Obama at Notre Dame: The View from the Vatican

Or, at least, the view in Italian.

An MOJ reader--Pasquale Annicchino, who is a Junior Fellow in the Law and Religion Programme, Siena, Italy, and also Editor in Chief of the Human Rights Review, University College, London--sent me a piece in Italian.  Because I cannot read Italian, I asked Pasquale to translate the piece for me.  For those of you who *can* read Italian, here is the link to the piece. For those of you who cannot read Italian, here is the translation Pasquale kindly provided to me:

Are the “Parallel-empires” back?

As the Associated Press reported yesterday,  the speech that President Obama gave at Notre Dame was  appreciated within Vatican walls.  After its positive review of Obama's first 100 days in office, the Vatican did not take any strong position against Barack Obama. 

Several articles and op-eds have been  recently devoted in the U.S. to the relationship between the Holy See and the new president after the Notre Dame speech.

If for Time Magazine the Pope was “sidestepping Notre Dame” , it may be worth to have a look at what Gian Maria Vian, editor in chief of the Osservatore Romano said today during an interview with Paolo Rodari for the daily “Il Riformista”. Here are some quotes:

“Obama has not upset the world (...) His speech at Notre Dame has been respectful toward every position. He tried to engage the debate stepping out from every ideological position and outside every  “clash logic”. To this extent his speech is to be appreciated”. (...) “Let me be clear, the Osservatore stands where the American bishops are: we consider abortion a disaster. We must promote, always and at every level a “culture of life”. What I want to stress is that yesterday, on this precise  and very delicate issue, the President said that the approval of the new law on abortion is not a priority of his administration. The fact that he said that is very reassuring to me. It also  underlines a my own clear belief: Obama is not a pro-abortion president”.

Rodari stressed that judgement on the President’s record is not exactly  the same that the USCCB has. Vian answered: “This is our policy, the way we inform. If a national bishops’ conference says something , we report it. But we believe that it is appropriate to give also other relevant  elements to judge concerning international information”.

For Rodari this is the Vatican policy of the “Wait and see”,  the policy of judging step by step , traditional for Vatican realpolitik. But this statements seems to suggest more than a simple cautious overture. Are the “Parallel-empires” back?