With a new centre-left party confident of winning Catholic votes in April's general election, Silvio Berlusconi's grasp over that constituency could slip, writes Paddy Agnew.
It might have been a scene out of CSI, Italian-style. Two police squad cars, sirens blaring, pulled into the hospital courtyard. Out jumped seven policemen who immediately divided themselves into three groups as they set off in search of their quarry.
So who was the dangerous criminal? Why such a show of force in Naples's Nuovo Policlinico hospital? Had a Camorra godfather dropped into the hospital for a clandestine check-up? No, the object of this particular operation, carried out two weeks ago, was a 39-year-old unmarried Neapolitan woman who had just had an abortion.
Still groggy from the anaesthetic, Silvana (surname withheld) was subjected to a full-scale interrogation, with police wanting to know why she had had a termination, who the father was and even if she had bribed the hospital medical staff. In effect, the police had been acting on a misleading tip-off suggesting that Silvana had been given an illegal abortion, that is, after the 24th week of her pregnancy.
In reality, this was not so. It emerged that not only was Silvana in the 21st week of her pregnancy but also that she had chosen to have a termination only after an amniocentesis test revealed that the foetus had grave abnormalities. In various interviews, Silvana pointed out that she had "desperately wanted" the child but that it had been found to suffer from Klinefelter's Syndrome, a chromosome disorder that can cause mental retardation, diabetes and heart problems as well as affecting male sexual development.
The "Silvana" case inevitably prompted a bitter polemic, with feminist movements and pro-choice campaigners registering strident protests not just in Naples but also at demonstrations in Rome, Bologna, Milan and elsewhere. Even centre-left health minister Livia Turco called the incident a witch hunt, adding that it reflected a "climate of unacceptable tension" about "one of the most dramatic decisions a woman can ever make". So, what was going on? At least part of the answer is that we are currently in a general election campaign in Italy (polling days are April 13th and 14th), an election in which prominent journalist (and former Berlusconi government minister) Giuliano Ferrara has opted to run his own anti-abortion "List For Life". Like it or not (and many don't), abortion seems set to become a campaign issue.
NOT FOR THE first time, the "Catholic vote" is being closely assessed and lovingly wooed by many of the electoral protagonists. If it is obvious that in contemporary Italy there are Catholics on the left, just as on the right, there is a sense that many Catholics might just now come under the category of "undecided".
Put simply, this election presents some new and intriguing scenarios. For a start, at elections over the last 14 years, there was always the suspicion that centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi polled a strong "Catholic" vote, because for many Catholics anything, even the far-from-model-Catholic Berlusconi, was better than a centre-left coalition that contained dirty, redder-than-red, unreformed communists. After all, from 1948 until the fall of Eastern-bloc communism, Italian politics was dominated by a church versus communism, communist PCI versus Catholic Christian Democrat divide. Old habits die hard.
This time, however, the largest centre-left formation, the newly formed Partito Democratico (in a sense, an amalgamation of the old enemies, ex-PCI and ex-Christian Democrats) led by former mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni, has chosen to go it alone, without extreme left parties such as Rifondazione Comunista and the Italian Communists (both offshoots of the PCI). In simple terms, the Partito Democratico (PD) now looks much more "centre" than "left".
Underlining that tendency will be a "convention" of PD Catholics in Rome next week, under the title "Educating for the Common Good". Even if the PD electoral programme is committed to liberal causes such as legislation to protect the rights of unmarried and same-sex couples, as well as to a defence of Italy's current, 30-year-old abortion law, there are many in the PD camp who remain optimistic about winning the Catholic vote: "I just don't want to hear anyone tell me that Catholics cannot vote on the left. I feel very optimistic: there are many Catholics in the PD and, miraculously, they are all united," said Opus Dei member and PD senator Paola Binetti this week.
IF CATHOLICS ON the centre-left are feeling good, how do things look on the centre-right? When the starter's flag dropped on this particular electoral race, former prime minister and centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi was the hottest of hot favourites, given a 10-15 point lead by various opinion polls.
Berlusconi remains the favourite to win the election and head the next government, but his parliamentary majority might not be quite as emphatic as originally expected. Here again, the Catholic vote is a factor.
The decision of his one-time ally, the (ex-Christian Democrat) UDC to run on its own ticket may not prompt much voter movement, but it leaves Berlusconi's Freedom Party (PDL) significantly more on the "right" than in the "centre". Not for nothing, Berlusconi has declined to include Giuliano Ferrara's anti-abortion list on his ticket. He may well have calculated that if he is to regain the centre ground, he had best leave the strident tones of an anti-abortion campaign well alone.
THERE ARE FEW things Silvio Berlusconi does better than running an election campaign. His marketing abilities and his intuitive grasp of the electorate's mood are second to none. His attention to detail is legendary. In that context, it may be significant that this week he introduced a new "backdrop" for one of his first campaign TV interviews, released of course to his own Rete 4 channel.
Gone was the secular, book-shelf lined, quasi-intellectual backdrop that marked his famous January 1994 speech, when he announced that he was taking "to the field" of Italian politics. The 2008 Berlusconi backdrop is straight out of the convent, with a Chinese vase of flowers backed up by a mother and child bas-relief sculpture and a pious brother-and-sister style renaissance painting. Are we angling for a rather different voter here? Are we trying to reassure the conservative centre ground? While the campaign rages, the church has not been silent. Indeed, some sections of the Italian church have been all too talkative for the taste of the Holy See. L'Avvenire, the daily run by the Italian Bishops Conference, pointed out that Catholics had problems with both left and right. While the left was intent on promoting legislation not to the liking of the church (abortion, unmarried couples), the right ran the risk of being totally dominated by padre padrone Berlusconi.
L'Avvenire even went so far as to suggest that the Catholic UDC should stay within the Berlusconi camp, calling on the UDC to guarantee the (moral) "quality" of its candidates.
Lest anyone thought that the church, too, was about "to take to the field" and get directly stuck into the electoral debate (indirectly, the church is always in the thick of the Italian debate), the official Holy See mouthpiece, L'Osservatore Romano, pointed out that the Holy See was not to be confused with the Italian Bishops Conference. In other words, for the Holy See, there are Catholics on both sides of the fence and we love them all. Okay, but which way are they going to vote next April?