Free Republic

ROME (Reuters) - A senior Catholic cleric has said he hopes former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be spared execution, citing the Church's opposition to the death penalty. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department, was quoted in Italy's Repubblica newspaper on Thursday saying there was a chance for last-minute clemency for Saddam after an appeals court upheld his death sentence. "There's still a period of 30 days (before the death sentence must be carried out), the president's signature is required, things can happen," Martino was reported as saying. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has also...

The Italian newspaper Il Foglio ran a piece Dec. 16 about the frustration at the Vatican, at the secretariat of state, with the imprudent, irascible anti-Americanism of Cardinal Martino, an unfortunate recent appointment (late last year) to the Institute for Justice and Peace, who has not ceased being an embarrassment to his superiors. When I was in Rome last February, Cardinal Martino was already under heavy fire for his intemperate and irrepressible anti-Americanism. Even those who before the war leaned more to the French/German position than to the American were dismayed by his uncalled-for comments. Il Foglio pointed out today...