RADIANCE VIEWSWEEKLY: Italy’s top Cardinal has denounced a far-right lawmaker for making anti-Islam statements in a church planned to host interfaith prayers in the northern city of Genoa. “(I express) total disapproval (of Italian and Euro MP Mario Borghezio’s vow to) defend Christianity against profanation by Islam,” Angelo Bagnasco, the Bishop of Genoa and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera on August 9. During a rally on August 8 to protest plans by the city council to hold interfaith prayers in the church, a former hospital of the Knights of Malta in the 13th century, Borghezio burst into the church, accompanied by dozens of people waving the Northern League’s flag. The far-right MP then swore to “continue the fight of the Knights of the Order of Malta to defend Christianity.” Bishop Bagnasco said that MP has violated the sanctity of the church. “(The church is) solely a place for prayer and worship.”
The Northern League is notorious for its anti-Muslim stances. Portraying itself as a defender of Italy’s Christian roots, the League started its mission in the new government in May with bringing down a mosque in the northern city of Verona. Last September the party rejoiced the success of its campaign to halt the building of a mosque in the northern city of Bologna. [Source: Italy’s Top Cardinal Denounced Anti-Islam MP]
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Italy)
