inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! "Francis Effect"? - Catholic moral influence collapses in Italy as parliament approves "Quick Divorce"
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| 1970: Communist daily Avanti celebrates the approval of divorce in Italy |
The "opening up" of the Church following the Second Vatican Council had terrible consequences for the influence of Catholic moral doctrine in Italian legislation -- the most astouding examples being the legalization of divorce and of abortion under Paul VI. John Paul II had as one of his most difficult tasks that of rebuilding Catholic presence in Italian political life, which he gradually did, with the great help of Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Ruini, Vicar of Rome and influential president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), despite the intellectual sabotage of men such as the Jesuit archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Martini.
The symbol of this new rise of Catholic influence in Italian legislation was the 2005 referendum on fertility laws, in which the right and moral Catholic view prevailed, with the support of Pope Benedict XVI.
Now, the united Catholic front painstakingly formed under the Wojtyla and Ratzinger pontificates has just collapsed like a house of cards, and attacks on morality are advancing with virtually no opposition in the Italian Parliament. Could this be what is usually meant by "Francis Effect"? Sandro Magister explains it in his Italian-only blog regarding the new Express-Divorce Law -- with the help of professors of Catholic universities themselves!
Catholics and quick divorceSandro MagisterSettimo Cielo
April 27, 2015Greeted enthusiastically by the chorus from the mass-media, quick divorce shows itself to be a pitiless test and perhaps a definitive end of what was considered for years “the Italian exception”: i.e. this country’s ability through political Catholicism in the public forum, to go effectively against the mainstream on the key issues of life and family.“Avvenire” the Italian Episcopal Conference’s daily newspaper, with its editorial, commenting on the law in words of unequivocal condemnation, carried the headlines “Quick divorce, an uncivilized goal. A devastating, anti-family slippery-slope”. Yet, this “wingding” in the secular news-media was indexed as “the wrath of Catholics” and immediately dismissed.Indeed, the numbers of the votes that approved the law are eloquent in themselves: 398 voted yes, 28 voted no and there were 6 abstainers. This, in a parliament crammed with Catholics; in a government where numerous ministers and the Prime Minster are Catholics and the proposer of the new law, Alessia Morani, a lawyer specializing in marriage law, defining herself as a “mature, democratic Catholic.”