Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government was engaged on Monday in a vigorous damage-limitation exercise after Pope Benedict appeared to lend his moral authority to speculation that Italy was in danger of returning to fascism under the tycoon’s hardline right-wing leadership.
In his usual Sunday address, the Catholic pontiff expressed concern at “recent examples of racism” and reminded Catholics that it was their duty to steer others away from “racism, intolerance and exclusion [of others].”
On any other day his remarks might have been seen as no more than a restatement of Catholic doctrine. But they came in the midst of a furious dispute over an editorial published by Italy’s best-selling Catholic weekly, Famiglia Cristiana.
In an editorial on Friday condemning recent government moves against immigrants and Roma, the weekly said it was to be hoped that fascism was not “resurfacing in our country under another guise.”
The censure outraged Berlusconi’s supporters, many of whom are pious Catholics.
The leader of his parliamentary group in the upper house, Maurizio Gasparri, announced he would personally sue the priest who is Famiglia Cristiana’s editor, while the junior minister responsible for family affairs, Carlo Giovanardi, accused the magazine of “ideological malice.”
In an effort to calm the row, the Vatican’s spokesman said that Famiglia Cristiana was not authorized to speak for either the pope or the Italian bishops’ conference — which, as the magazine’s editor noted, it had never claimed to do.
The pope’s comments were seen by Berlusconi’s critics as a signal that the Vatican was not distancing itself from Famiglia Cristiana’s interpretation. Benedict cited in his address the story from the gospels of Jesus meeting a pagan woman and how he rose above his initial misgivings to perform a miracle for her daughter.
The pope said: “One of humanity’s great conquests is the overcoming of racism. Unfortunately, however, there are new and worrying examples of this in various countries, often linked to social and economic problems that nonetheless can never justify contempt or racial discrimination.”
Berlusconi’s family minister, Giovanardi, denied the pope’s words were aimed at the government.
“The pope has a global perspective,” he said. “He wasn’t talking about Italy.”
Famiglia Cristiana’s editor, Father Antonio Sciortino, said the pope “was certainly speaking to the whole world,” but added: “And therefore also to Italy where, sorry to say, there are many signs of racism that trouble us and which cannot be hidden.”
Urged on by allies in the anti-immigrant Northern League, Berlusconi has ordered a crackdown on crime and the illegal immigrants his government claims are responsible for a disproportionate share of it.
This month the government ordered troops on to the streets to combat an alleged crime wave it blames largely on illegal immigrants and Roma. Interior ministry figures show that more than a third of the arrests carried out by police last year were of non-Italians.
Illegal immigration has been made an offense, mayors have been given new security powers and deportations have been stepped up.
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