IAN FISHER and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO New York Times News Service | Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 12:00 am
ROME - Pope Benedict XVI waded gingerly into Italian politics on Monday for the first time, endorsing a call by Italian bishops for a boycott of a contentious referendum on medically assisted fertility.
The referendum seeks to overturn key provisions in a law passed here last year that is the most restrictive on medically assisted fertility in Europe. The current law bans donations of sperm and eggs, defines life as beginning at conception and allows fertility treatment only to "stable heterosexual couples."
The effort to roll back many of those provisions is shaping up as an important battleground for the Roman Catholic Church, energized by a new pope with strong views on social issues. For weeks, the fight has raged in pulpits and in the press, with posters in the streets, advertisements on television and in newspapers, and pamphlets in churches.
In his comments on Monday, Benedict raised the temperature a decisive degree by backing the strategy of Italian bishops, who have encouraged Italians to shun the referendum on June 12-13 in the hope of killing it and preserving the law.
Many Italians support the law, and the church's engagement to protect it. But others worry that the referendum marks a disturbing intrusion by the church into politics.
"You are committed to illuminate the choice of Catholics and of all citizens in the imminent referendum on assisted procreation," the pope told Italian bishops at a conference at the Vatican.
While Benedict did not address the referendum in detail, his willingness to step into the fray seemed to show that he would continue the activist stance of his predecessor, John Paul II, on issues important to the church.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and in his six weeks as pope, he has spoken often about the church's strong advocacy of preserving human life, particularly the unborn, and about the need for the church to take a more muscular stance against secularism. Those issues are central to the referendum.
"The question is tied very much to what happened in Spain, which was seen as another moment of this challenge," said Sandro Magister, an expert on the Vatican who is generally supportive of Benedict. He referred to a recent bill in Spain allowing gay marriage that Catholics have loudly protested. Earlier this month, Benedict wrote a letter to Spanish bishops saying, "The transmission of the faith and religious practices cannot remain confined to the purely private sphere."