996. In that manifesto, CCL president Roberto de Mattei, professor of modern history at the University of Cassino and one of the...
“You are walking on water now, but you will drown in Europe.” So said British Member of Parliament and Euroskeptic leader Bill Cash to the newly installed Prime Minister Tony Blair during a parliamentary debate in May 1997. “Drowning” is a term that applies well to the heavy setback suffered by leftist parties all over...