Abortion 1, pope 0

...The misperceptions may have a lot to do with the fact that he surrounds himself with advisers who come from a very different cultural situation--his native Poland--and who encourage the pope's tendency to see Italy, and maybe the world, through that optic...

...Only the Christian Democrats and the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement came out in favor of the Catholic referendum...

...disfavorable economic, social, or family conditions...

...On the contrary, Italians who opposed the church's referendum spoke universally of abortion as a tragedy, but one which would become worse without the existing law...

...With Luther, you may argue that Christianity does not sit well with such a cultivation of ambiguity, and indeed maybe it doesn't...

...Between 1943 and the end of the war, he was an official of Mussolini's Salb Republic...

...The Concordat expressly forbids clergymen to interfere in the life of the state while carrying out their ministry, but the Vatican defended the pontiff's speeches as an exercise of his duties to teach the principles of Catholic morality and natural law...

...People no longer know what the Democrats stand for...

...His suggestion met with a lukewarm reception among many Italian bishops, who, fearing a defeat at the polls, did not want to risk splitting Italian Catholics on the issue...

...Poletti issued a letter saying that Catholics were obliged "to vote 'yes' for the abolition of the articles of death contained in the abortion law...

...In 1980, for example, forty-eight percent opted for the Democrats and thirty-four percent for the Republicans...

...But if they follow this course and the Reagan formula works despite expert expectations, it will be Mr...

...After the first trimester, abortions can be obtained only if the pregnancy or birth would result in grave danger for the woman or if illness or malformation of the fetus would threaten her mental or physical health...

...Report from Italy I ABORTION 1, POPE 0 A CRUSADE THAT FAILED F OUR DAYS after narrowly escaping death in St...

...With Mr...

...Others, more impressed with history and less impressed with diplomatically convenient labels, will recall that it was precisely Mussolini's Fascism that proudly launched the deadly modem concept of the "total state...

...murder, Christ vs...

...The Italian Social Movement has long nurtured substantial para-military organizations and a youthful activist II I I IIIII IIIII I Democratic party, but their embarrassing defeat over the antidivorce referendum in 1974, when they faithfully fought for the church's position, had cooled their enthusiasm for another moral crusade...

...ofDeputies voted to remove Almirante's parliamentary immunity, making him subject to prosecution for "reconstitution of the Fascist party...

...In fact the law has not functioned well...

...But the drift of the DNC's decision is clear: to keep the party's attention on technical issues "rather than substantive ones...

...Faced with such hesitations, Pope Wojtyla decided to take a more direct and personal approach to repealing the abortion law...

...Jimmy Carter, of course, tried this all-things-to-allpeople approach...

...It also seems to run counter to Mr...

...The MSI is among those who, in the words of noted writer Alberto Moravia, "'want a strong state, not a just state...

...All is not lost for the Democrats, of course...

...Italians are, to be sure, a talkative people, but when it comes to politics and moral affairs, much more happens here by going unsaid, or at most by being indirectly said, than gets done by vociferous crusades...

...conception by rape or incest...

...Pope Wojtyla, as he is popularly called in Italy, went into action against the abortion law within two months of his election...

...THOMAS SHEEHAN (Thomas Sheehan is an associate professor of philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago...

...The pope's "crusade" (he called it a causa santa) aroused bitter reactions among leaders of the secular parties of the Italian government, who widely accused the pope of violating both the spirit and the letter of the 1929 Concordat...

...Giorgio Almirante is a Fascist...

...His strategy worked well enough to make him the biggest loser of any incumbent president since Hoover...

...The enormity of the defeat at the polls--68 percent to 32 percent--raises questions about the nature of Catholicism in this most Catholic of countries and, perhaps more importantly, about the pope's approach to the delicate relation of church and state in Italy...

...The abrogation of therapeutic abortion was declared unconstitutional by the Italian courts...

...Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II faced another and, as it turns out far more serious challenge--not to his life but to what he-stands for...

...The referendum does mark the emergence of a"new" Italy, which in fact had been developing for at least two decades: more secularist, more sfnsitive to women's issues, less willing to follow the ideology of their political parties or their church...

...Almirante and the MSI cannot he separated...

...One pollster and campaign advisor to Democrats, for instance, described his own predicament in mapping candidates' strate' gies: "Out of the record of the last two or four years, there was no clear Democratic message, no articulated Democratic vision of the future...

...United States foreign policy would derive no substantive benefit from even only an implied relationship with the MSI...

...In 1960, popular demonstrations toppled a Christian Democratic government that relied on ricofascist support in the Chambei- of Deputies...

...Among the MSI deputies is Pino Rauti, outspokenly committed to the use of political terrorism...

...Prevailing attitudes on such matters have changed little...

...They knew they were up against stiff opposition from a country in which eight out of ten Catholics do not actively practice their faith and which by and large, as the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, has admitted, is Catholic in name only...

...rather a somber appeal to Catholics to examine their consciences...

...But perhaps Mr...

...Whether the defeat of the referendum be applauded or bemoaned, the vote had the positive effect of registering where the new Italy stands...

...Reagan still extremely popular, the easy thing for the Democrats to do right now is to go along with him on his budget cuts in social spending, his huge increases in military spending, and the income tax plan so many economists think will be highly inflationary...

...Italians are masters of the hint, the raised eyebrow, the allusion...

...T .HEPOUTICAL CULTURES of Mediterranean court...

...tries place a premium ~on personal relationships with those in power elsewhere, For this reason, early" this year Italian politicians were standing in line to make the acquaintance of the American secretary of state...

...Even the usually conservative south of Italy, contrary to all expectations, voted strongly against the anti-abortion proposal...

...During the referendum campaign, as far as I could see, there was no folkloric celebration of abortion on the part of those who defended the present law...

...The future of the church here may depend on whether and how the Italian bishops, and Pope John Paul II, appropriate that fact...

...More importantly, it failed...

...It seems that 9the friends included, along with various Christian Democrats,' Social Democrats, and others, one Giorgio AImirante...

...a tough stance with respect to its adversaries [in Italy] and br open to its friends...

...The Italian public will view U.S...

...The Italian bishops, who are not famous for their intellectual accomplishments, are not stupid either...

...Again, wisdom may lie more with the conciliatory approach taken by the Italian bishops after the defeat at the polls: no condemnations or quasi-excommunications as after the ill-fated anti-divorce referendum of 1974...

...On the Sunday before the referendum Siri obliged his priests to read a letter at all Masses, in which he declared that "since abortion is contrary to the law of the Lord, a Christian is bound in conscience to vote "yes" for the Catholic proposal...

...Perhaps the bishops were right after all when they dragged their heels at the beginning of the pontiff's campaign...

...By the end of September, 1980, more than enough signatures were gathered for a proposal that would allow legal abortions only if the woman's physical health were endangered...

...The party is small, k, ith less than five percent of the seats in the legislature...

...After upbraiding the Italian Episcopal Conference and whipping it into line, the pontiff chose to take the stump himself...

...The Democratic leadership ought to be warned...

...The problem as they see il is the Republican edge in party organization, fund-raising, and the whole panoply of recently developed political "technologies...

...But the problem., in fact, goes deeper...

...The congressional elections are eighteen months away, twenty-two percent of the voters are still undecided, and a lot can change by 1982...

...thirty-five percent for the Democrat, and twenty-two percent "not sure...

...Perhaps he is in the wrong party, but I think he is a loyal person," said Mr...

...Minors must have either parental permission or the approval of a judge...

...Surely that is part of the meaning encapsulated in eatchphrases about the end of the New Deal or the exhaustion of liberalism...

...At the least, the Democratic party should stand for democracy...

...After his four years in office, more voters considered him a "conservative" than had in 1976 --but the greatest number were just plain confused about what he was...

...More recently, in 1973, an overwhelming majority of the Italian Chamber...

...This is the first time in almost thirty years that the Republicans emerged as winners on this question...

...The pope had staked a lot on this vote...

...They virtually invented the art of diplomacy, and for them it is very much ~i matter ofarrangiarsi, accommodation or making do, and above all of sensitivity to complexity, pragmatism, and the difficulties of change...

...Pope John Paul, however, encouraged the notion of a crusade, of a holy war between two stark alternatives with no in-between: good vs...

...Italian statistics ~, claim that 80 percent of abortions among minors continue to be carried out illegally, and the World Health Organization reports that out of 800,000 abortions performed each year in Italy, 600,000 are still done by back-room abortionists...

...And so far, the party's leadership has responded in an uninspired fashion...

...As party leader, Almirante has shown little inclination to curb the radical element...

...FoRanately for Secretary Haig, the Republican party had a representative in Rome, Mr...

...Manatt convinced the DNC to reduce the number of delegates to the 1982 midterm ,convention and "to keep the selection of these delegates largely within the hands of party officials...

...He is currently on sabbatical in Rome...

...However, given the lackluster support of the bishops, a first effort at collecting the required five hundred thousand signatures for a referendum failed miserably in April, 1980...

...Cunningham's complacency toward ihe Fascist heritage and present, outlook of Almirante's MSI only reflects the Reagan administration's belief in the power of the neat distinction between "'authoritarian" forces and "totalitarian" ones...

...And if the Reagan program ends in disaster after the Dem9crats fiave gone along with it, what issue will they be' able to take to the people...

...But if you combine this pope's strong conservative convictions with his activist approach, and add for good measure his ignorance of or carelessness about the intricacies of Italian politics, then he was in for a bad fall sooner or later...

...the powers of darkness...

...Unfortunately that is less likely to occur now that the Democratic National Committee has agreed to the proposal of its new chairman, Charles Manatt...

...Harder to defend under Italian law were the statements made by Cardinals Ugo Poletti of Rome and Giuseppe Siri of Genoa, presumably with the approval of the pope...

...ERIC R. TERZUOLO (Eric R. Terzuolo is an assistant professor in the De, partment of History and Political Science at Mount Saint Mary's College in Maryland, with a special interest in pcrst.World War H ltalfan .politics...

...Those of us who find the ethical precepts of Fascism abhorrent have little need for the preceding argument...

...In this situation, Democrats ought to be debating issues as well as studying techniques...

...The pattern may have been set from the beginning: Pontius Pilate, Roman to the core, did try to get Jesus off, but neither Jesus nor his accusers were up for Italian forms of accommodation...

...9Reagan and not the Democrats who will get the credit...

...In the late wing whose acts of violence have claimed not a few lives...

...The woman herself decides whether the conditions for terminating a pregnancy apply in her case...

...Robert Cunningham, to 9help screen those seeking contacts with the new administratiou in Washington...

...In a sense the referendum does mark his first and somewhat personal setback, one that is due both to his activist style and to his misperceptions of Italy...

...The party is the object of intense opprobrium on the part of most Italians...

...It is significant, given American commercial interests in Italy, that MSI support within the business community is proportionately no greater...

...Admittedly, Almirante is not the most radical member of his party...

...Interviewed by the weekly L'Espresso, Mr, Cunning,ham indicated that the Reagan administ~tion planned to "iake...

...But then the issue, along with questions of moral right and wrong, becomes one of prudence, the virtue of knowing and choosing the right means to achieve the proper end...

...But the poll figures are another illustration of the problem in strategy the Democrats now face...

...He is the leader of the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale !taiiano--MSI), an overtly neo-fascist politicalparty he helped found in 1946...

...In fact, the Radical party's referendum proposal, which would have liberalized the law further, was defeated by an even greater margin than the Catholic proposal...

...Indeed, in the latter case why would they merit support...

...Some Pro-Life supporters retorted that many who criticized these statements had also berated Pope Pius XII for not speaking out more clearly against the Holocaust...

...One reason for this state of affairs is that 72 percent of Italy's 19 June 1981:357 thirty-three hundred obstetricians and gynecologists have, in accordance with a provision in the law, declared their conscientious objection to performing abortions...

...Apparently the bishops were also better attuned than Wojtyla to the intricacies of conducting such a campaign in a country that has a subtly balanced concordat with the Vatican...

...He made the serious and controversial decision to bypass the Christian Democratic party and take his case directly to Italian Catholics through such organizations as the Pro-Life Movement, Communion and Freedom, and the Focolarini...

...This elicits objections of both a pragmatic and an,ethical 9 nature...

...Cunningham...

...The Italian abortion statute, which went into effect in May of 1978, sets four conditions for legal abortion in the first trimester: serious damage to the physical or mental health of the woman...

...II Commonweal: 358 summer he gave a series of rousing speeches against abortion during his visits to Italian towns...

...The DemOcratic leaders are right in recognizing that these are areas where their party needs to do some catching up...

...By misjudging the Italian situation to begin with, and by taking the arguably misguided decision to bypass the normal political channels, Pope Wojtyla seems to have lost what he wanted to gain...

...Even such therapeutic abortions are against Catholic teaching, but this was the best the church could do...

...He strongly urged conscientious objection on the part of doctors, and early in 1979 he floated the idea of collecting signatures for an anti-abortion referendum...

...What does this vote say about Pope John Paul's approach to church-state relations in Catholic Italy...

...Others demonstrated against what they called the Slaughter of the Innocents and "The Year of Herod...

...Over the last year he conducted a personal and politically controversial campaign in favor of the antiabortion proposal which in fact he himself had initiated...

...Both statements would seem to violate Article 98 of the* Italian election law, which requires priests "to abstain from any action that would bind the conscience of voters to cast their ballot one way rather than another...

...This decision runs directly counter to the mandate of the last Democratic national convention, which voted for two-thirds of the mid-term convention delegates to be chosen by party rank-and-file in elections in each congressional district...

...Similarly, on another 'question the number of those formally calling themselves Republicans has increased six points since the opening of 1980, still another indicator of the changing climate 'of political opinion in this country...

...and sicl(ness or malformation of the fetus...

...19 June 1981:359...

...The Vatican's usual way to indirectly influence Italian politics is through the members of the Christian ON, CHOOSING FRIENDS 9soWHO NEEDS ZNZ aZS...

...As sociologist Franco Ferrarotti has pointed out, the Italians, whether rightly or wrongly, saw the existing abortion law as a pragmatic matter of exercising some measure of public control over what had become a run-away underground market of highly paid butchers...

...expressions of sympathy, with A1mirante as expressions of sympathy with neo-fascism...

...Before I943, Almirante was a journalist, writing for a Fascist-sponsored, anti.Semitic 9 9 periodical...

...A woman who wants an abortion during this period must state her reasons to a private or public physician...

...The doctor presents her with a certificate which, after seven days of reflection, she takes to a public hospital or authorized private clinic in order to have the abortion...

...evil, life vs...

...The church's campaign, in short, generated a lot of heat...

...On May 17 and 18 the It~ilian electorate, 97.5 percent Catholic on the books, roundly defeated a church-sponsored referendum that in effect would have rolled back Italy' s three-year-old abortion law...

...Manatt's earlier declaration, "We must organize this party from the grassroots up -- not from the top down...