Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Vatican newspaper critiques new book by Italian historian

L’Osservatore Romano has published a strongly negative review of La Chiesa Contro [The Church Against], a new book by Sergio and Beda Romano that blames the Church for hindering Italy from attaining the “peaks of progressivism” found in other European countries.

Sergio Romano, an 82-year-old former ambassador to NATO, is a journalist and historian; Beda, his son, is also a journalist. 

“Is it really so difficult to believe that the applications of technoscience or the juridical acceptance of homosexual unions do not constitute a test of modernity, but rather give rise to anthropological problems because they transform our culture, and thus that it is good that they are the object of reflection and debate, and even of a prudent suspension of judgment?” writes reviewer Lucetta Scaraffia.

“The Catholic Church is of course the one global institution that dares to express a critical judgment on a deliberately superficial ‘progressivist’ trend,” Scaraffia adds. 

“She is the only one that dares to denounce the possible negative consequences of these innovations, that essentially dares to stimulate a discussion to make people think and to ask for true reasons.”