Italy is a place where...

Italy is a weird place.

Italy it's like a 116,000+ sq.mil. abandoned museum.

There are 49,000+ Roman Catholic priests (two thirds of them are “Diocesan”).

Their average age is a bit more than 60 years old: this means that by 2030 Italy will likely have 15-20,000 priests, not more.

There are 225 Dioceses, a lot of them counting no more than 50-100-150,000 people.

Mgr. Bagnasco, president of Italian Bishop Conference, is always accompanied by armed bodyguards. A few days ago, he received a letter with three pistol bullets in it (a common mafia-style way to tell “you're going to be shot”).

In Italy there are some 920+ deputies in our Parliament, out of a population of 54+ millions.

There are 103 (yes, one hundred and three) members of the Government (ministers and undersecretaries); for example, France has a total of 17 (yes, seventeen) members (15 ministers and 2 undersecretaries).

There are two Communist parties plus a large number of other “leftist” parties.

The head of the Communist Refoundation party (“Rifondazione Comunista”) is currently also the head of one of the two Chambers of the Italian Parliament.

Yes, Italy is a weird place.

The plot against the Church

Maurice Pinay, Complotto contro la Chiesa, (“The Plot against the Church”).

This book was first printed in Rome, 1962; soon followed editions in Austria (Jan. 1963), Venezuela (Dec. 1963) and Mexico (“Complot contra la Iglesia”). The definitive and revised edition was published by “Mundo Libre” (Mexico) in 1968, translated by Luis Gonzales, after II Vatican Council ended.

A number of authors, mainly coming from University of Guadalajara (Mexico) and Catholic Union of Trento (Italy) worked for 14 months on this book and then distributed copies to all Fathers of the II Vatican Council.

The book was intended to stop Augustin Cardinal Bea accepting requirements of Jewish authorities that authors considered incompatible with Roman Catholic faith.

Eventually, the Nostra Aetate document of the II Vatican Council wiped out every possible equivocal expression about Jews.

Announcing Rimini Meeting 2007

Edition 2007 of “Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples” (also known as “Meeting di Rimini”, that is, “Rimini Meeting”) will be held in Rimini, Italy, from August 19 to August 25.

The title of this year: «Truth is the destiny for which we have been made»

More information on:

• Meeting di Rimini official site
• 2007 Edition: Program and Exhibitions and other informations
• 2006 Edition: Final Press Release
• Meeting Rimini Videos and photos

What is Rimini Meeting? With an average attendance of over 700,000, the Rimini Meeting – held annually since 1980 and lasting one week in the second half of August – is the world’s biggest summer festival of encounters, exhibitions, music and spectacle. The event is unique of its kind: an association that for 27 years has sought to create points of contact between experiences and people of different faiths and cultures who share a positive desire for knowledge and reciprocal enhancement... (read more)

Other information about Communion and Liberation.

リミニの国際的な会合2007年8月19日から2007年8月25日から

Friendly Fire means Holocaust and Martyrdom

In this holy heroic place, on August 18, 1944, six people from Molinella fell down because of our lead, superb example of love to the ideal.

Their friends, fierce of their holocaust, remember their martyrdom, as a teaching to them who will come.

Translation notes:

• they were soldiers, despite it's not written (there is only a list of surnames and names); the six soldiers were from Molinella, a small town near Bologna, northern Italy.
• “piombo” (lead) means “bullets”; “piombo nostrano” (lead coming from us) means... friendly fire.
• “esempio superbo” actually sounds like “astonishing example”
• “idea” just means idea but in its rhetorical context means “ideal”. So, the six people loved their ideals (which was it, is not specified)
• “conterraneo” does not mean “friends”; it actually means “someone who lives in the same lands” (in our case, near Bologna)
• yes, they were killed by friendly fire, and so it was an “holocaust”
• “martirio” means “martyrdom”, even if they were killed by friendly fire
• “insegnamento” (teaching) suggests that you (the one who will come after 1944) must learn that someday you could be killed by friendly fire, yet yours will be “martyrdom” and “holocaust”.

What a weird life. Being killed by friendly fire while “loving” an unspecified “idea”. And friendly fire makes “holy” and “heroic” that place.