Italy
What a Murder by Mussolini Teaches Us About Khashoggi and M.B.S. (NY Times, Oct. 23, 2018)
The murder of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudis has striking parallels with the murder of the Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti by Fascist thugs. In the weeks after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, a question has been repeatedly asked: How could the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, be so…
Continue readingA BOMBSHELL DOCUMENT AT THE VATICAN SYNOD, New Yorker, October 13, 2014
Since Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, a little more than a year and a half ago, the Argentine has radically changed the tone and the mood surrounding the Catholic Church. But the question remained: How would he handle the difficult doctrinal issues of sexuality and family life that have divided the Catholic world? We are…
Continue readingIN NEW YORK, RENZI MANIA OR RENZI REMORSE?, New Yorker, September 27, 2014
Matteo Renzi, the Prime Minister of Italy, quite self-consciously made Silicon Valley the first stop of his first official American visit: “not New York, not Washington, not Boston,” Renzi pointed out, somewhat undiplomatically, to his audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, in New York, a decidedly more staid group than the ones that he…
Continue readingTHE POPE EXCOMMUNICATES THE MAFIA, FINALLY, New Yorker, June 24, 2014
In some ways, it is surprising that Pope Francis made news by travelling to Calabria and excommunicating members of the Mafia. He went to a town where members of a local Mafia group, known as the ’Ndrangheta, had murdered a three-year-old boy, together with his grandfather, and burned their bodies, in a case tied up…
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