sábado, 12 de outubro de 2013

Women have abortions because they feel trapped and hopeless, study finds - by Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D, NRL-ETF Director of Education & Research

October 9, 2013 (NRLC) - The reasons women have abortions are not simple and thus can be difficult to study and/or categorize. That’s one reason why the two most recent previous studies on abortion reasons, from the Guttmacher Institute, date from 2005 and 1988.

Now, though, the same team from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) that brought us the “Turnaway” study, has used the same data set to lay out the reasons the nearly one thousand women in their study had abortions. While their data set included more women with advanced pregnancies and reasons did not always fit into clear categories, the results are revealing nonetheless.

The article, “Understanding why women seek abortions in the U.S.,” was published in the July 5, 2013, edition of BMC Women’s Health and can be freely accessed.

As noted above the authors, M. Antonia Biggs, Heather Gould, and Diana Greene Foster, all participated in the “Turnaway” study. They are part of the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIR) project at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the notorious abortion research center from the west coast.
Biggs and her fellow researchers began the “Turnaway” study in 2008. They were specifically looking to contrast the consequences of those who received abortions versus those who were “denied” abortions. Women were “denied” either because available abortionists were not trained or facilities were not equipped to handle those women presenting at those particular gestations, or because state law, for some reason, prohibited abortions at a particular stage.
We discussed this study in a five-part series National Right to Life News Today ran back in January. (Part Five, with links to four previous articles, can be found here.)
The UCSF team took data from the same set of 956 women, 273 who received first trimester abortions, 452 who obtained abortions just under the gestational limits, and 231 who sought but did not receive abortions. They asked them two open ended questions: the first about why they sought an abortion, and, second, what their main was reason behind the request. (Two women out of the 956 in the study did not answer questions on the reasons for their abortions.)
The findings are both illuminating and ambiguous. Women rarely gave a single reason and often gave additional, maybe even different reasons when pressed as to their main reason. Researchers attempted to gather these into basic themes or categories, but some of these were harder to categorize than others.
For example, one 19 year old gave the following list: “I already have one baby, money wise, my relationship with the father of my first baby, relationship with my mom, school.” Another woman, 27 years old, said “My relationship is newer and we wanted to wait. I don’t have a job, I have some debt, I want to finish school and I honestly am not in the physical shape that would want to be to start out a pregnancy.”
These cover the gamut–financial, relationship, school, and, in the way that some count it, even maternal health.
Essentially, the study authors decided just to identify certain general themes and then count every time a woman gave a response in this category. The authors seem to have abandoned the effort to identify a woman’s primary reason for abortion, as that data is not listed anywhere. Thus the best one can do with this data is to simply see how often women offered a particular rationale.
Researchers found 40% of these women mentioning something financial, 36% in some way discussing the bad “timing” of the pregnancy, 31% raising a partner issue, 29% speaking of “other children,” 20% talking of the child somehow interfering with future opportunities.
Less than 20% mentioned something about not being emotionally or mentally prepared (19%), health related reasons (12%), wanting a better life than she could provide (12%), not being independent or mature enough (7%), influence of family or friends, and not wanting to have a baby or to place a baby up for adoption (4%). [1]
These do not add to 100%, of course, because women tended to give more than one reason. And some other important qualifications need to be made to give a proper analysis
Looking more carefully at the data
These responses reflect a women’s self-reported subjective assessment, not some independent analysis of her situation. As such, it is a good guide to her perceptions (or at least to her beliefs about what others will consider an acceptable justification). But they do not necessarily tell us the facts about her circumstances.
For example, though we know from demographic data reported by the authors that 45% of women participating in the survey were receiving public assistance and that a considerable portion (40%) were not able to indicate that they had “enough money in the past month to meet basic needs,” we do not know what these women’s precise income was or what mix of public and private resources were available in their communities.
Would they have arrived at the same conclusion if someone had sat down with them, looked at the sort of resources available to them, and given them the sort of budget planning advice and assistance that is available at many local pregnancy care centers?
Finances are an issue for many a young couple starting out, and it is common to wonder or even worry as to exactly how one can “afford” a baby. Some circumstances are admittedly more dire than others, but it is remarkable how that year after year, decade after decade, century after century, people, some with larger families, find ways to give birth to all their children and care for them.
How much these women were aware of or considered taking advantage of these resources is unknown [2]
Twelve percent is a higher figure than we are accustomed to seeing citing “health” reasons, but a few caveats are needed here as well. To start with, this study group includes more women with advanced pregnancies than would be found in a general sample of aborting women. This could mean a slightly higher likelihood of physical issues (though researchers specifically excluded any women seeking abortions for “fetal anomaly” from their sample and concluded, in contrast to some other previous studies, that gestational age was not a factor here). But a bigger issue, again, is that these are subjective reports of concerns about possible health problems with the mother or the unborn child, not medical determinations of any particular risk.
Data and interviews bear this out. Almost half of the 12% reported were attributed to concerns that the woman had about the impact of her own tobacco, alcohol, or drug use on the health of her child or on her ability to care for the child. One woman said, “because I had been doing drinking and the medication I’m on for bipolar is known to cause birth defects and we decided it’s akin to child abuse if you know you’re bringing your child into the world with a higher risk for things.” There is no indication that this mother or any of the other patients giving these answers had medical tests showing any problem with the child, or were told by a doctor that having a child posed any threat to the mother’s health.
Other issues like “timing” are amorphous and hard to analyze. About 34 points of the 36% raising this issue said they simply weren’t “ready,” that it wasn’t the “right time.” Discussions involving timing often bled into other more tangible issues related to finances, school, or work schedules. Sometimes this was simply expressed in terms of emotional stress. Two percent expressed concerns about being “too old.”
Women often mentioned concerns about already born children when talking about timing or finances and nearly one in three (29%) mentioned this concern about other children overall. Though the sample here in this study is somewhat different in composition, the percentage of women reporting already having or caring for at least one child (62%) is similar to national figures on abortion patients having previously given birth obtained by Guttmacher and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

How much would change if partners were supportive and encouraging and women felt they would have help raising another child (women said 8% of partners were “not supportive,” 6% of partners did not want baby, 3% were abusive). No indication, again, of whether women knew of or had access to other support in their wider communities.
Demographic correlations
One thing useful that the study does is to match reasons with demographics. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger women seeking abortion were more likely to report concerns about immaturity, a lack of independence, or the child interfering with future plans. Younger women also more frequently mentioned the influence of family or friends either in pressuring to have an abortion or as people from whom they trying to keep their pregnancies secret by aborting.
African American women were more likely to report problems with their partner but less likely to report being emotionally or mentally unprepared to raise a child at the time. Women who were separated, divorced, or widowed were more also likely to report partner issues.
Women who were employed were half as likely to report a health related reason, while those who had a history of depression or an anxiety diagnosis were more than three times more likely to mention health.
It is not clear why, but women with more than a high school education were more likely to express concerns about not being financially prepared and to want to abort because they said they desired a better life for the child than the mother felt she could provide.
Some women (4%) simply admitted they wanted abortions because they didn’t want a baby or didn’t want any children and/or wouldn’t consider adoption. More than two thirds (68%) of the women saying this had never born a child. A handful of women sought abortions because of legal issues they were going through (3 women) or because of fear of giving birth (2 women).
Some of what we learned
Though it is not brought out in any detailed analysis here, it is worth noting that despite what appears to be a general resolve to abort among women in the study, data on the same women in the turnaway study show that, even as little as one week later, more than a third of the women (35%) were no longer convinced that abortion was the outcome they wanted. How many more shared that view once the child was born is not addressed here or in that earlier paper.
Identifying one single approach that will address every woman’s concerns and change her mind is difficult, given the multiplicity of the reasons and rationales given by women for seeking abortion. Some will be benefited by being connected to better support systems, while others need practical economic assistance. Anything making men more responsible for the children they father will go a long way towards helping many of these women care for their children.
Yet abortion’s legality and the implied social sanction that comes with it is clearly a major part of the cultural machinery that forces these cruel choices on women, that lets men off the hook, that leaves women to care for households of children all alone, and that makes society less accommodating to the demands of motherhood. Collectively such factors may conspire to force many of these women to consider an option that goes totally against their nurturing natures and pit the needs of one or more of their children against another.
If we believe the survey, most of the women seeking to abort here did so, not because they were triumphantly exercising their “power to choose,” but because they felt like–given the circumstances–they had no other realistic choice. Abortion forces on them a cruel, violent, destructive option that does little to solve their basic social or economic problems, problems, which may, in part, themselves be a consequence of Roe’s forced cultural transformation.
Those women would find better options and more respect for their rights and responsibilities as women and mothers with abortion off the table.

[1] No mention is made or percentages given for abortions related to rape, incest, or any type of sexual assault. This could perhaps mean that occurrences were so few as to merit no specific mention or that these were excluded from the study for some reason not given.

[2] Although we do know those citing financial reasons included 0.6% who cited lack of insurance or inability to obtain government assistance as a factor in their decision to seek abortion, while, alternatively, another 0.4% sought abortions because they did not want to rely on government assistance.

Does same-sex parenting really make ‘no difference’? - by Douglas W Allen

In MercatorNet 
October 10, 2013

Douglas W. Allen, an economist at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, has just published a highly controversial study in the journal Review of Economics of the Household. It breaks with the conventional wisdom that there is no difference between parenting by a mother and a father and parenting by a same-sex couple. 

MercatorNet interviewed Professor Allen about his findings. 

MercatorNet: What has your research found about educational outcomes for children of same-sex couples versus children of opposite sex couples?
 
Doug Allen: There have been about 60 studies over the past 15 years or so that have asked “do child outcomes differ when the child is raised in a same-sex household." Almost all of this literature has the following characteristics: the samples are tiny and biased, the outcome measures are subjective and difficult to replicate, and the finding is always one of "no difference."

Despite the limited scientific validity of these studies, they all end with sweeping policy recommendations. It really is not a scientific literature, but rather a political literature targeted at judges, lawyers, and politicians.

Then came a paper by Michael Rosenfeld, published in Demography 2010. This paper had a large random sample and looked at normal progression though schools in the US. It was, in my opinion, the first solid piece of statistical work done on the question, and he confirmed the "no difference" finding. Later, Joe Price, Catherine Pakaluk, and myself replicated his study and found two problems.

First, he didn't find "no difference". What he found was a lot of noise, and so he was unable to statistically distinguish children in same-sex households from children in any other type of household - including ones we know are not good for children.

Second, the lack of precision in his estimates came from a decision he made to throw out children from the sample who had not lived in the same location for five years. This turned out to be heavily correlated with same-sex households. Hence, he inadvertently threw away most of the same-sex households from the sample. Without that information, he did not have the statistical power to distinguish between family types.

So, the three of us restored the sample and used the statistical technique of controlling for household stability. What we found was that children of same-sex households were about 35 percent more likely to fail a grade.

While this was going on, I was using the Canada census to look at some other questions. I noticed several things about the census that differed from the US. one. First, unlike in the US, the Canada census actually identifies same-sex couples. This solves a big measurement problem with the US census, which could include room mates, family members, and opposite sex couples as same-sex ones.

Second, the Canada census had a nice link between the children and the parents, so I was able to control for the education of the parents and their marital status. Poor performance in school is correlated with marital disruptions of parents, so this is an important control. In many ways then, the Canada census is a much better data set for addressing this question, and I decided to simply redo the Rosenfeld study using this data. (The census does not record progress through school, so I examined high school graduation rates instead).

So, what did I find? First, I simply looked at how any child in a gay or lesbian home did compared to children from married, cohabiting, and single parent homes. Most of the discussion in the paper compares children in same-sex homes to those in opposite sex married homes, but a reader can do all of the comparisons by looking at the tables.

I found that on average, children in same-sex homes were about 65 percent as likely to graduate from high school, compared to similar children in married opposite sex homes. That finding seems very similar to the one we found in the US regarding normal progress. Next, I wondered if the gender composition mattered at all, so I separated out the boys and girls. I was very surprised by the results.

On the boy side, I just found a lot of noise. Some boys do well in same-sex households; some do quite poorly. I cannot statistically determine the effect.

Just looking at the point estimates, boys in lesbian homes are about 76 percent as likely to graduate, in gay homes they are about 60 percent more likely to graduate. But neither of these are statistically significant, meaning they cannot be distinguished from zero.

Girls are another story. First, the estimates are very precise. Second, they are low. A girl in a gay household is only 15 percent as likely to graduate, in a lesbian household about 45 percent as likely. The result found by lumping all of the children together is being driven by this girl effect. This result is very robust, I tried many specifications, sample restrictions, and estimation techniques, but it always remained.

So, my paper no only rejects the "no difference" consensus, it points to a finding -- that if upheld by other studies -- seems incredibly important.
 
It's particularly hard on girls, isn't it? Why is that?
 
Allen: It is important to point out that I make no theoretical claims in the paper. I'm simply pointing out an empirical finding that is based on a high quality large random sample, and which is inconsistent with almost everything that has come before.

Having said that, as an economist, I would make the following speculation: specialization. It makes sense to me that fathers and mothers are not perfect substitutes. Indeed, mothers may provide some parenting services that a father cannot provide, and fathers may provide parenting services that mothers cannot. These services may be necessary for girls but not necessary for boys.

For example, I've been told by medical people that when a biological father is present in the home, daughters begin menstruation at an older age. Later menstruation is likely correlated with delayed sexual activity, etc., and this may lead to a better likelihood of high school completion.

It seems to me there could be dozens of channels this could work. As a father of two girls and one boy, I've often had discussions with other parents noting that with boys you just have to keep them fed and away from explosives, but with girls rearing is a little more complicated. That's a poor attempt at humour, but the bottom line is this is an interesting question that deserves to be looked at.

One explanation of poor school performance in general is that children of same-sex couples may be discriminated against at school. This seems less likely given the different finding between boys or girls. Or at least one would have to come up with a different more complicated story of discrimination.
 
This turns the conventional wisdom on its head, doesn't it? Most people think that there is no difference. Was there anything wrong with the quality of previous research?
 
Allen: I think I've answered this above. I should point out one other thing, however. I've read just about every paper on this subject that has been published since 1995. Although many of them claim to find "no difference", they often do find something. Again, the finding is coming from a biased small sample, but differences are found. For example, children growing up in same-sex homes are more likely to experiment with alternative sexual lifestyles, etc.

I should also point out that not all studies are created equal. For example, an Australian sociologist named Sotirios Sarantakos has done considerable work in the 1990s that (though not random) uses large longitudinal studies of objective, verifiable, and hard measures of performance. He finds many differences with children in same-sex households in terms of mathematics, language and other school performance measures. Interestingly, his work is never referenced in most literature surveys. Again, this points to the political nature of this literature.
 
Your conclusions are based on Canadian census data. Why is that better than US data?
 
Allen: I've mentioned this above, but let me give more detail. The US census does not identify same-sex cohabiting or married couples. So how did Rosenfeld and others find them? They looked at a series of questions: for example, what is your sex, are you married, what is the sex of your spouse? If someone answered male / yes / male, then this would be considered a gay couple.

The problem with this is that it can lead to a number of measurement issues. Suppose I'm a married man, bunking with another man in a work camp (this may seem far fetched, but it is a real example). When I answer the survey I say I'm male, I'm married, and I'm currently living with a male. I may get counted as a same-sex couple even though I'm not. This can happen with same-sex family members who live together, room mates, and others.

There is also the problem of random mistakes. No one fills out a form perfectly, and sometimes the wrong box is ticked off. Because there are so many heterosexuals compared to gays and lesbians, it only takes a small fraction of seniors to tick off the wrong sex box and it can swamp the same-sex sample. The Canada census avoids these problems. It not only identifies same-sex couples, but they must be in a cohabiting or marriage relationship.

Canada has also had legal same-sex marriage before the census was taken. Many have argued that Canada is more open and accepting of same-sex marriage. As a result, the reporting bias is likely lower in Canada than in the US.

Finally, as mentioned above, I was able to control for the marital history of the parents. This also turns out to be statistically important, and in the paper I show what happens when this is not controlled for. Children in same-sex households are much more likely to come from a previous heterosexual marriage than from adoption or other means. Divorce, however, reduces the likelihood of graduation. If you don't control for this effect, children of same-sex households look like they do even worse at graduation. So this is an important variable to consider.

Does your study prove conclusively that there is no difference? What questions does it raise?
 
Allen: Assuming there are no mistakes in the study, it rejects the claim that there is "no difference." I personally think that in social science we should never place too much weight on a given study. It is important that we look at evidence from different countries, etc. I would say this study builds on a few others that are questioning the long held consensus. An examination of the literature shows that the consensus is built on only a series of preliminary work. Now that people have started looking at this more seriously, we're finding no evidence for that conclusion.
 
In such a contentious field, will your study make an impact upon the public debate?
 
Allen: I don't know, but I suspect it will have little impact. The debate seems to have shifted from the statistical lab to the bumper sticker. The concept of "marriage equality" and the alignment of same-sex marriage rights with the civil rights movement seems so powerful that I doubt one little study will matter much.

If there is merit to the study, and if there really is a difference that matters, I think it is much more likely that 20 years from now we'll be asking "how did we get here and how can we clean up the mess" -- in much the way we now wonder how we ended up in a world where so many children are raised by single parents.
 
Sociologist Mark Regnerus published a paper which came to a similar conclusion last year and was all but crucified by his colleagues and activists. Do you expect a similar reaction?
 
Allen: Prior to the publication of his paper I was unaware of Professor Regnerus' existence. Because I was working in this area I saw what immediately happened. I was struck by the hypocrisy of those who attacked him.

Here was someone who had looked at the literature and decided to do something better. There were tiny samples, so he went and found a large sample. There was nothing but bias and snowballing (the procedure of asking friends to join a study), so he did a random procedure. There was way too much soft-balling of questions, so he asked a series of quantifiable ones. He was trying to improve the work, and that is commendable.

Was his study perfect? No, but a study never is. His great error, of course, was that he found the wrong answer. Those who came later and complained about the things he did should have been equally outraged by what had come before. Had Regnerus found otherwise, they would have lauded his work as path-breaking.

I rather suspect this will not happen to me for a number of reasons. First, after the Demography comment came out last year, my university received several letters (sent to the president, various other administrators, and many of my colleagues) demanding that I be fired. These were the same tactics that were used against Professor Regnerus.

Fortunately for me, I'm well known and respected at my institution and we have a strong sense of academic freedom. Indeed, Simon Fraser University has recently been ranked as one of the safest universities to express ideas that may be politically incorrect.

Second, my study only looks at one margin of child performance: high school graduation. Professor Regnerus looked at many and in many ways he found more problems than I found.

Third, my sample is a 20 percent sample of the Canada census. No one can claim I have a small biased sample or that the agency in charge of collecting it is not trustworthy. Fourth, Professor Regnerus was first, and I think being first is much more likely to come under fire. Fifth, the US Supreme Court has already made a decision on Prop 8 and DOMA, so much of the incentive to attack has passed.

Having said that, I have come under some attack, and I would like to relay one incident that has happened.

Last week I received an email from David Badash, the editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, a prominent gay rights website. In it he said he'd heard about the study, wasn't happy about it, but wanted to talk to me before he wrote about it. I emailed back, sent him a copy, and invited him to ask me any questions about the work.

On Monday, when I arrived at work, there were a number of colourful emails waiting for me, calling me all kinds of four-letter words. I soon realized that these were coming from people who had read Mr Badash's blog page.

So I went to have a look myself. What I found was a mixture of personal attacks, misunderstandings and misrepresentations of my work, and a general meanspiritedness. Just the opposite of what I've always believed a public discussion should be.

So, maybe I'm naive, maybe the attacks will come. I hope not. Anyone who wants to read my work is welcome, and I'm willing to have a reasonable discussion about it with anyone.
 
Douglas W. Allen is the Burnaby Mountain Professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Washington, and is the author of four books and numerous articles.

Il fondatore de “young gay America” rinnega il suo passato omosessuale: Capii che l'omosessualità impedisce di trovare la propria vera identità: è per questo che i rapporti gay non sono soddisfacenti - di Michael Glatze

In BB

All'omosessualità sono arrivato facilmente, perché ero già fragile. Mia madre è morta quando avevo 19 anni. Mio padre quando ne avevo 13. Giovanissimo, ero già confuso sulla mia identità e i miei sentimenti. La confusione che provavo riguardo i miei "desideri" e l'attrazione che sentivo per i ragazzi, ha fatto si che già a 14 anni mi sentissi parte della categoria "gay". A 20 anni, mi dichiarai gay con tutti quelli che mi conoscevano. A 22 anni, divenni editore della prima rivista per giovani gay. Il contenuto fotografico rasentava la pornografia, ma ritenevo di poterlo utilizzare come piattaforma per ottenere risultati sempre maggiori. Infatti arrivò Young Gay America. Questa rivista aspirava a riempire il vuoto creato dalla precedente rivista per la quale avevo lavorato; doveva essere qualcosa di non troppo pornografico, mirata al pubblico di giovani gay americani. Young Gay America decollò. Il pubblico gay accolse calorosamente Young Gay America.

La rivista ricevette premi, riconoscimenti, rispettabilità e grandi onori, incluso il National Role Model Award da parte di Equality Forum, la più importante organizzazione gay, premio che fu consegnato l'anno seguente al Primo Ministro Canadese Jean Chrétien. E tantissime apparizioni nei media, da PBS a Seattle Times, da MSNBC alla copertina di Time magazine.

Ho prodotto, con Equality Forum e con l'aiuto di società affiliate alla PBS, il primo importante documentario che affronta il tema del suicidio di adolescenti gay "Jim In Bold"; é stato mostrato in tutto il mondo e ha ricevuto numerosi premi "best in festival".
 
Young Gay America ha organizzato una mostra fotografica, ricca di foto e storie di giovani gay di tutto il continente Nord americano; la mostra ha fatto il giro dell'Europa, del Canada e di parte degli Stati Uniti.
 
Nel 2004 Young Gay America ha lanciato la rivista YGA, che aveva la pretesa di essere il "gemello virtuoso" di altre riviste rivolte ai giovani gay. Dico "gemello virtuoso" ma la verità é che YGA era dannosa quanto qualsiasi altra rivista, era solo più "rispettabile" perché non manifestamente pornografica.
 
Mi ci vollero quasi 16 anni per scoprire che l'omosessualità non è esattamente "virtuosa". Fu difficile fare chiarezza dentro di me riguardo i miei sentimenti sulla questione, dato che la mia vita ne era completamente assorbita.
 
L'omosessualità è per sua natura pornografica. E' distruttiva e crea confusione nelle menti dei giovani, proprio in quel periodo in cui l'identità sessuale è ancora in via di definizione. Ad ogni modo, non mi resi conto di ciò fino a quando non raggiunsi i 30 anni.
 
La rivista YGA esaurì il suo primo numero in diverse città del Nord America. Il sostegno alla rivista era enorme; scuole, gruppi di genitori, biblioteche e associazioni governative, tutti sembravano volerla. Sfruttava il "filone" della "accettazione e promozione" dell'omosessualità, ed era considerata una guida. Nel 2005 mi fu chiesto di tenere un discorso al prestigioso JFK Jr. Forum della Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
 
Fu quando vidi una videoregistrazione di quella "performance", che iniziai a dubitare seriamente di ciò che stavo facendo della mia vita e della mia influenza.
 
Non conoscendo nessuno con cui poter parlare dei miei dubbi ed interrogativi, mi rivolsi a Dio, grazie anche ad un debilitante attacco di crampi intestinali causato dalle mie abitudini di vita.
 
Presto iniziai a comprendere cose che non avevo mai immaginato potessero essere reali, come il fatto che ero il leader di un movimento di peccato e corruzione. Questa frase può dare l'impressione che la mia scoperta si sia basata su un dogma, ma decisamente non é stato così.
 
Sono giunto al questa conclusione da solo.
 
Mi divenne chiaro, mentre ci riflettevo seriamente – e pregavo – che l'omosessualità ci impedisce di trovare la nostra vera identità. Non possiamo vedere la verità quando siamo accecati dall'omosessualità.
 
Crediamo, influenzati dall'omosessualità, che la lussuria non solo sia accettabile ma che sia anche una virtù. Ma non esiste "desiderio" omosessuale che sia separabile dalla lussuria.
Non volevo accettare questa verità e all'inizio ho cercato in tutti i modi di ignorarla. Ero certo, a causa della cultura e dell'influenza dei leader gay – di fare la cosa giusta.
 
D'altra parte mi sentivo spinto a cercare la verità perché avvertivo che dentro di me c'era qualcosa che non andava. Gesù Cristo ci consiglia ripetutamente di non confidare in nessuno tranne che in lui. Ed io l'ho fatto, sapendo che il Regno di Dio risiede nel cuore e nella mente di ogni uomo.
 
Ciò che ho scoperto e appreso sull'omosessualità é sorprendente.
 
Divenne chiarissimo che avrei fatto del male o rischiato di fare del male ad altre persone se avessi continuato con quella vita.
 
Mi accorsi di avere desideri omosessuali alle scuole medie quando per la prima volta iniziai a prestare attenzione ad altri ragazzi.
 
Cominciai a guarire quando per la prima volta iniziai a prestare attenzione a me stesso.
Ogni volta che provavo la tentazione di cedere alla lussuria, ne prendevo coscienza, mi fermavo e mi occupavo di essa. La chiamavo con il suo nome e poi lasciavo che si dissolvesse da sola con l'aiuto della preghiera.
 
Esiste un'enorme e vitale differenza tra ammirazione superficiale – per se stessi o per altri – e ammirazione integrale. Quando amiamo pienamente noi stessi, cessiamo di essere schiavi di desideri lussuriosi, dell'apprezzamento degli altri o di soddisfazioni fisiche. I nostri impulsi sessuali diventano intrinseci alla nostra essenza, liberi da confusioni nevrotiche.
 
L'omosessualità ci consente di evitare di scavare in profondità, oltre la superficialità e le attrazioni ispirate dalla concupiscenza – e continuerà ad essere così fino a quando avrà l' "approvazione" della Legge. Il risultato è che tantissimi perdono l'opportunità di conoscere il loro vero io, l'io fatto ad immagine di Cristo, donatoci da Dio.
 
L'omosessualità iniziò per me all'età di 13 anni e terminò quando riuscii ad isolarmi da influenze esterne e a concentrarmi intensamente sulla verità interiore – quando scoprii, all'età di 30 anni, le profondità del mio io donatomi da Dio.
 
Dio è considerato un nemico da molte persone dominate dall'omosessualità o da altri comportamenti concupiscenti, perché Egli rammenta loro chi e che cosa dovrebbero veramente essere. Queste persone preferiscono rimanere "beatamente ignare", mettendo a tacere la verità. E lo fanno condannando ed apostrofando coloro che la dichiarano con parole come "razzisti", "insensibili", "malvagi" e "discriminatori".
 
Guarire dalle ferite causate dall'omosessualità non è facile. Il sostegno è scarso e poco evidente. Il poco che c'è viene infamato, ridicolizzato, fatto tacere con la retorica o reso illegale tramite l'alterazione di norme legislative. Per trovarlo ho dovuto separare il mio sentimento di imbarazzo e le "voci" di disapprovazione da tutto ciò che avevo imparato. Parte dell'agenda omosessuale consiste nel convincere le persone a smettere di farsi domande sulla conversione e, tanto meno, sulla la sua efficacia.
 
"Uscire" dall'influenza della mentalità omosessuale è stata per me la cosa più liberatoria, sorprendente e bella che abbai mai sperimentato nella mia intera vita.
 
La lussuria ci sottrae ai nostri corpi per "fissare" il nostro spirito alla forma fisica di qualcun altro. Ecco perché i rapporti sessuali omosessuali – e qualsiasi altra forma di attività sessuale basata sulla lussuria – non è mai soddisfacente: é un processo nevrotico piuttosto che naturale, normale. La normalità è la normalità – ed è stata chiamata così perché c'è una ragione.
 
Anormale significa "ciò che ci danneggia, che danneggia la normalità". L'omosessualità ci toglie al nostro stato di normalità, al nostro di sentirci perfettamente uniti in tutte le cose, e ci divide, facendoci tormentare dal desiderio per un obiettivo fisico esterno che non potremo mai possedere.
 
Le persone omosessuali – come tutte le persone – bramano il mitico "vero amore". Il vero amore esiste davvero, ma arriva soltanto quando non abbiamo nulla che ci impedisce di lasciarlo fuoriuscire da dentro in tutto il suo splendore.
 
Non possiamo essere pienamente noi stessi se le nostre menti sono intrappolate in una spirale, in una mentalità di gruppo edificata su una protetta, autorizzata e celebrata lussuria.
Dio mi è venuto incontro quando mi sentivo confuso, perso, solo, spaventato e sconvolto. Mi ha detto – attraverso la preghiera – che non avevo nulla da temere e che ero a casa. Avevo solo bisogno di fare un po' di pulizia nella mia mente.
 
Credo che tutti, essenzialmente, conoscano la verità. Credo che questo sia il motivo per cui il Cristianesimo spaventa così tanto le persone. Perché rammenta loro la coscienza, che tutti noi possediamo.
 
La coscienza ci dice cosa sia giusto o sbagliato ed è una guida che ci permette di crescere e diventare più forti e più liberi come esseri umani. Uscire dal peccato e dall'ignoranza è sempre possibile, ma la prima cosa che tutti devono fare è abbandonare le mentalità che dividono e conquistare l'amore per l'umanità.
 
La verità sessuale può essere trovata solo se si è disposti ad accettare che la nostra cultura sanzioni i comportamenti che nuocciono alla vita. Il senso di colpa non è una ragione sufficiente per evitare le questioni difficili.
 
L'omosessualità si è presa quasi 15 anni della mia vita, una vita trascorsa tra compromessi e menzogne, perpetuate attraverso i media nazionali mirati ai giovani.
Nei Paesi Europei l'omosessualità è considerata così normale che i bambini delle scuole elementari pubbliche vengono forniti di libri dedicati ai ragazzi "gay" come letture obbligatorie.
 
La Polonia, che conosce fin troppo bene la distruzione del suo popolo ad opera di influenze esterne, sta tentando coraggiosamente di impedire all'Unione Europea di indottrinare i suoi figli con propaganda omosessuale. In riposta, l'Unione Europea ha definito "ripugnante" il Primo Ministro della Polonia.
 
Io sono stato ripugnante per parecchio tempo; sto ancora cercando di metabolizzare tutte le mie colpe.
 
In qualità di leader nel movimento per i "diritti dei gay", mi è stata data molte volte l'opportunità di parlare in pubblico. Se potessi cancellare alcune delle cose che ho detto, lo farei. Adesso so che l'omosessualità è lussuria e pornografia insieme. Non mi lascerò mai convincere del contrario, non importa quanto sciolte possano essere le loro lingue o quanto triste la loro storia. Io l'ho vissuta. Io conosco la verità.
 
Se Dio ci ha rivelato la verità c'è un motivo. Essa esiste affinché possiamo essere noi stessi. Esiste affinché possiamo condividere quel perfetto io con il mondo, per rendere perfetto il mondo. Questi non sono progetti fantasiosi o ideali astrusi: è la Verità.
 
Non ci si può purificare dai peccati del mondo in un istante, ma succederà, se non ci opponiamo orgogliosamente a questo processo. Dio alla fine vince sempre, in caso non lo sappiate.
 
(traduzione a cura di Patrizia Battisti)

Fonte: NARTH, 23 ottobre 2012

Laicity, Christianity, the West: an Historical Profile - Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi

In Catholic Culture

The paradox of the West

The relationship of the Christian faith with the West, but more specifically the Catholic faith, is essential in nature. By that I do not intend to argue that there is a sort of identity between the West and Christianity, or that Christianity is a category of the western mentality, or that Christianity can be such only within the West in a geographical, historical or cultural sense. Such a banal pretence could be all too easily rebutted in an equally banal way by remarking that Christianity saw the light of day in the eastern Mediterranean and has spread throughout the world. In other words, the ‘western’ relationship was not a contingency in the history of Christianity. Emerging in the relationship with the West have been characteristics Christianity cannot separate itself from without ceasing to exist, but from which it has historically taken its distance precisely in the West. Thus issuing forth is the problematic and paradoxical character of the West. On one hand, Christianity’s encounter with the West was “providential”[1], helped mould and shape western civilization, and in certain periods of history – especially in the XII and XIII centuries – projected a Christian civilization[2] with particularly creative expressions. On the other hand, however, developing in the West has been a process of secularisation that progressively tends to exhaust Christianity in its ability to ‘produce’ civilization. Developing for the first time only in the western world has been “a culture that constitutes the absolutely most radical contradiction not only of Christianity, but of the religious and moral traditions of society” [3]. Hence the profound ambiguity of the category of “west” as regards Christianity itself. The “resilience” and the resistance” of Christianity are faced with a decisive ‘test bench’ in the West.

Catholic dogma and the West

Often given is a rather reductive interpretation of Catholicism’s impact on western civilization in the sense of being looked upon as influence and nothing more. That is tantamount to saying that Catholicism influenced western civilization with its works charity, art, literature, religion driven social networks, the coronation of kings and the like. All this is true, but Catholicism’s profound relationship with the west concerns dogmas and is the expression of the historicity of dogmas. This expression – historicity of dogmas – does not mean dogmas evolve historically in a manner parallel with self-awareness believers have of them. This would be the modernist vision of the issue. What the expression actually means is that a dogma has an historical and real content, and may not be relegated to the realm of myth. Dogmas nourish the Church and the Church is the Body of Christ in history, a Body remaining for eternity[4]. Between dogma and Body there is an indivisible unity, such that a dogma is present not only in a believer’s conscience, but by its very nature becomes history, and therefore civilization. This is the realism of the Catholic faith.

The Church has moulded western Christian civilization with its dogmas defined in its dogmatic Councils. Nowadays there is a widespread underrating of doctrine in the life of the Church and an emphasis on pastoral praxis, which runs the risk of thrusting this important aspect into the background. I’d like to offer two examples in this regard. The first of them has to do with Gnosis. The condemnation of Arianism and the definition of the human and divine nature of Jesus contradicted Gnosis, which was an expression of Hellenic rationalism. This entailed a lengthy process, which involved both Councils and the work of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church. This ‘match’ has yet to be won since alongside the Gnosis of the early centuries of Christianity there is an “eternal Gnosis”, but the battle of Christian dogma against Gnosis preserved human civilization from the catastrophes of Catharism, the simultaneous refusal and exaltation of matter, the destruction of matrimony and the family, and the refusal of political authority. It produced fruits of civilization in the form of the just consideration of evil and suffering, and defended against nihilism. The defence of the Old Testament against the Gnostic onslaught made it possible to preserve the positive vision of creation and the historical social dimension of the Christian faith. The baptism of children, prayers for the dead, priestly celibacy and the worship of images: what benefits brought by these elements to western civilization, and all of them would have been lost forever by a possible prevalence of Gnosis. What damage would have been caused by pauperism, pacifism, Gnostic-type radical purism if they had been able to spread without restraint! When commenting on the battle of Muret on 13 September 1213, when Simone de Montfort, after having attended Mass celebrated by St. Dominic, led 1,000 men in a rout of the Aragonese army supporting the Albigensians with 40,000 men, Jean Guitton said: “Muret is one of those decisive battles where the destiny of a civilization was decided. Strangely enough, most historians overlook this fact”[5].

The second example concerns Pious IX and the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus. The definition of this dogma issued forth from a theological reading of the events of the liberal revolution. According to Pious IX all the contemporary errors stemmed from the negation of original sin, and hence the irreconcilability between God and sin. The aim of life had to be the progress of man and the world; modern man had to become autonomous and self-sufficient, liberating himself from the tutelage of the Church; religion was only useful for purposes of civil progress and had to be subordinate to it. Once original sin was denied, however, there was no place for Christ, the Church and for grace.

In the face of such a vision of things Pious IX wanted to reiterate the irreconcilability between God and the sin of the world, as well as the fact that the ultimate aim of the world and history is not the celebration of human progress, but the glory of God. And he did this by proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, “glorious victor over heresies”.

The violent events Pious IX had to witness were part of a plan to emancipate the natural order from the supernatural order. He was of the opinion that it was not possible to come to terms with this plan, that it could not be “Catholicised”. Hence the genesis of the Encyclical Letter Quanta cura and the Sillabo, which are not to be separated from the profound theological significance of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, but, together with Vatican Council I, seen as Pious IX’s response to modern sin. Not by chance was 8 December an important date for all of them: the proclamation of the dogma on that date in 1854, the Quanta cura and the Sillabo in 1864, and the opening of Vatican Council I in 1869[6].

The construction of western civilization took place with dogmas. Dogma was the principle wellspring for countering the apostasy of the West from Christianity. And this because that apostasy had also become dogmatic.

The secularisation of the West

I intentionally took an example from the early centuries of Christianity and a second one from modernity. Between them there is the construction of a Christian civilization and then a progressive parting from it through ever more accentuated secularisation. Nonetheless, since many are those who attribute this secularisation to Christianity itself, things become a bit complicated. But let’s take it by steps.

Perhaps less than well known may be the fact that the most enthusiastic exaltation of the importance of the Catholic Church for western civilization is contained in the work, which, more so than any other, theorized a rigorous and complete secularisation of that selfsame civilization, I am referring to Auguste Comte’s The Course in Positive Philosophy. Karl Löwith, in his rightly famous book “Meaning in History. The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, cites Comte’s laudatory words regarding Catholicism[7] and argues that Comte held the Catholic system in high esteem especially as regards the separation of spiritual power from temporal power. That’s what we could call laicity. Regarding Protestantism, on the other hand, Comte thought it had favoured “the emancipation of temporal power and the subordination of spiritual power to national interests”[8]. Catholicism had founded an order, while Protestantism “had laid the foundations for the modern philosophical revolution, proclaiming the right of each individual to free enquiry in all fields”[9]. Comte was of the opinion that “the degeneration of the European system has but one cause, that being the political degradation of spiritual power”, and Karl Löwith comments: “If we think each immature spirit was left to its own decisions in the most important matters, there is reason for being surprised that morality did not decline completely”[10]. Back during his times it had yet to decline completely.

The work by Karl Löwith I have cited here explains in a convincing manner how the modernist philosophy of history from Voltaire all the way to Nietzsche consists in a progressive secularisation of Catholic dogmas. A turning point of great interest in this secularisation process is to be found in Comte. In Catholic dogma he saw the condition for the existence of the social order according to a principle of distinction between temporal and spiritual power based on the political role of spiritual power. Nonetheless, he also saw that this equilibrium was by then in disarray because in the wake of the “Protestant revolutions”, the spiritual realm had abdicated its duties over the temporal order, and the latter had emancipated itself from the spiritual realm. At one and the same time, therefore, in Comte we have utmost praise for the historical structure of Catholicism and its most radical negation through the proposal of a equally absolute but radically lay position: the positive spirit. According to Henri de Lubac, Comte’s positivism is the most radical among the forms of contemporary atheistic humanism insofar as it projects a life without God, with no more regrets or illusions, and precisely for this reason has the same motivating force of a religion able to construct an order. An order without God. In de Lubac’s mind this project was and remains doomed to failure.[11] This, however, is not the point of interest for us at the moment. What interests us here is its “dogmatic” character, dogmatic in the sense of being radically and absolutely anti-Catholic. Then again, if the construction of the West had been due to Catholic dogmas, and if the ‘dismantling’ had taken place through the secularisation of Catholic dogmas as so will demonstrated by Karl Löwith, the decisive turning point had to take place when secularisation also assumed the character of dogmatic absoluteness. This transpired with Comte, and we can therefore say positivism is the dogma of modernity. 

Regarding the presumed irreversibility of secularisation

I’d like to return to Karl Löwith’s comment about the modern autonomy of the temporal sphere from the spiritual one cited above: “If we think each immature spirit was left to its own decisions in the most important matters, there is reason for being surprised that morality did not decline completely”. Coming to the surface here is a decisive point in the issue at hand: does the emancipation of the temporal from the spiritual, the replacement of Christian salvation with progress and religion with science produce true autonomy capable of self-conservation at its own level, or does it produce “decadence”? Löwith seems to align with the latter position, and in the commentary under consideration considers it miraculous that it proved possible to maintain an albeit weak form of morality after this detachment.

Laicity understood as the mutual distinction of the temporal sphere and the spiritual sphere is an historical contribution of Christianity. Said distinction, however, did not mean the separation and absolute autonomy of the temporal sphere from the spiritual sphere, but took place within Christian civilization, against a religious horizon. The Christian sovereign acted autonomously, deploying political prudence, which means exercising liberty within a system of truths whose ultimate guarantor was the Church, which in Catholic dogmas conserved and protected the patrimony of natural law as well.

As Karl Löwith remarks, however, beginning with modernity is an ever more demanding secularisation that renders the temporal sphere “capax sui”, autonomous in an absolute sense, sufficient unto itself, and able to endow itself with sense. Initially this ‘sense’ was borrowed from Christian dogmas through a secularised interpretation of them, but then claimed more and more as proper to secularisation itself, and this seems to have occurred especially with Comte and positivism.

Published in 1968 was the book “On the Theology of the World” written by Johann Baprist Metz, a German theologian and disciple of Karl Rahner. Prior to this he had written “Christian Anthropocentricity” in which he had argued that secularisation had been caused by Christianity and was hence a Christian fact to be accepted and lived as a fruit of Christianity, not to be fought against as contrary to Christian faith. In this manner the process of secularisation was interpreted as irreversible. In this later book Metz sustained that in the wake of secularisation the world had by now become completely worldly: “This the world where God is not encountered” [12]. In is opinion, “for a long time – almost up to the beginning of the last Council – the Church had followed this process only with resentment, considered it almost exclusively as a downfall and a false emancipation, and only quite slowly built up the courage to let the world become ‘worldly’ in this sense, and hence consider this process not just a fact contrary to the historical intentions of Christianity, but rather a fact determined also by the most profound historical impulses of this Christianity and its message” [13].

In my opinion it is not correct to retain that positivist secularisation stems from Christianity itself, nor can we accept the view that it is the destiny of history. The irreversibility of secularisation is a positivist dogma issuing forth from an ideological reading of history, the Comtean reading of the law of the three stages, whereby humanity would have evolved from the religious stage to the metaphysical stage to the positive stage in an irreversible manner.
What are the ultimate reasons why positivist secularisation cannot be seen as a consequence of Christianity, or considered irreversible?

The first reason is that positivism cannot help but project itself as a new religion. We saw this above: secularisation becomes such when it does not limit itself to being the immanent reformulation of Catholic dogmas, detaches itself completely from Christian tradition, and proposes itself as an absolute principle. For as long as Hegel, Marx, Pr0udhon, and Voltaire, Condorcet, and Turgot before them had limited themselves to replicating Christianity by proposing an immanent and secularised version of it, the phases of secularisation could not lay a claim to true self-autonomy or embody secularisation in the true sense. The process remained linked to Christianity and continued to be reversible. What other way to sever this umbilical cord with Christianity than to propose secularisation as an absolute principle? Hence its religious character; religious no longer in the sense of still being in debt to the ‘old’ religion, but religious in the sense of religiously expressing an absolute anti-religiosity.
This secularisation is not the fruit of Christianity.

The eclipse of nature and human nature in particular

As already remarked above, the second reason has to do with the possibility for the temporal level emancipated from the spiritual level to maintain itself without succumbing to self-degeneration.

Having acquired the feature of religious absoluteness, as we have just seen, secularisation is destined to be opposed to the concept of nature, as well as the concept of human nature. This is because otherwise maintained would be a moral order that would constantly and implicitly demand completion of some sort of religious form. If nature remains, so does natural law, that being the order of nature that expresses a moral norm. In its turn, the norm contained in natural law would keep ever open the issue of its absolute and transcendent foundation, because in itself the moral order needs an absolute foundation. Proposed anew, therefore, would be the ‘old’ religion. For as long as Hugo Grotius denies the transcendent foundation of natural law, but maintains natural law, there is no irreversibility: the need for a transcendent foundation can be argued and recovered. But if nature is denied, as does positivism, this becomes definitively impossible and we have irreversibility.

Naïve, therefore, is the perplexed astonishment voiced by Karl Löwith. It is not possible for the natural level to endure on its own once detached from the supernatural level. The stark version of positivism projects itself as a “new beginning”, absolute and religiously anti-religious. In order to do this it cannot help but deny nature and natural law. Their decomposition and their abandonment may well be progressive in time, but the principle of this process is stipulated in its absoluteness from the very outset. What we witness nowadays is a rampant and alarming negation of nature and natural law. Without the support of the Christian religion the natural dimension of procreation, matrimony and the family is not able to hold its ground. The so-called “gender ideology”[14] is the most recent outpost of this negation of nature and human identity.

West means Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. Benedict XVI repeated his in his famous speech to the Bundestag in Berlin[15]. However, when Christianity encountered Greek thought and Roman civilization, in addition, quite naturally, to the Jewish religion, it discovered in them both openness to transcendence and consideration of the force of natural law. It found a pre-Christian but human world. Today, however, it is faced with a post-human and hence radically post-Christian world.

The religious proposal of laicity

I have depicted an historical profile more in terms of the history of ideas than the history of facts, and this itinerary has shown that laicity is a Christian concept. This concept implies the separation of the political sphere from the ecclesial one, temporal power from spiritual power. It does not, however, call for the separation of politics from ethics, because the political sovereign, who is distinct from he who exercises spiritual authority, acts according to rational prudence and not in an arbitrary manner, since “there are limits to what the State may command, also when it is a matter of what belongs to Caesar” [16]. Neither in terms of personal will or discretion, nor in terms of a “will expressed by the majority”: as far as this point is concerned democracy has not contributed – in theory – to any radical change of perspective. Insofar as inseparable from ethics, to which it is directly bound, politics is also inseparable from religion as such and from the Catholic religion in particular. In fact, the ethical level is ultimately unable to serve as its own foundation by remaining at the simply natural level: “If we do not first understand our relationship with God we’ll never be able to keep these ambits in correct order” [17].

In modernity, however, another concept of laicity saw the light of day. Initially this was divined as the secularisation of Christian dogmas, but then became radically detached from Christianity and from any order, erecting itself as a new absolute and religious principle. This happened with positivism understood as a perennial category. In this manner the political level became completely autonomous from the religious level, but it also became incompatible with Christianity by assuming a religious form in itself. This is how relativism became a dictatorship.

In the face of such a scenario, rather naïve is the attempt on the part of Christianity to “laicise itself”, abandoning the cloak of dogmas and doctrine in order to dialogue with the lay world. If there were anything akin to a non absolute lay level open to human nature and religion, dialogue on laicity involving believers would prove possible. Unfortunately, this is not the main trend, and the reason is quite simple and grave at one and the same time: in order to be ‘lay’ in the sense we have just seen, laicity needs the Christian religion. Therefore, a laicity that has projected itself with positivism as an absolute and religious principle cannot be ‘lay’. This is the paradox of the west: the farther away people go from Christianity in order to be ‘lay’, all the less are they so.

Following this paradox is yet another one. If Christians wish to contribute to positive laicity they must propose the religious dimension of their faith in its completeness, without any forms of horizontal reductionism. Here as well is the reason so tragically simple: in a religiously post-human world it is necessary to begin from the proposal of Christ and then, within the religious vision, recover the human dimension and hence the ‘lay’ dimension. This is where the Social Doctrine of the Church encounters “new evangelisation”.

Endnotes

[1] This expression is used often by Joseph Ratzinger lo indicate the encounter of the Christian faith with Greek philosophy, and we can also use it in the broader sense of encounter with the West. Cf for example: J. Ratzinger, Fede Verità Tolleranza. Il cristianesimo e le religioni del mondo, Cantagalli, Siena 2003, p. 98.
[2] Fundamental references are the works of Christopher Dawson: La formazione della civiltà occidentale, D’Ettoris editori, Crotone 2011; Id., La divisione della Cristianità occidentale, D’Ettoris editori, Crotone 2009.
[3] J. Ratzinger, L’Europa di Benedetto nella crisi delle culture, Cantagalli, Siena 2005, p. 37.
[4] J. Ratzinger,Fede Verità Tolleranza. Il cristianesimo e le religioni del mondo cit., p. 74.
[5] J. Guitton, Il Cristo dilacerato. Crisi e concili nella storia, Cantagalli, Siena 2002, p. 166.
[6] Cf R. de Mattei, Pio IX e la rivoluzione italiana, Cantagalli, Siena 2012.
[7] K. Löwith, Significato e fine della storia. I presupposti teologici della filosofia della storia, Il Saggiatore, Milano 2010, pp. 98-104 (prima edizione 1977).
[8] Ibid, p. 100.
[9] Ibid, p. 101.
[10] Ibid, p. 103.
[11] De Lubac H., Il dramma dell’umanesimo ateo, Morcelliana, Brescia 1988.
[12] J. B. Metz, Sulla teologia del mondo, Queriniana, Brescia 1969, p. 144.
[13] Ibid, pg. 141.
[14] Osservatorio Internazionale Cardinale Van Thuân sulla Dottrina sociale della Chiesa, Fourth Report on the Social Doctrine of the Church in the World (edited by G. Crepaldi and S. Fontana), Cantagalli, Siena 2012.
[15] Benedetto XVI, Seech at the Reichstag in Berlin, 22 September 2011.
[16] J. V. Schall,Filosofia politica della Chiesa cattolica, Cantagalli, Siena 2011, p. 123.
[17] Ibid, pg. 122.