George Weigel: An American Catholic Patriotic Association?

George Weigel

“Who speaks for the Catholic Church in America?” The answer to this question should be obvious: “The bishops’ conference.” Yet, according to the U.S. Administration that’s not exactly the way things are, because, first and foremost, primacy in the Catholic Church is not conferred by the pope, but by the White House. This is, in short, George Weigel’s J’accuse—in the National Review Online—to the U.S. Administration.
(Via wdtprs)

Another Tibetan Monk Sets Himself on Fire in China

 Tenzin Choeden

Another Tibetan monk, the 19-year-old Lobsang Gyatso, from Kirti Monastery has set himself on fire in Ngaba Town, in south-western China, say Free Tibet and the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). He is the second teenager to set himself on fire in Ngaba in the last three days, following Tenzin Choeden, who died last Saturday. (See also here and here).

In the last year, at least 21 young Tibetans have died the same way.

Here is the link to an online petition calling for a U.N.-led fact-finding mission to observe the situation in Tibet. (Via Tibet News)

The Name of Santorum

Rick Santorum can trace his roots back to Riva del Garda, Italy 

Photo courtesy: BBC

Do you like stories about famous people’s origins? Here is an interesting story about one of the four remaining Republican candidates running for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination, the former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. This is, of course, also a story about the vast opportunities that America presents to every generation of immigrants, since Rick Santorum’s grandfather, Pietro, who has been described by the Republican candidate as being inspirational for his presidential campaign, left the Northern Italy town of Riva del Garda for America in 1920 because he was worried about the rise to power of Benito Mussolini. In short, as the BBC’s Christine Finn reports, there is a family in Riva del Garda which has recently discovered they are related to Rick Santorum.

As a matter of fact Santorum, unlike in the rest of the country (Italy has the largest collection of surnames in the world, with over 350,000!), is an old surname in the Riva del Garda area, about as common as Smith is in America.

By the way, do you know what the real meaning and origin of Santorum surname is? Well, it derives from the Latin word Sanctus (Saint), whose genitive plural is Sanctorum, which stands for Sanctorum Omnium, which in turn stands for dies festus Sanctorum Omnium (the Feast of All Saints). This family name, in other words, is possibly connected to someone acting as a saint, or who has connection with religious things (a sacristan), or to someone who was born on the festival day of All Saints.

Another possible explanation is that Santorum might have been a surname given to foundlings, as Temple, for one example, was commonly given as a surname to foundlings left at the Temple of London. In Italy there is a group of names recognized by educated people as originally given to illegitimates left at the church door. Some of this names are Esposito (ex-posed), Proietti (from the Latin proicio, to throw away), Innocente or Innocenti (as in innocent of their father’s sin), De Benedictis, De Benedetti, De Sanctis, Della Croce, etc.

This kind of surnames was chosen by religious institutions or, after the establishment of Civil Records, by the civil officer.

As another example, the surname Eco, as Italian semiotician, essayist, and novelist Umberto Eco (the author of The Name of the Rose)once recalled, was taken from the first letters of the phrase, “ex coelis oblatus,” a Latin phrase meaning “a gift from the heavens”—hey, by saying this  I'm  not remotely suggesting that Rick Santorum is a gift from the heavens, I'm just bringing up some analogies... But then again, who knows?

• Rick Santorum (the official Rick Santorum page)

Obama to Change Contraceptive Rule

An announcement from the White House:

The White House said Friday it would address the controversial decision that would require religious-affiliated institutions to provide health insurance that includes coverage for birth control.
At 12:15 p.m. ET, President Barack Obama will deliver a statement from the White House press briefing room.
According to a source who has been briefed on the matter, the White House will announce an "accommodation" to the contraception rule. The announcement will try to ease the concerns of those with religious views by not requiring them to pay for contraception.
This effectively means that insurance companies will pay for the contraception coverage directly.
According to The Associated Press, women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama's health care law that he insisted must remain.
But religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.
Following an intense White House debate that led to the original policy, officials said Obama seriously weighed the concerns over religious liberty, leading to the revamped decision.

Obama's Kulturkampf

Kulturkampf  (editorial cartoon),  Kladderadatsch,  May, 1875

Here I am on Obama’s contraception mandate again. But this time I suspect I’m going to surprise you. In fact, this is just an invitation to undertake the reading of this thought-provoking post at Fr. Z’s Blog. Well, actually it’s a Guest entry from Fabrizio, a Roman friend of F. Z, but there is also a comment by the blog’s owner and a reply by Fr. Z’s friend. But then again, it all started from this Hugh Hewitt’s statement:

Massive civil disobedience is the only response for Catholics of conscience. That and an absolute refusal to vote for the anti-Catholic president overseeing this Kulturkampf.

What? Kulturkampf? Yes, you didn’t read it wrong, but don’t worry, even though this is a term that takes us to Otto Von Bismarck and his culture wars against the Catholic Church, you have to bear in mind that Bismarck was also, in some ways, the father of the modern European welfare state and, what is more, of the notion itself of socialized medicine, which is not irrelevant to what we are talking about (and to what is at stake here). By the way, Fabrizio complains about the fact that the founder of modern Germany is considered a “conservative” in history books: the truth is that “[he] only rejected revolutionary socialism to institute it through a top-down process instead of a revolutionary upheaval of society.”

Fabrizio is a fierce opponent to everything that might resemble the idea of a state-run medical care system, and this because “it is inherent to the very idea of socialized medicine that the state gets to tell you what to do and what to pay for and how much.” Which inevitably leads to a conflict between state and religion, as the newly issued HHS contraception mandate clearly shows. The outcome of all of this will be that

Sooner or later, because of the inevitable rationing that comes with centralized healthcare, they won’t even need to mandate that you perform abortions or give away condoms. You’ll simply lose all hospitals and schools because there is no way a large independent health provider can survive in such a system. Why do you think so many Italian hospitals, founded centuries ago, with names of saints and popes, are now in the hands of the Sistema Sanitario Nazionale, directly or indirectly? Why do you think there is hardly a Catholic school that is affordable anymore and which teaches anything different from what kids would hear at the Liceo Statale A. Gramsci or what have you?

“Time to get the tough going,” says Fabrizio, because the going is getting tough.

To that Fr. Z’s reply is very interesting, because it shows another side of the coin, and perhaps also an unexpected one:

It is probable that our institutions have already given up their identity and become “businesses”. They have given themselves over to business models so completely that they are hardly Catholic anymore in any real sense.
The mission for which Catholic hospitals and colleges were founded seems to be over. Our universities and hospitals are now for the most part businesses. They are being run on a business model.
Is it time for us to get out?

The rest of the argument is worth reading and meditating. To conclude, read Fabrizio’s counter-reply in the comment section.

What to say? It’s basically a brainstorming session, so to speak. If this whole thread is not thought-provoking, I don’t know what is.


P.S. I forgot. Where do I stand on this debate? Well, I’m still thinking about it… However, in my view, the two approaches do not necessarily exclude each other. On the contrary, they might have been conceived by the same person, in a sort of dialogue with himself. Or at least this is what I like to think.

Why the Obama Administration’s Contraceptive Rule Is Twice Wrong

White House spokesman Jay Carney defends
the new HHS rule:"The President concurs in the
decision" (January 31, 2012)

In his column today, David Brooks—a political and cultural commentator for the New York Times who considers himself a moderate, not a conservative, despite what the NYT thinks of him—criticizes the Obama Administration’s Contraceptive Rule (see my previous post). Yet, unlike Conservatives, what he is concerned with are not the limits on government power established by the U.S. Constitution, but rather with more practical aspects.

“Every once in a while,” he writes, “the Obama administration will promulgate a policy that is truly demoralizing.” A willingness to end the District of Columbia school voucher program was such one case. And this is the case of the above mentioned rule, too. “These decisions,” he says, “are demoralizing because they make it harder to conduct a serious antipoverty policy.” Let’s follow his reasoning. There are a million factors that contribute to poverty (economic, historical, familial, social, etc), and they interact in a zillion ways. This “complex system of negative feedback loops” requires “an equally complex and diverse set of positive feedback loops.” In short , we need “to change the whole ecosystem:”

You have to flood the zone with as many good programs as you can find and fund and hope that somehow they will interact and reinforce each other community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood.
The key to this flood-the-zone approach is that you have to allow for maximum possible diversity. Let’s say there is a 14-year-old girl who, for perfectly understandable reasons, wants to experience the love and sense of purpose that go with motherhood, rather than stay in school in the hopes of someday earning a middle-class wage.
You have no idea what factors have caused her to make this decision, and you have no way of knowing what will dissuade her. But you want her, from morning until night, to be enveloped by a thick ecosystem of positive influences. You want lefty social justice groups, righty evangelical groups, Muslim groups, sports clubs, government social workers, Boys and Girls Clubs and a hundred other diverse institutions. If you surround her with a different culture and a web of relationships, maybe she will absorb new habits of thought, find a sense of belonging and change her path.
To build this thick ecosystem, you have to include religious institutions and you have to give them broad leeway. Religious faith is quirky, and doesn’t always conform to contemporary norms. But faith motivates people to serve. Faith turns lives around. You want to do everything possible to give these faithful servants room and support so they can improve the spiritual, economic and social ecology in poor neighborhoods.
The administration’s policies on school vouchers and religious service providers are demoralizing because they weaken this ecology by reducing its diversity. By ending vouchers, the administration reduced the social intercourse between neighborhoods. By coercing the religious charities, it is teaching the faithful to distrust government, to segregate themselves from bureaucratic overreach, to pull inward.
[…]
I wish President Obama would escape from the technocratic rationalism that sometimes infects his administration.

Well, it is also my firm belief that, as Wesley J. Smith argues, “even if this rule helped the hypothetical 14-year-old, it would be wrong,” but the reasoning seems pretty sound to me. Let’s put this way: The decision to force Catholic social service providers to support contraception and other practices that violate their creed is (at least) twice wrong.

Obama Administration's Contraceptive Rule: Much More Than a Gaffe

President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

A number of conservative commentators and pundits said that with the healthcare vote in March 2010, President Obama had crossed the Rubicon—a “Socialist Rubicon,” so to speak. He now believes—and acts—as if he is above the law; the Constitution no longer applies to him, they said. Well, now we can officially say that the Obama administration, with the new federal rule requiring religiously affiliated universities, hospitals and charities to provide free coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptives (including the morning after pill and sterilization), has crossed another Rubicon—an anti-religious one—in dealing with the Catholic Church (and other faith communities).

The rule, which was announced on January 20 by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, was defended by the White House last Tuesday. And obviously, Catholics, who regard contraception as a sin, disagree, and see the new rule as a blatant violation of religious freedom—to the point that Roman Catholic officials are mulling a possible legal or legislative challenge. After all, let’s not forget that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion, and that this freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to do something that directly violate their religious convictions...

Was it a gaffe? Yes, in a way. As Peggy Noonan put it, his decision on Catholic charities makes Romney’s big gaffe—his interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, in which he said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor”—look trivial:

Every criticism has been true. It was politically inept, playing into stereotypes about Republicans and about his own candidacy. It was Martian-like in its seeming remove from the concerns of everyday citizens. We're in a recession here! It was at odds both with longtime American tradition and with rising conservative concern over the growth and changing nature of what used to be called the underclass.
So: inept.
[...]
But the big political news of the week isn't Mr. Romney's gaffe, or even his victory in Florida. The big story took place in Washington. That's where a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.
In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can't be Catholic anymore.
I invite you to imagine the moment we are living in without the church's charities, hospitals and schools. And if you know anything about those organizations, you know it is a fantasy that they can afford millions in fines.
There was no reason to make this ruling—none. Except ideology.

Except ideology, that’s it. That’s the way things are. “That’s why we call him the socialist president,” said a Catholic blogger. From this point of view, the “incident” was not tactical but strategic, and it was much more than a gaffe.

On the eve of Tuesday’s Florida Republican primary, GOP Senator Marco Rubio, who is Catholic, introduced legislation that would prevent the government from requiring contraceptive coverage if it violated the religious beliefs of the sponsoring individuals or entities. But Catholics are not alone in this. Let’s take just a couple of examples: a) the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America “joined their voices with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and all those who adamantly protest the recent decision by the United States Department of Health and Human Services;” b) more than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations including Protestant-affiliated colleges, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, Assemblies of God, Northwest Nazarene University, and Eastern Mennonite University, sent a letter (.pdf) to the White House demanding religious protection against the newly issued HHS contraceptive mandate.

And this is probably just the beginning.

On Silence and Prayer

St. Benedict delivering his Rule to St. Maurus and other monks
 Monastery of St. Gilles, Nimes

My previous post lead me to this one. This is just so that you can have a better sense of what The Rule of St. Benedict is all about. Enjoy and meditate:


“ Let us act in accordance with that saying of the Prophet; “I have said: I will keep my ways, that I offend not with my tongue. I have been watchful over my mouth: I held my peace and humbled myself, and was silent from speaking even good things.” If therefore, according to this saying of the Prophet we are at times to abstain, for silence sake, even from good talk, how much more ought we to refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of sin. Therefore, because of the importance of silence, let leave to speak be seldom given, even to perfect disciples, although their words be of good and holy matters, tending unto edification; because it is written: “In much speaking, thou shalt not escape sin.” And in another place: “Death and life are in the hands of the tongue.” For it befitteth a master to speak and teach; and it beseemeth a disciple to hold his peace and listen.
If, therefore, anything must be asked of the Prior, let it be done with all fitting humility and the subjection of reverence. But as for buffoonery, idle words, or such as move to laughter, we utterly condemn and exclude them in all places, nor do we allow a disciple to open his mouth to five them utterance. ”

~ The Rule of St. Benedict, CHAPTER VI (Of Silence).

“ If, when we wish to make some suggestion to the powerful, we presume not to speak to them except with humility and reverence; with how much greater reason ought we to present our supplications in all humility and purity of devotion, to the Lord God of all things? And let us bear in mind, that we shall be heard, not for our many words, but for our purity of heart, and our penitential tears. Our prayer, therefore, ought to be short and pure, unless perchance it be prolonged by the inspiration of Diving Grace. Yet, let all prayer made in common be short, and when the sign has been given by the Prior, let all rise together. ”

~ The Rule of St. Benedict, CHAPTER XX (Of reverence at prayer).

The Benedictine Way

Fra Angelico, St. Benedict - Museo S.Marco, Firenze

Their contribution to the history of Western civilization and spirituality is immense. But the success of such a titanic work wouldn’t be made possible without … a small book of precepts for monastic living, written for the monastery at Monte Cassino, in Italy, by St. Benedict of Norcia, The Rule of St. Benedict: “An epitome of Christianity, a learned and mysterious abridgement of all the doctrines of the Gospel, all the institutions of the Fathers, and all the counsels of perfection” (Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet). The book exhibits the deepest knowledge of human nature and, at the same time, a miraculous sense of balance and wholeness. The first two sentences of the Prologue are simply sublime:

Hearken, my son, to the precepts of thy Master, and incline the ear of thy heart willingly to hear, and effectually to accomplish, the admonition of thy living Father, that by the labour of obedience thou mayest return to Him, from Whom thou didst depart by the sloth of disobedience. To thee therefore is my speech now directed, who, renouncing thy own will, dost take upon thee the strong and bright armour of obedience, to fight under the Lord Christ our true King.

A masterpiece of spiritual wisdom, as well as of the art of government, the reading of which never fails to move me.

Basing his life on the principles and precepts stated in the Rule, the Benedictine monk takes three vows: Stability, Obedience and Conversion of Life. The three vows are braided together “like three strands of a strong rope,” writes Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a Benedictine monk himself, who has had the excellent idea of writing some posts on “The Benedictine Way.” So far there have been four of them (very clear and concise!), the first two are about Stability, the other two are about Obedience.

Arab Spring or Islamist Winter?

Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, in Habib Bourguib Av. in Tunis, in Sana'a, Yemen, and in Douma, Syria. - Picture: Wikimedia Commons

Michael J. Totten in the January/February issue of World Affairs:

The phrase “Arab Spring” is a misnomer. The political upheavals sweeping Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria are concurrent yet different phenomena, and it’s premature to assume that any of them, let alone all of them, will bring their respective countries out of the long Arab winter of authoritarian rule. In the medium term, the number of genuinely liberal democracies to emerge in the Arab world is likely to be one or zero.
I’ve been to all three countries that overthrew tyrants last year—Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—and I rented an apartment in Lebanon while the government of Syria, which may well become fourth on the list, waged a murder and intimidation campaign against Lebanese journalists and elected officials. The only things these countries have in common with each other is that they’re in turmoil and that they are Arab.

Take Tunisia and Egypt:

Large parts of Tunisia appear so “Westernized,” at least on the surface, that visitors might think they’re in Greece or even in France if they didn’t know better. Egypt is an ancient and crushingly poor nation ruled, as it has been more often than not, by a military dictatorship.[…]
Most Tunisian women in the cities eschew the headscarf and dress like Europeans. Alcohol is widely available and consumed more by locals than tourists. The economy is almost as advanced as those of southern Europe, and large parts of the cities actually look like southern Europe. The Mediterranean is a recognizable place despite the civilizational boundary that separates its northern and southern shores. Tunis, on the coast, has more in common with Provence than with its own Saharan interior. And its vineyards produce wine that is almost as fine.
Imperial France left a powerful imprint on Tunisia’s cultural DNA, as did Rome long ago. “The explanation for Tunisia’s success,” Robert Kaplan wrote in the Atlantic in 2001, “begins with the fact that modern Tunisia corresponds roughly to the borders of ancient Carthage and of the Roman province that replaced it in 146 B.C., after a third and final war between the two powers. ‘Africa,’ originally a Roman term, meant Tunisia long before it meant anything else.” This little wedge of a country in central North Africa has been at least partially oriented northward for most of its history ever since.
[…]
Egypt is, in so many ways, the anti-Tunisia. Almost every woman who goes out in public wears a headscarf. I see more men in just one single day with bruised foreheads—acquired by hitting their heads on the floor during prayer—than I have seen in all other Muslim-majority countries combined in almost a decade. The country is, as far as I can tell, the most Islamicized place in the world after Saudi Arabia. It used to be oriented more toward the Mediterranean, as Tunisia still is, but that was more than a half century ago.
Cairo was once a must-see city like Paris and Rome and Vienna, but today it’s a crowded, polluted, and grinding third-world megacity animated by reactionary and authoritarian politics. Its liberal epoch is over.

Libya and Syria, in turn, have their own peculiarities. But what do these four countries have in common? In the Middle East almost all secular governments have failed spectacularly in the modern era. As a result, Radical Islam looks good on paper to millions... The full article is worth a read.

America vs. Europe

Republican candidates for the presidential nomination don’t love Europe. Especially Mitt Romney and his chief rival, Newt Gingrich. The two in fact have spent the past few months arguing that the current US president wants to turn the U.S. into a “European welfare state.” At a weekend appearance in New Hampshire, site of a crucial primary vote, Romney said, “I don’t believe in Europe. I believe in America.” His message, as he never tires of delivering it, is very clear: “I don’t think Europe is working in Europe. I know it won’t work here.”

As for Gingrich, one of his three key tenets is American exceptionalism. In his view, America—rooted in Democratic Capitalism—defines itself by equality of opportunity, while Europe—rooted in Social Democracy—defines itself by equality of results. And the 2012 election likely will determine whether America remains exceptional or, finally, is, culturally, reconquered by Europe.

Rick Santorum, in turn, is more articulate, or better still, less “philosophical” and more concrete: he argues that the cost of Europe’s massive welfare states made it too expensive for young people to have families. That’s why many European countries, he says, with plummeting birth rates, have resorted to “baby bonuses” to try to reverse the tide, but the demographic picture remains bleak, while the costs of entitlement programs have exploded. “Who are benefits promised to, overwhelmingly? Well, they’re promised to older people. And if you have a society like Europe that is upside down where there are a lot more older people than younger people, you have economic calamity,” he says.

But how did Europe-bashing become such an issue in the U.S? asks this BBC article. The answer, according to the author of the piece, is very simple: “Accusing Mr Obama of wanting to follow the same path of ever-growing welfare budgets and high taxes that supposedly led the EU nations to this pass will strike a chord with many voters.” But clearly this only postpones or defers the question rather than addressing it. If Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, etc. are convinced that bashing Europe would strike a chord with so many voters, and if we assume that they are neither naïve nor gullible, we have to ask ourselves why and how this has come to be. Doesn’t all this mean that many Americans still believe in American exceptionalism and that “America” is something worth fighting for and preserving? And if this is so, why is it so? As a fan of the American “exception,” I could provide some simple answers to the above questions, but I think it would be a lot better if we focused on a different aspect of the issue: Is the European model exportable to America? And, conversely, is the American model exportable to Europe? Perhaps, put in these terms, the issue would be a bit less black and white. And for both of these questions the answer would be, “probably NO.” Unfortunately for us, fortunately for them, or the exact contrary, but that’s the way things are. History is not an independent variable. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” Nobody should forget that.

Scotland: Moving towards Independence?

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond  (Photo: Getty Images, The Telegraph)

According to an exclusive poll for the Sunday Express a clear majority of people in Scotland (51 per cent) now back independence. It’s the first such result since the Scottish National Party came to power in 2007.

If such a dramatic result were repeated in the autumn of 2014, the First Minister would have an absolute mandate to negotiate an end to the Union with England.
[...]
Angus Robertson, campaign director for the SNP, said the poll result came as a “huge boost”. He added: “It shows that voters understand the Scottish Government policy is for an independent Scotland with the Queen as head of state.

“Scotland and England would become united kingdoms – equal friends and neighbours – rather than the United Kingdom.

“Support is growing for Scotland gaining the full range of job-creating powers we need to boost jobs and recovery, and becoming an equal and independent country.”

Read the rest. See also here to learn about discussions over the referendum question.

The EU Is Dead, Long Live the Euro?

What a fine mess we are in! It seems that Greeks have reacted furiously to a German proposal—made after mounting speculation that international lenders will have to stump up yet more money for Greece—of appointing a European “budget commissioner” with veto powers over Greece’s spending, which would partially suspend the country’s national sovereignty over its budget.

As far as I can tell, even though being no expert in the field (but then again, isn’t it true that the crisis, and the failure of the so-called experts, made us all a lot more “aware” of financial issues?), it seems to me that there is something seriously wrong with this whole bailouts/no bailouts thing. Perhaps the Germans are a bit out of control, so to speak, but, at the same time, it would be unfair to say that they have no excuse. And yet they are the target of criticism from all sides, almost as if they were the main cause of the crisis, which is definitely untrue, even though they have their part of responsibility in the eurozone debt crisis, as this BBC article shows (a very interesting read indeed).

OK, reading news such as that which provoked the above mentioned anger and indignation of the Greeks, one cannot but wonder, “What is left of the European project?” But, to be honest, how many Europeans still believe in “the European project?” As for myself, I have never liked “this” Europe: a-Christian, if not anti-Christian, in tendency, “libertarian” in ethical issues, bureaucratic in its approach to a number of issues and operational schemes, slightly, if not blatantly, anti-American. Well, I loved the Europe the Founding Fathers—Adenauer, De Gasperi, Schuman, Monnet…—wanted to build, but let’s be honest with ourselves, what is left of that dream? The Euro?

That being said, let me just say that I, and I know I’m going against the mainstream, as a citizen of a country named Italy, am … slightly grateful to those EU countries whose stubbornness contributed to paving the way for a new era of Italian politics. It was exactly what Italy—a country with enormous potentialities—needed. Of course, it would have been better if there would have been no need for that, but in life you have to make the most of what you have got. In today’s EU leaders summit in Brussels, discussions over Greece and the permanent rescue fund will dominate the talks. I hope the results won’t be frustrating with regard to the actual, not the “perceived” needs of EU countries.

And Super-Mario Became "The Iron Monti"

“Most Italians regard their government as something that’s not going to help them, and as something that is to be avoided as much as possible,” said David Gilmour—a British biographer and historian, and the author of The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples—in a “cultural conversation” with him, published in the Wall Street Journal on November 25, 2011.

Of course, this is absolutely true, although perhaps in a slightly different sense than he might have meant it: is it that bad to distrust the government? Europeans, and Italians in particular, unlike Americans, had good reason to distrust the state in the course of their history. And yet, notwithstanding the differences between American and European history, it was one of the greatest U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan, who said “The government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Well, to be honest and straightforward, both senses of Gilmour’s statement are actually applicable to Italy: one—the latter—is good (at least in my view) the other is bad. But what would you say if you were told that things are quickly changing in Italy, and that what was true yesterday is no longer true today? Yes, Italians do trust the new government, despite the magnitude of the sacrifices they are being asked to make, they trust the “technocratic” government leaded by Super-Mario Monti. And so do the vast majority of international observers and media. “Europe rests on Monti’s shoulders,” as the Financial Times title declares—but let’s hope there are also other people on whose shoulders the future of Europe might well rest, even though, as the Economist puts it, the Italian Prime minister—“The Iron Monti”—is set fair to become his country’s Margaret Thatcher.

Be it as it may, Monti is doing well. At the moment he is in full liberalization swing, even though he does not like the term “liberalization” applied to what he is trying to do, “normalization” would be a much better term: what Monti is attempting to do is to lead Italy in the direction which countries like the UK and USA have been following for years.

Of course, there is no guarantee that Monti will succeed (But then again, who knows anything about anything these days? Oops, sorry, I forgot the rating agencies...):

Big spending cuts and tax increases are one thing. The real test will come in liberalising the economy. Here he confronts a honeycomb of closed shops, restrictive practices and rent-seeking cartels. This week Italian cities have been thrown into chaos by taxi drivers and truck operators. Lawyers, pharmacists and petrol-station operators are also up in arms at plans to strip away their privileges. This will not be easy.

The choices are unavoidable. The debate about the future of the eurozone is hopelessly polarised. On one side stand those who say the enterprise can be saved only if Catholic southern Europe absorbs the Protestant north’s culture of thrift and hard work. On the other side are those who say that all would be well if only the Germans were ready to spend and borrow more and underwrite the debts of their southern neighbours. Both sets of arguments are hopelessly naive.

The challenge facing Europe – one crystallised by the euro crisis – is to adapt to a world in which it can no longer dictate the terms of exchange. Policymakers and economists can argue all they like about the merits and demerits of devaluation or fine-tuning the balance between fiscal rectitude and support for demand. The big question is whether Europe can compete in a world over which the west no longer holds sway. That’s why what Mr Monti is doing in Italy really does matter. [FT]

P.S.: I said that “Italians do trust Mario Monti” and his new government. Here is an incontrovertible proof of it: according to an online poll published yesterday in the Radio Padania’s website—Radio Padania is the official radio of the Lega Nord, which is now the main opposition party—80 percent of the voters said they are “in favor” of Monti and his new government. One hour after the results were published, the page was removed from the website. (Corriere della Sera, in Italian)

Burning for Freedom in Tibet

“No people should be forced to live in such desperate circumstances that they feel they must resort to desperate means like suicide,” writes the Christian Science Monitor commenting the tragic type of protest that has become popular in two different parts of the world in the past two years. The kind of protest in question is setting fire to oneself, and the two different parts of the world that the CSM is referring to are Tibet and some countries of the Arab world. Perhaps the major difference (among many others) between the two cases is that, generally speaking, as far as I know, what is happening in Tibet doesn’t seem to deserve being noticed, or at least it is not getting the coverage it deserves. With very few exceptions like this or this:

Another Tibetan in southwest China self-immolated Saturday in the latest in a series of apparent protests against Chinese rule, activist groups said.
The self-immolation in the town of Aba in Sichuan province was followed by clashes between security forces and local Tibetans, said the London-based group Free Tibet.t protests against Chinese rule, activist groups said.
At least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans are now believed to have set themselves on fire in the past year — including four in the past week — mostly in traditionally Tibetan areas of Sichuan province. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Yes, we are talking of Buddhist monks setting fire to themselves—of course in response to Beijing’s iron-fisted grip over Tibetan affairs—and this notwithstanding the fact that any form of suicide is widely seen as contrary to the teachings of their religion!

“You [the Chinese leadership] will never address the genuine grievances of Tibetans and restore stability in Tibet through violence and killing, the only way to resolve the Tibet issue and bring about lasting peace is by respecting the rights of the Tibetan people and through dialogue,” said Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of Tibet’s government in exile in Dharamsala in India, who denounced the shooting by police on hundreds of Tibetan protesters in western Sichuan this week. Of course he is right, but at the same time it’s pretty easy to predict that, even though the Tibetans’ struggle for freedom will continue, whether the whole world is watching or not,

As the communist government in Beijing struggles with issues of reform and modernization, it has retained and even intensified its hard-line policies against the Tibetan people. Given China's growing importance as an economic power and a general sense of fatigue in the rest of the word for meaningful action in defense of human rights, the people in Tibet can expect little concrete support in their quest for political freedom and religious liberty.

Candlelight vigil in Dharmsala, India, after news reports of self-immolation by two Tibetan monks at the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province's Aba prefectuture, Monday, Sept. 26, 2011. Pic:AP

Roman Glories: Scipio Tombs Reopen in Rome

Not many remember who Consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato was. Yet there is a very good reason why we should remember him, in fact, besides being a member of the distinguished gens Cornelia, he was the founder of one of ancient Rome’s most illustrious clans, the father of Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina, and, what is most important, the great-grandfather of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC), also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, i.e. the man who defeated Hannibal at the final battle of the Second Punic War at Zama—a watershed event in the history of the world—and one of the finest commanders in military history.

History, however, is not the focus of this post. Rather, the focus is on archaeology and …tourism. In fact, a few days ago, for the first time in two decades, the tomb of the Scipios has been reopened to the public (Via di Porta San Sebastiano 9, Rome). It’s a great opportunity—among the Scipios entombed there were both Scipio the Elder and Scipio the Younger, who destroyed Carthage and ended the Third Punic War!—for those who live in Rome or are just visiting. To book a visit, call +39060608.

See here for some more info in English, and here for a thorough description and history of the site in Italian.

Photo courtesy of Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali, Rome

~ First written for The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Against the Myth of American Decline

“Is the United States in decline, as so many seem to believe these days? Or are Americans in danger of committing pre-emptive superpower suicide out of a misplaced fear of their own declining power? A great deal depends on the answer to these questions.”

American historian and foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan, the cofounder of the neocon central organ Weekly Standard and of the Project for the New American Century, tries to answer these and other provocative questions—such as this one: What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home?—in his new book, The World America Made, available on February 14, 2012.

I am sure it will be a worthy read. I say this for a couple of reasons. First Robert Kagan is one of the most influential strategists of our time,  and the best-selling author of many books, including The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2008), Dangerous Nation (2006), and Of Paradise and Power (2003). Second… I’ve already read “Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline,” an edited excerpt from the book in the February 2nd issue of The New Republic. That being said, I’ll let you know in a couple months. Have a good read!

On Following a Crazy Person

Andrei Rublev, Christ the Redeemer  
 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Just a few posts ago, I was hinting at a subject that I have always been passionate about and that I believe to be at the core of my Christian faith: the “folly of God” which, in St Paul’s words, “is wiser than the wisdom of men.” Well, today Fr. Philip Neri Powell has something to say about “following a crazy person,” that crazy person being our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m sure my Christian readers (and not only them) will find it very insightful and interesting. “We,” in turn, says Fr. Philip Neri Powell, “may be out of our minds for following a crazy man, but [...].” Well, read the rest to find out what comes after the “but.”

Stop SOPA & PIPA

Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. The two bills in question are known as the Protect IP Act, PIPA, in the Senate (“IP” stands for “intellectual property”), and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), in the House.

Both SOPA and PIPA would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. To raise awareness about this harmful legislation, the English Wikipedia, along with a dozen other major websites (including Google, Wordpress, Reddit, and Moveon) are protesting the PIPA/SOPA legislation by either completely blacking out their sites for 24 hours or by modifying their front pages. Read here to learn more. In my view, a very worthy cause to support. Needless to say, please spread the word!

Ship Commander? This Guy... Not So Much (Updated)

Capt. Francesco Schettino and Capt. Gregorio De Falco

I really think there’s not much to be said about what happened that night, except that there are no words. However, here (and here) is a translation of the transcript of the conversation between Capt. Francesco Schettino, commander of the grounded Costa Concordia, and Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian Coast Guard in Livorno. De Falco vehemently and repeatedly ordered Schettino to return to the ship to oversee the evacuation. Two opposite ways of understanding and practicing what  the duties of a Ship Commander are, one is honorable, the other is not…

UPDATE:  January 18, 2012, 9:15 pm

This piece by John Hooper in today’s online edition of The Guardian is definitely worth reading. The title says much about what’s inside the piece: “Costa Concordia shipwreck’s hero and villain lay bare two souls of Italy.”