Also this year 'Arcigay renews 'indication in favor of the "Waldensian Church - Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches" as recipient of the 8 per thousand of the Irpef.
We thus wish to recall the Vatican hierarchy's continuing attacks against the most important democratic achievements of recent decades in the field of human and civil rights.
‘The Catholic Church's hostility to any recognition of the most basic rights of homosexual citizens, manifested last year during the Gay Pride Parade, has resurfaced with arrogance in recent months with the call to all political forces to deny any recognition of rights in the next legislature. This arrogant spirit of revenge against the achievements of democratic modernity is unfortunately supported by much of the political class.
We recall the attack on secular schools and the attempt to clericalize public schools as much as possible, simultaneously depriving them of funds and resources in favor of religious schools. We recall the boycott of every serious AIDS prevention campaign and the open and repeated calls for civil discrimination against homosexual citizens and the denial of any reform aimed at granting them equal rights and dignity. The funds allocated under the 1980s mechanism to the Roman Catholic Church are largely earmarked for religious purposes, the payment of priests' salaries, and the construction of new church buildings. And we recall the shameful intermingling of curial funds with the private affairs of high-ranking prelates and their families, exposed by the investigation into embezzlement in the Curia of Naples.
Conversely, almost all other religious denominations competing for the distribution of these funds (starting with the Waldensian Church) instead allocate them exclusively to social and humanitarian purposes. Indeed, the Waldensians have even refused to participate with the Roman Catholic Church in the fraudulent mechanism envisaged by the Concordat signed during the Craxi government, under which Catholics are also given a percentage of unexpressed decisions.
On the other hand, the state itself does not deserve our generosity. The state is inert when it comes to AIDS prevention, and Italy is the only Western European country that has withheld funding for the free distribution of condoms as a prevention tool, condemning thousands of Italian adolescents each year to become infected and, in turn, infect their partners. And while it levies the same tax burden on homosexual citizens as others, it denies them not only equal rights as individuals and as couples, but even a law prohibiting discrimination against them, as repeatedly requested by the European Parliament: a law similar to those in force in almost all other Western European countries and similar to those that prohibit discrimination against other minorities in Italy.
The Waldensian and Methodist Churches, on the other hand, have long undertaken serious and courageous reflection on the issue of homosexuality (as well as on bioethics and the secular nature of the state, and, as it did years ago, on divorce and abortion). This reflection, grounded in biblical exegesis and civic engagement, aims to overcome age-old prejudices. This reflection has been manifested on numerous occasions, including last year with the solidarity shown when the Catholic Church blocked the proper holding of the Rome Gay Pride Parade. These reflections, emanating from a universally respected and recognized Christian Church, are valuable to us in our confrontation with those who would deny us equal rights and social dignity based on the supposed "natural" illicitness of our personal and moral identity.
Through this commitment to reflection and research, this significant minority in Italian society has often demonstrated that, even in this country, religious faith can motivate choices of freedom rather than clerical authoritarianism.
Sergio Lo Giudice
National President of Arcigay
Also this year 'Arcigay renews 'indication in favor of the "Waldensian Church - Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches" as recipient of the 8 per thousand of the Irpef.
We thus wish to recall the Vatican hierarchy's continuing attacks against the most important democratic achievements of recent decades in the field of human and civil rights.
‘The Catholic Church's hostility to any recognition of the most basic rights of homosexual citizens, manifested last year during the Gay Pride Parade, has resurfaced with arrogance in recent months with the call to all political forces to deny any recognition of rights in the next legislature. This arrogant spirit of revenge against the achievements of democratic modernity is unfortunately supported by much of the political class.
We recall the attack on secular schools and the attempt to clericalize public schools as much as possible, simultaneously depriving them of funds and resources in favor of religious schools. We recall the boycott of every serious AIDS prevention campaign and the open and repeated calls for civil discrimination against homosexual citizens and the denial of any reform aimed at granting them equal rights and dignity. The funds allocated under the 1980s mechanism to the Roman Catholic Church are largely earmarked for religious purposes, the payment of priests' salaries, and the construction of new church buildings. And we recall the shameful intermingling of curial funds with the private affairs of high-ranking prelates and their families, exposed by the investigation into embezzlement in the Curia of Naples.
Conversely, almost all other religious denominations competing for the distribution of these funds (starting with the Waldensian Church) instead allocate them exclusively to social and humanitarian purposes. Indeed, the Waldensians have even refused to participate with the Roman Catholic Church in the fraudulent mechanism envisaged by the Concordat signed during the Craxi government, under which Catholics are also given a percentage of unexpressed decisions.
On the other hand, the state itself does not deserve our generosity. The state is inert when it comes to AIDS prevention, and Italy is the only Western European country that has withheld funding for the free distribution of condoms as a prevention tool, condemning thousands of Italian adolescents each year to become infected and, in turn, infect their partners. And while it levies the same tax burden on homosexual citizens as others, it denies them not only equal rights as individuals and as couples, but even a law prohibiting discrimination against them, as repeatedly requested by the European Parliament: a law similar to those in force in almost all other Western European countries and similar to those that prohibit discrimination against other minorities in Italy.
The Waldensian and Methodist Churches, on the other hand, have long undertaken serious and courageous reflection on the issue of homosexuality (as well as on bioethics and the secular nature of the state, and, as it did years ago, on divorce and abortion). This reflection, grounded in biblical exegesis and civic engagement, aims to overcome age-old prejudices. This reflection has been manifested on numerous occasions, including last year with the solidarity shown when the Catholic Church blocked the proper holding of the Rome Gay Pride Parade. These reflections, emanating from a universally respected and recognized Christian Church, are valuable to us in our confrontation with those who would deny us equal rights and social dignity based on the supposed "natural" illicitness of our personal and moral identity.
Through this commitment to reflection and research, this significant minority in Italian society has often demonstrated that, even in this country, religious faith can motivate choices of freedom rather than clerical authoritarianism.
Sergio Lo Giudice
National President of Arcigay
