Tag Archives: Country: Italy

Andrew Harrod of Front Page at The Legal Project: Speaking at a conference in Milan, Italy, on May 8, 2013, that city’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Scola, called for the abolition of blasphemy laws worldwide.  Such a step would significantly help protect globally the freedom of speech and religion desperately needed by Christians in particular while countering Islamic fanaticism with freedom.

Catholic Culture: Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called for a “firm and constant commitment” to battling prejudice against homosexuals, as Italy observed “Anti-Homopobia Day” on May 17.

LifeSiteNews: Some 40,000 pro-life marchers at the March for Life in Italy received a surprise when Pope Francis joined them — driving down the street in his popemobile where the Marcia per la Vita was taking place.

AsiaNews.it: The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

Catholic Culture: Archbishop Crepaldi said that the protest was organized against him because of “the false and very grave accusation of being intolerant and racist.” He said that gay-rights activists are determined to gain approval for same-sex marriage, and toward that end will accuse all opponents of “homophobia.”

LifeSiteNews: The Italian media is piling on a Venetian high school religion teacher for reportedly saying that participants in the “gay” lifestyle aren’t born that way and should seek therapy.

Washington Post (AP): The Vatican is pressing its opposition to gay marriage, insisting Saturday that children should grow up with a father and a mother after Italy’s high court upheld a lower court ruling and granted custody of a child to his gay mother.

Washington Post: Italian Premier Mario Monti, who is being backed by the Vatican in his bid for re-election, says gay rights issues — including gay marriage —should be decided by Parliament, not his government if he wins.

The Independent: The Vatican has received a generous early Christmas present from European Union chiefs with the announcement that illegal tax exemption from 2006 to 2011, which saved the Catholic Church billions of euros, will not have to be paid back.

Reuters: Italy has appealed a European Court of Human Rights ruling that it violated the rights of a couple carrying cystic fibrosis by preventing them from screening in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos, the Rome government said on Wednesday.

An amendment to Italy’s tax code that would require the Catholic Church to pay taxes on all its properties has hit a speed bump, after it was overturned October 10th by the Council of State, Italy’s highest-ranking court for administrative litigation . . . Despite the amendment having been overturned by the court, the issue is still up in the air, with the Italian government and EU officials reportedly working closely together within the European Union’s internal legal framework to override the court’s authority.

Benjamin Bull at Townhall: There is a movement underway in Europe to remove the tax exemptions churches have enjoyed for centuries. In Spain and Italy this attempt is being broadly pursued, while in Britain it is being done piecemeal.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: On 28 August 2012, the second section of the European Court of Human Rights issued its first judgment concerning access to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This technique of screening and selection of embryos conceived in vitro aims at giving birth to a child who is not suffering from a genetic disease. It stems from this judgment that access to PGD may de facto be considered a human right in Europe, a right indirectly guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. This judgment is not final; the Italian Government already announced that it will request the referral of the case before the Grand Chamber for reconsideration.

AP: Unemployment in France is 10 percent, but nearly 23 percent for those under the age of 25 . . . In Spain, youth unemployment is over 52 percent; it’s 34 percent in Italy.

AP: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Italy’s ban on screening embryos for disease before they are implanted in a womb has violated the rights of a couple whose first child was born with cystic fibrosis.

Opinion: Costa and Pavan v. Italy, 280812

Catholic Culture: Italian foreign minister Giulio Terzi has said that a drive to stop anti-Christian atrocities should be a top priority of world leaders.

Weekly Standard: A new chart, set to be released later today by the minority office of the Senate Budget Committee, finds that, in the next five years, “U.S. Per Person Debt To Increase 7 Times Faster Than Italian Debt.”

Daily Mail: But a study by Andrea Camperio Ciani, from the University of Padova in Italy, spots a correlation between gay men and their mothers and maternal aunts, who tend to have significantly more children than the relatives of straight men.

Catholic Culture: Italian public opinion remains firmly opposed to same-sex marriage, a new survey shows.

StarAfrica.com: The attacks in Nigeria and Kenya on Sunday 29 April left over 20 worshippers dead and numerous injured. “These atrocious and barbaric massacres must stop. Defending freedom of religion is an absolute priority for Italy”, said Minister Terzi.

Reuters on Yahoo: A Moroccan worker in Italy set himself on fire on Thursday in protest at not being paid for months, a day after an Italian businessman set himself alight over a tax dispute, police said.

AFP on Google: Italy’s highest civil court opened the way for homosexuals to have the same rights as heterosexual married couples Thursday, but it upheld a ban on gay marriage and said those celebrated abroad were not valid in Italy.

allAfrica.com: The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday ruled that Italy violated human rights principles by spurning African migrants and asylum-seekers on the high seas, a judgment hailed as historic by Amnesty International.

LifeSiteNews.com: Families are a witness to “faith, courage and optimism” when they welcome many children even amid today’s social environment, said Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday.

William Saunders The Federalist Society Engage Volume 12, Issue 3, November 2011: Religion can be an intensely personal activity. However, the idea that religion is only a private, personal devotion with no public political consequences is relatively new. For many nations in Europe, religion, in particular Catholicism, exerted an important influence over government and politics for centuries. The remnants of this influence still remain in anthems, oaths, and ideologies, not to mention architecture. However, with the rise of an ideology of “strict separation of church and state” in the European Union and the Council of Europe, it has been unclear how countries may incorporate their religious influences and histories into public life and expression. The case of Lautsi v. Italy in the European Court of Human Rights illustrates this struggle between secular ideology and religious faith and affiliation in the European context. The ultimate decision in the case acknowledges that “freedom of religion” need not result in, as the late Richard John Neuhaus put it, the naked public square.1

CNBC: Standard & Poor’s will cut the credit ratings of Italy, Spain and Portugal by two notches and downgrade France and Austria by one notch, a French newspaper said Friday, without citing its sources.

Francis X. Rocca at WSJ.com: This audacious goal has unsettling implications for Catholicism’s relations with other faiths. After all, if religion is of more than merely subjective value, and if its many varieties are not just different expressions of the same reality, it follows that some religions are truer than others. And Benedict has never hidden his conviction of where the truth in its fullness lies. However undiplomatic it may seem in certain contexts, Benedict’s emphasis on objective truth is, by his lights, essential to the agenda for which he prayed in Assisi.

The Guardian: Workers angry with Silvio Berlusconi’s pledges to make it easier for companies to sack employees, but hold back from strike call

NYTimes.com: But a recent published account of a party at Mr. Berlusconi’s home where one female guest performed a striptease dressed as a nun, apparently was more than the Church could stand.

Telegraph: China has called for major strategic concessions from Europe before agreeing to rescue the eurozone, chilling hopes for immediate purchases of Italian bonds.

The Cutting Edge News: Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of “no-go” areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Telegraph: The survey of 4,000 women in the continent’s five largest countries found that 76 per cent of Italian housewives were dissatisfied with their lives . . . half of Italian women said they regretted getting married and two-thirds regretted having children.

Telegraph: Italy could recover billions of pounds in taxes by legalising prostitution and setting up licensed brothels, a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s party has proposed.

CNBC: Italian prosecutors have seized documents at the offices of rating agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s in a probe over suspected “anomalous” fluctuations in Italian share prices, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

AP: An Italian parliamentary commission on Tuesday approved a draft law banning women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public.

LifeSiteNews.com: This week, the lower house of the Italian legislature voted 278-205 to pass a bill that would definitively exclude the possibility of starving and dehydrating vulnerable patients to death. The Advance Directives Bill opens with a specific prohibition of euthanasia or assisted suicide and requires that patients not be denied food and hydration.

LifeSiteNews.com: The lower house of Italy’s parliament has voted to prohibit the starvation and dehydration of patients in a move that is seen as a response to the killing of Eluana Englaro in 2009.

Phyllis Schlafly at The Moral Liberal: I would hate to admit that Italy has more freedom of religion than the United States, where we like to brag about our First Amendment rights . . . A conservative public-interest law firm in the United States, called the Alliance Defense Fund, persuaded the judges to allow 33 members of the European Parliament to intervene in this lawsuit.

LifeSiteNews.com: The archetypal Italian family, with mamma and papa presiding over a noisy dinner table, surrounded by rambunctious children and grandchildren, has become a cultural artifact of the past. Not only are Italians not having children, they are increasingly not even bothering to get married, according to recently released government statistics.

AP: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has taken his claim that he is being persecuted by leftist judges to the G-8 summit, telling a clearly perplexed President Barack Obama that in Italy they represent “almost a dictatorship.”

BBC: The panic was sparked by rumours that seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, predicted the city would be devastated by a quake on 11 May.

Courthouse News Service: The highest court of the European Union ruled that member states may not jail immigrants who enter their countries illegally and then refuse to leave.

ADNKronos: The EU Court of Justice ruled that jailing migrants contradicts an EU directive whose main objective is “to set up an effective policy to drive out and repatriate third country nationals whose stay (in the EU) is irregular, while respecting their fundamental rights,” the court said in a statement.

TheLocal.se: A top Italian official on Saturday called an Ikea advertisement with two gay men holding hands “in bad taste”, invoking the ire of opposition parties and rights groups.

Islamist Watch: Though France is the pace setter, efforts to impose burqa bans, both broad and narrow, press on across the West. The following is a quick and by no means exhaustive update on recent attempts . . .

AGI News: “A full 27 percent of cases pending at the European Court of Human Rights concern Italy.”

Scotsman: A LEADING Italian academic is facing growing calls to resign after he blamed the collapse of the Roman Empire on homosexuality. Professor Roberto De Mattei, vice-president of Italy’s Centre for National Research and who is also a devout Catholic, has already faced criticism after claiming that the Japanese tsunami and earthquake disaster was “divine punishment”.

Expatica.com: France warned that it would not tolerate a “wave of Tunisian immigration” after Italy on Thursday granted humanitarian permits to thousands of Tunisians allowing them to travel around Europe.

HSLDA: Homeschooling in Italy is growing, and a website called Controscuola.it is helping. Run by homeschool mom Erika Di Martino, the tagline on the Controscuola website reads, “Education is compulsory … not school attendance!”

National Secular Society: The ruling from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights that the display of crucifixes in state school classrooms does not violate a student’s freedom of conscience is a severe blow to the concept of secularism in Europe. It also leaves an uncomfortable suspicion over the motives and independence of the European Court . . . The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) – (a branch of US televangelist Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice), was elated. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) also hailed the ruling. (Both groups had filed briefs urging the court to uphold the crucifixes.)

C-FAM: The final decision can be summarized by the concurring opinion of Judge Giovanni Bonello who wrote, “The Convention has given this Court the remit to enforce freedom of religion and of conscience, but has not empowered it to bully States into secularism or to coerce countries into schemes of religious neutrality.” “It is for each individual State to choose whether to be secular or not, and whether, and to what extent, to separate Church and governance.” . . . A loss in this case would have meant, in essence, that it would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights to have religious symbols in any state institution anywhere in Europe,” said Roger Kiska, Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund that represented 33 Members of the European Parliament in the case. “That would have set a dangerous example for the rest of the world.”

Lawrence D. Jones writes at the Christian Post: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses,” said Roger Kiska, legal counsel of Alliance Defense Fund, who was present at the announcement of the court’s decision. Last year, ADF attorneys were granted permission by the European court to intervene in the suit on behalf of 33 members of the European Parliament.

ADF attorney Piero A. Tozzi appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the ruling. A related ADF press release is here. | MP3 audio 10:46 mins

Christian Today: Legal counsel Roger Kiska, of the Alliance Defense Fund, was present at the court when the ruling was passed down today. He welcomed the decision: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses.

LifeSiteNews: The Italian Chamber of Deputies has begun to debate a new bill that would prohibit the starvation and dehydration of patients, even if they have completed a “living will” authorizing it, according to the French bioethics website Genethique and Italian media sources.

Christian Today: Legal counsel Roger Kiska, of the Alliance Defense Fund, was present at the court when the ruling was passed down today. He welcomed the decision: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses. [more quotes by Roger Kiska]

LifeSiteNews: A top attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which had been actively involved in the case, today emphasized just how much was at stake in the case. “A loss in this case would have meant, in essence, that it would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights to have religious symbols in any state institution anywhere in Europe,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who was present at the court when the decision was issued. “That would have set a dangerous example for the rest of the world.”

Religion Clause Blog discusses today’s ruling.

Christian Institute: Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defense Fund said: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses.” He added: “A loss in this case would have meant, in essence, that it would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights to have religious symbols in any state institution anywhere in Europe”.

Crosses will continue to remain in Italy’s classrooms as a result of a judgment issued Friday by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. The court reversed a lower chamber’s 2009 ruling in favor of an “offended” parent who wanted crucifixes removed from the country’s public schools but did not prevail in Italian courts.

CNA: “The European Human Rights Court will issue a ruling March 18 on whether crucifixes should be present in the public schools of Italy.”

RTTNews.com: “The controversial bill seeks to allow Italian citizens to sue the judges for miscarriage of justice and calls for ending the right of prosecutors to appeal against acquittals. Under current Italian laws, both prosecutors and defendants are permitted to appeal against verdicts.”

ADF attorney Roger Kiska writes at Turtle Bay and Beyond: “The European Court announced today to participating parties in the Lautsi v. Italy case (also known as the Italian crucifix case) that the Grand Chamber had reached a judgment on February 16 and that the judgment will be announced in public by the Grand Chamber on March 18 in Strasbourg . . . The Alliance Defense Fund acted as a third party on behalf of 33 Members of European Parliament: http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/4037.”

Pavone, Tommaso, Redefining Religious Neutrality: Lautsi vs. Italy and the European Court of Human Rights (February 16, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1763412

Associated Press: “The course is being launched alongside other tentative steps of acceptance on Italian campuses. Some universities have recently allowed transsexuals in the process of changing gender to carry ID using their new name, activists say – so Mario may be officially called Maria.”

Zenit: “Anti-Christian persecution is increasing in some parts of the world such that it is taking on the form of a true ‘ethnic or religious cleansing,’ says the president of the Italian bishops’ conference.”

Associated Press: “Italian police on Friday warned of a new system by which thousands of Internet users around the world have received spam emails for business offers that actually click through to child abuse material.”

Life in Italy (ANSA): “A Sicilian court on Wednesday turned down a separated father’s appeal for exclusive custody of his children on the grounds that his ex was living with another woman.”

ISRIA: “Minister Frattini has called for discussion at the next meeting of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers, to be held on 31 January, of the themes of violence and discrimination against Christians around the world.”

Ligia M. De Jesus writing in the Washington Times: “International religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama, and legal scholars publicly expressed their support for the Italian government. Recently, the court authorized the intervention of several nongovernmental organizations as amicus curiae, …

Reuters: “A suspected bomb was found on an empty underground train in Rome on Tuesday but police said it lacked a detonator and tests showed it contained no explosive.”

Zenit: “The religious dimension fosters genuine progress, and the state would do well to protect its role in the public sphere, says Benedict XVI. The Pope said this today upon receiving in audience Francesco Maria Greco, the new ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, who was presenting his letters of credence.”

MSNBC: “A judge has upheld the seizure of euro23 million ($30.2 million) in Vatican assets in a money-laundering probe involving the Holy See’s bank, the second time the bank has been denied the return of the funds.”

Associated Press: “Premier Silvio Berlusconi dismissed calls Tuesday to resign over his involvement with an underage Moroccan runaway – and even created a new uproar by claiming it was better to love beautiful girls than gays.”

Associated Press: “The conservative mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, Luigi Bobbio, says he wants to restore public decorum through a set of norms that include banning football games in public parks, blasphemy, and ‘very skimpy clothes.’”