“Vaticanist” it’s a definition unique to Italian journalism. In other countries, the media have experts on religious issues. In Italy, on the other hand, the word indicates the political importance of the Vatican, the Church, the Catholic world, which is why the large and small media have their own privileged observer who controls every movement of the Pope and his community. As a result, in the Italian media compared to abroad even more space is devoted to the gestures, words, documents and even the silence of the Pope.
Thursday, March 24th something extraordinary happened. Biden was in Europe attending the NATO summit, the G7, the European Council. At this very moment Pope Francisat the meeting with the Italian women’s center, she defined a “madness!” increasing military spending up to 2 percent of the budget. Regarding the war in Ukraine, he explained, the answer is “not different weapons, different sanctions, different politicomilitary alliances, but a different approach, a different way of governing the now globalized world… a different way of looking at yourself set up International Relations.”.
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The exclamation mark next to the word “madness” is part of the official Vatican text. The Pope added that he had himself “Ashamed” to find out about the decision and concluded with a specifically political note: The right answer to the current crisis is “not (is) like showing your teeth now”.
A very recent intervention which directly questioned the decisions or nondecisions of the Draghi government and also of the European governments. And a miracle happened. Silence prevails in the Internet editions of the mainstream media. Only La Stampa correctly gave him third place. The next day (today), La Stampa continues to devote a fullpage cover to the story in the print edition. Il Corriere and la Repubblica reserve two small squares for the intervention, “stamps” in journalistic jargon. If he had talked about cats, which are more important to many than people, Francesco would have had more space.
The story is interesting from a point of view politics. While in the AngloAmerican world nourished by Protestant liberty and the vitality of Jewish thought, where it is said: “Two gentlemen make three opinions” the confrontation of differing opinions is the salt of the daily debate, in Italy it began the old with the invasion of Ukraine Reflection of the Inquisition. Whoever exposes wrong thinking is an enemy of the faith.
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So the epithet anathema exploded from “proDotinians, “equidistant, supporters of the “Party of Surrender (a position completely alien to the great mass of Italians who sympathize with the invaded Ukraine). As any inquisition claims, it is forbidden to ask questions. For example: does the Monroe Doctrine exist, how was the Cuban Missile Crisis dealt with in 1962, did NATO’s eastward expansion make sense? Above all, the analysis of the causes of the conflict provokes uncontrolled reactions from the inquisitors.
So now the gag was imposed on the Pope.
That doesn’t bother the Argentine Pope, who has a resilient skin. Francis denounced the brutality of Putin’s aggression in very harsh terms and, of course, believes it justified as his Secretary of State Cardial Parolin said the right to resist the intruder.
Now his words raise political and human questions with the same clarity with which they do John Paul II against the (completely illegal) invasion of Iraq led in the first instance by the United States, Britain, including Poland. These are fundamental and concrete questions. How much sense does a fragmented arms race make for individual European states as it comes about? a major recession? Why don’t we invest in a European defense that would save huge sums of money? What does this ridiculous European army of 5,000 men mean?
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How much will budget distortion at the expense of social investment weigh on ordinary people, starting with health, education, family support? With rising inflation, is it suddenly possible to forget that the number one priority should be the global fight against poverty and inequalities that the Covid plague has exacerbated?
Francesco is a ‘political mind’, his close friends in Buenos Aires have already said. The Vatican is trying to draw attention to the fact that the crisis in Ukraine relates to a crisis in the world balance that can only be resolved through a new architecture of relations between the planet’s economic and political power spheres. We need a Helsinki Pact for the 21st century.
That is the point of admonition, which is not necessary “Show Your Teeth”. This is at the heart of the call to move out of the perspective of politicomilitary blocs and advocate “a different way of governing the now globalized world, a different way of building international relations.” Francis is realism, not a pietistic way of confronting problems.
The Catholic cultural space this political season he is practically one of the very few in Italy where apart from the militarization of thought these crucial issues are being eroded. Future, the CEI newspaper, suggests and answers the key that democracies must be able to find a system of relations with that large part of the world which (writes the sociologist Mauro Magatti) “does not accept the western liberal model. If Putin’s logic of violence is not enough, it is up to the West to establish rules of the game that also include “others. Marco Tarquiniothe director, writes that in a world that fails to vaccinate, heal, and alleviate the poverty of every man and woman on the planet and alleviate their poverty, the “rearmed arrogance of many” inspires outrage.
With the progress of the weeks and the great difficulties encountered by the Russian military machine, it is clear that it is completely out of the question to raise the alarm of a domino effect, “after Ukraine, Moscow wants to swallow the Baltic countries and Poland”. reality discourse.
If, as General Clausewitz said, war is the continuation of politics by other means, then harsh papal intervention now a fundamental question about western politics. Do you want to stop Putin’s aggression, or would Washington prefer Russia to bleed itself dry by letting the conflict drag on for a few more months? And in this case, it is realistic that China would help America a subdue Russia only to see Washington and its allies launch an economic war on Beijing?
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