Word: vaticaners
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...proximity of the Vatican to the Italian case almost ensured that Pope Benedict XVI was part of the debate over the past days and weeks. The pontiff used his annual message for the World Day of the Sick on Sunday to focus on the issue of euthanasia. "Let us pray for all the sick, especially those most seriously ill, who cannot provide for themselves in any way, but are completely dependent on the care of others," the pontiff said. It was the third time in a week that the Pope had made a not-so-subtle reference to the Englaro...
...keen to find seeds of Christian vitality in an increasingly secular Europe. And while most Italians are all but secular in their day-to-day lives, the Catholic Church and the pope's pulpit remain powerful forces in Italy's domestic politics. Upon word of Englaro's death, the Vatican's chief of health-related issues, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said: "We pray for her and ask the Lord for forgiveness for all that they did to her." Other strong words were exchanged in the Italian Senate, which had been in the throes of a passionate debate over an emergency...
Sidling up to the Vatican, the country's mercurial Prime Minister weighed in heavily on the Englaro case, declaring his moral obligation to do whatever possible to "save a life in danger." Berlusconi said that if it were his daughter lying in a coma, he wouldn't cut life support. Before her death he said that he'd been told that Englaro is "hypothetically" able to bear children. On Feb. 6 the prime minister introduced a decree that would have forced the doctors to provide full care and feeding to Englaro, but Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano refused to sign...
...past two years, working independently from other established Vatican dicasteries, Castrillón was busy hammering out the details to make way for the reconciliation with the Lefebvrites. Other top Holy See officials were, by all accounts, shut out from both the substance of the accord and its timing and presentation to the outside world. That it coincided with the airing of a television interview with Williamson in which he espoused his views of the Holocaust could be chalked up to bad luck. But the British-born bishop has said similar things in the past, as have several other Lefebvrite...
According to the Vatican official, Castrillón was bound to forge ahead as he pleased. Born in Medellín, Colombia, he has displayed courage, tenacity and a willingness - even an eagerness - to mix church and state. He has gone deep into Colombian jungles to mediate between leftist guerrillas and right-wing death squads, and once, while still a bishop, he showed up at the house of cocaine king Pablo Escobar disguised as a milkman. Revealing himself, Castrillón implored Escobar to confess his sins, which, presumably at some considerable length, the vicious gangster did. "Anyone who's had interaction...