More symptoms of insanity on the American right

[fpb]

In yesterday's American Thinker, a man with the Italian name of Bonelli wrote the following, extremely offensive statement:

The United States is different from most other countries in many ways. One unique aspect of our country is that our elected officials, officers of the court, and the military, all pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to an office, individual or party. This assures continuity of the ideals set forth by the founders.

As an Italian citizen, I have personally sworn to defend the Constitution of my country when I served in the Italian army. The presumption involved in this ignorant display of insular arrogance is an insult to every constitutional government in the world.

Comments

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

A large minority were able to win an election?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

A large minority of Catholics plus the totality of secularists.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Then how many in Italy are self-identified as Catholic? I recently saw an article that said 99%, which I did not believe.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Heh. That is the $64,000 question. There are very few native religious minorities (although those that do exist, such as about forty thousand Jews and as many Waldensian Protestants, are ancient and respected and punch above their weight), and something like 94% of the population was baptized into the Catholic Church at birth. There is, however, a strong and native anti-clerical and secularist tradition, which was at one time politically dominant in the country, and may well be said to have created the Italian nation. My definition of secularist includes members of my own family who believe in God but say all sorts of things about the Pope, abortion and a few other things.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Now I am starting to understand how things ended up how they are. Do you forsee a change once these anti-clericals or secularist generations finally pass? To you see a return of the faithful? We are starting to see it here.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The secularist tradition is 150 years old, and its roots go even further back. Do you know which was the last government in Europe to try to start a state-sponsored schism from the Catholic Church? The Grand-Duchy of Tuscany, capital Florence - the very heart of Italy - in 1786. Jansenism, anti-clericalism and a creeping temptation to paganism are part of the Italian landscape, history and tradition. The patriot leader Mazzini, a central figure in the making of the nation, had a Jansenist background; Garibaldi was a Freemason and detested the Church (but was devoted to the Virgin Mary, and lost his temper with a bang when anyone suggested that he was not Christian); and many of our greatest poets, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, can be counted as Pagan. At the same time, nothing is more central to Italian identity than Dante - the father of our language and of the very way we think about ourselves; and Dante, although he vigorously condemned some Popes and the corruption of the Church, was deeply and unshakeably Catholic.