Posted on 07/20/2013 1:13:17 PM PDT by ReformationFan
Can the family die, as a legal and social institution in Italy? Such a question could not even have been asked 40 years ago in this country, but in that time, the social and demographic landscape has changed dramatically, and the unthinkable is going on around us.
For some time I’ve been thinking about and reading various opinions on how the destruction of marriage as a legal and social institution in the formerly Christian West, has forwarded the aims of that nebulously defined, but apparently all-powerful, class of people I’ve come to call, simply, “the Statists” or “the Secularists.”
It’s not that I have had any doubts that the deadly combination of loosened divorce laws, new sexual mores, contraception and legalized abortion – and now “gay marriage” – has been deliberately concocted by these people or for what end. It is perfectly clear that the entire grand project of social reordering has been calculated and deliberate. What I’ve wanted to know is exactly how, by what mechanisms, the abolition of marriage has transferred real power – the ability to make efficacious decisions – from the lowest, smallest and most personal levels of society to the highest, remotest, and most impersonal.
Of course, the way to figure that out is to look at how the family itself has tended to diffuse power through a given society’s institutions, and consequently, away from a centralized state.
Of all the world’s cultures, Italy is possibly the best example of how the family creates a bulwark against the overweening power of the state.
Until very recently, the Italian social order, perhaps more than any other nation on earth, was almost totally oriented towards the family, and as a consequence it barely functioned as a centrally governed nation state.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
Good quote.
Family is still very, very, very much alive in Italy.
It was Italy's equivalent of the Second Amendment.
On what do you base your assertion, since the article and many others like it point out that the birth rate has fallen below the replacement level. Italy has been beset by the same Marxist b.s. we have to put up with here, from feminists and environmentalists to homosexualists, securlarists and islamists, constantly suing the government on behalf of their obsessions. Stick a fork in Italy.
Balderdash.. These perverts cannot, and will not penetrate my family, or any other Italian family that I know.. The family, any family including an Italian one, that is already fractured can be compromised..
Even in divorce, my exwife and I have kept our family close.. How and why, because it’s THE FAMILY.. That’s how... :)
The economic issues are not easy to fix, and mirror much of what we're dealing with here. Socialism, exporting manufacturing abroad, and nonsensical immigration are issues.
For Hilary to equate 'statists' as 'secularists,' is preposterous.
There’s another theory about family in Italy. It’s said that Italian gregariousness was due to their large families. In other words, an Italian is not used to being alone and does not like to be alone.
Mussolini cleverly exploited this personal quality with his mass rallies and choreographed cheering (”Duce! Duce!”) long before Hitler copied the same technique. People were made to feel part of something huge and experienced a certain `togetherness’ at the same time.
Fractiousness in Italian politics is more based on regional and economic rivalries, in my estimation. What is definitely changing is the Italian family. Their birth rate is declining like the rest of western Europe, among a people who were said to cherish their children like no other.
My daughter and her family were treated as very unusual, with "all those children!
Another thing I noticed was that most "couples" weren't even married but just living together (like so many young couples in the U. S.), those Italians living together as married were from all age categories.
I asked one Italian lady if the couples waited until becoming pregnant before marrying but was told, "No, they aren't going to have children, so no need to get married."
There is not much religion or faith noticable in many parts of Italy that I noticed either, only a few old ladies dressed in long black dresses entering the mostly vacant churches.
It was weird at Christmas and Easter, no observable religious celebrations at all. Only observable "celebrations" were banners here and there to celebrate this or that Saint with, nothing else.
If this is the "hope" for Western Civilization, according to the writer, I'm afraid it's doomed.
“The majority of Christians are statists. Take care of your fellow man through big government. Nothing more Christian than that, right?”
Taking care of one’s fellow man is certainly a Christian ideal but where in the Bible does it say do so through a big government?
Very different in parts of southern Italy, and definitely not overly secular (definitely less secular than the US). Milan is a bit like New York, from an Italian perspective, and I would not be surprised if the surrounding towns were not similar. Go to Salerno or Naples during Christmas.
Many parts of Northern Italy are more Germanic, than Italian.
That is exactly what you should be asking the millions, upon millions of leftist Christians who eternize big government, not me.
When you drive north to where the town & city names are in both Italian and German (Bolzano/Bozen), you’re in the land of Lega Nord. They’ve wanted a separate Northern Italy for quite some time.
I found the people there seemed to combine German efficiency with Italian simpatico, a pleasant mix. But then, I liked the Napolitani too.
Say what?
That. Indubitable.
Hardly.
Where my daughter lived was not in Milan, but was actually in a suburb or another very small town, very quaint, not at all urban but still quite Euro secular.
Folks around the area were very, very nice, just not at all religious and certainly not believers.
Considering that Italy has a birth ratevbelow replacement level, the only “family values” I still see there are middle aged men mooching off their parents for housing and food.
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