I borrow here the beginning of an interesting piece by Christopher Hitchens in Slate magazine because it seems to have some relevance to the Italian situation, too. "The visit of his holiness the pope to the United States this week," writes Hitchens, "will be an occasion for all kinds of manifestation of deference and servility from politicians and from the press. There will also be the usual speculation about the growth of a specifically or distinctively American Catholicism [a kind of] of cafeteria Catholicism, by which the faithful pick and choose among the doctrines that do and do not appeal to them, has long been understood. It was Joseph Ratzinger's role, when he was the right-hand man and enforcer of the last pope, to recall the flock to a more traditional and orthodox version of the faith. The chief interest of this trip, at least for Roman Catholics, will be to see how explicitly he addresses himself to a flock that is too used to making up its own à la carte rules. Meanwhile, all this piety and ceremony is a bit of a bore and a waste of media space for the large majority of us who are still not Roman Catholics. How should we get through the week?"
Well, how should we get through the next FIVE YEARS, when deference and servility will be the mark of all political forces present in the Italian Parliament?
