Ask Nathan Anything: Quarantine Edition

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

So... I have more than some questions.

How long have you been a Catholic?

Your thoughts on contraception?

Describe a political compromise on abortion you would be willing to take.

If I recall correctly you mentioned a grandmother Pasqualina and an uncle Ciro in another thread some days ago, so I'll assume you are Italian American. Did your ancestors come from Naples? Have you ever been to Italy?

Your favourite Pope of the 20th or 21st century?

Are you knowledgeable about Italian literature?

Where did you take your display name "The scissors of false economy" from?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

So... I have more than some questions.

[...]

Rewriting as I forgot one question and also you may have missed this.

Funnily I was originally going to craft my third question above as "would you accept a situation like Italy's as a compromise on abortion?"

Since you mentioned John Paul I, have you ever read Illustrissimi?

And, which of these would you apply the adjective "fascist" to?
Franco's Spain; Metaxas's Greece; Salazar's Portugal; Pinochet's Chile; Hirohito's Japan around WW2.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

How do you feel about same-sex marriage as a Catholic?

Your favourite saint?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The way you described Boston in the last paragraph makes me think that those friends of yours would find Italy the most boring place on earth lol

Massachusetts cities/towns (population <90,000) you would really suggest to visit?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

- Inspired by Alcibiades's question, what is your opinion of the Democrazia Cristiana?
(also of other "First Republic" Italian political parties, if you want)

- It seems like Japan and Italy are the two foreign countries you are the most interested to. What country is in third place?

- I have already asked you about your favourite saints, so I will now ask you: your least favourite saints?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Now if only their inheritors would extend the same kindness to their coreligionists in Southern Europe.

How relatable!

DC: Hilarious Party. Patronage- and graft-riddled megadisaster, but I do appreciate that it contained a sizeable Christian left faction and that it mostly cultivated alliances with parties to its left rather than parties to its right.
PCI: I'm fascinated by figures like Berlinguer, and of course I'm aesthetically very enamored of the old Red Regions political tradition, but as a party I'm not really sure what to make of it. My impression is that, for most of its existence, it absolutely would have aligned Italy fully with the Eastern Bloc if by some miracle it had won a general election.
PSI: I think fairly well of this party until the mid-to-late 70s or so but not thereafter.
PSDI: lol
PLI: lol
PRI: Relative freedom party.
Radicals: Eeehhhh. I know Antonio for one thinks quite highly of this party's legacy but I just don't have an S score that's negative enough to shake off my impression of them as turbocharged lolbertarians. I probably would have voted for the Radical position on the divorce referendum and the life imprisonment referendum, though.
MSI: DIE THE DEATH! SENTENCE TO DEATH! GREAT EQUALIZER IS THE DEATH! (horrible party)
Italian Unionist Movement: MAJOR FREEDOM PARTY, CONGRATS HILLGOOSE

PSDI lol and PLI lol but PRI not lol why?
PRI was insipid as hell and tbh it should probably have dissolved in 1946.

Also I agree re: Radicals.
I don't know if you know, but in 1981 besides the abortion referendum to make law n. 194 more restrictive, there was another referendum (promoted by the Radicals) to make the law much looser. Needless to say it was voted against 89-11.

IUM was hilarious but in a bad way.

Britain. I'm fascinated by it as, obviously, an extremely close political and cultural ally of the US with a culture that's so similar and yet so different. I'm also a fan of a lot of British literature and media, and it's probably the country whose history I'm most familiar with besides the US.

Yeah, I was fully expecting the answer to be Great Britain.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

@Nathan @Battista Not a question and sorry to interject, but beyond both having been in the Axis powers, the situation of Japan and Italy after WWII seems fairly analogous. Both were dominated by center-right parties, creating essentially what are called "single party dominant" party systems, backed up by (the perception of?) American intelligence operations and the (exaggerated?) specter of American military invention.

So I guess I can turn this into a question that Battista Minola is also free to address:

(a) How do we differentiate between these two systems from the late 1940s/early 1950s to the 1990s, given their superficial similarities?
(b) What factors allowed for Japan to maintain this party system after the Cold War while Italy's self-destructed?

I can't really answer about the Japan part but I'll try to answer the Italy part.

1. DC has never been considered a centre-right party in Italy lol it's always foreigners who say that (although I perfectly understand why they argue so)

2. You can probably remove "the perception of" although I would leave "exaggerated"

3. Basically in Italy people were already fed up with the system in the 80's, among other things because there was a public perception of there being grifters everywhere much before Mani pulite, and there were many factors coming together:
- the fall of the Berlin Wall caused a lot of soul-searching obviously inside the PCI (which still represented 25% of the electorate)
- Pentapartito was stale af
- Craxi was interested in remaking completely the political system (although he never went anywhere)
- some politicians got interested in electoral reform, but from a different perspective than Craxi, and when he and most of the ruling class came out against the 1991 referendum, they got their asses beaten by fed-up people in an unprecedented way: the triple preference vote was abolished by a 96-4 margin
- Craxi was, I think, perceived as relatively hostile to American interests
- muh demise of unions and muh neoliberal influence were right there present like everywhere else in the world
- there was an appetite for renovation and reform and rooting out mafia which developed especially in Palermo around 1985, which had repercussions because mafia had ties every-damn-where especially around the DC
- new parties tried to expolit the tiredness with the system, most notably and successfully the first Lega Nord
- President of the Republic Cossiga decided to become an "active" President and to embrace the destructivist zeitgeist around 1991
- the 1980's were I think a bad decade for political Catholicism on muh social issues I guess, from the 1981 abortion referendum to Donat-Cattin's less-than-adequate response to AIDS including as you may imagine a refusal to endorse the use of condoms (ok not that the 70's had been better)
- etc. etc.

Against this background Mani pulite happened, (Falcone and Borsellino were killed - not strictly political but those were symbolic and shocking events like few others in Italy's recent past), Berlusconi sensed an opportunity, and the rest is history.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

@Battista What alternative to the term "center right" best represents the Italian perception of DC? Or is it moreso a lack of ideology than a particular place on the spectrum?

DC is the centre, both now and always, and unto the ages of ages.
In part because it was a pretty big tent. Moro might be classified as centre-left, Segni Sr. as centre-right, and so on.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

PSDI lol and PLI lol but PRI not lol why?
PRI was insipid as hell and tbh it should probably have dissolved in 1946.

I was writing up the post in a hurry and confused PRI with some other party; unfortunately; I forget now which one.

You might have swapped PSDI and PRI there.

Otherwise I really doubt you have much affection for PNM and PDIUM (monarchists) or DP and PdUP (tankies to the left of PCI). Maybe PSIUP (people who left PSI in 1964 and ended up in PCI in 1972)?

You would have really loved is this one: Partito Cristiano Sociale

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

In light of your various takes around this topic and especially the one in response to my first post in this thread, I very much would like to know your answer to this:

How would you have voted at the 1981 abortion referendum in Italy (the restrictive proposal)?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Also, opinion of me using Enrico Berlinguer as my Atlasia persona?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Toss-up/Tilt Moro, although I view both men favorably. It's not inconceivable that Moro gets canonized as a martyr some day, which would certainly be interesting to see.

I'm all for Moro getting canonized as a martyr!

I even planned to use "Modern Martyr Aldo Moro" as my display name some day (yes, I plan display names in advance).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Is The Name of the Rose actually overrated and all the other novels by Eco underrated, as he used to proclaim in his life?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Worst and Best Pope (if that can be answered)?

It can't, so I'll do most overrated and most underrated.

Overrated: Pius IX, an evil son of a bitch who covertly supported the Confederacy and poisoned the well for the nascent Kingdom of Italy with his narcissistic and delusional refusal to accept its existence as a secular state. Somehow he ended up a beatus, but his canonization is probably DOA unless one of Francis's successors is a Young Pope-tier reactionary.
Underrated: Callixtus II, a High Medieval pontiff who negotiated an end to the Investiture Controversy, called a good-not-great ecumenical council (Lateran I), and, crucially, forbade pogroms, forced conversions of Jewish people, and disruption of Jewish religious and cultural rites on penalty of excommunication.

Wow. As always, you have the best opinions. It's really a bad case of cosmic irony that he also had the longest papal reign in history (after St. Peter?).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What is your opinion of the 1929 Concordat and eventually of its 1984 revision [thanks, Craxi]?


Do you prefer Hepburn-shiki romaji or Kunrei-shiki romaji? Do you have any interest in the Chinese language?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I briefly mis-parsed this question as "Do you prefer Katharine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn?" so I'll answer that one as well: I used to prefer Audrey hands-down but lately Katharine has been really growing on me.

Lmao. Audrey Kunrei and Katharine Kunrei, anyone?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

How does it feel to receive so many questions in your Ask Me Anything(s) compared to the average poster? Especially questions not prompted by your own 'bumps'.

[it's ironic that I would ask this question - this is my fifteenth or so post in this thread]

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Beautiful ranking!

For a more challenging question, who was worse: Stephen VI or Benedict IX?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Beautiful ranking!

For a more challenging question, who was worse: Stephen VI or Benedict IX?

Oh, that's tough. Benedict IX was a morally nonexistent playboy who literally bought and sold the papacy like a share of GameStop and ran what little was left of its prestige after the saeculum obscurum into the ground; Stephen VI was an unhinged maniac who's really only known for one thing, but the thing that he's known for is one of the most violent and vindictive things any Pope has ever done. I'm going with Benedict because he stuck around for longer and thus had the opportunity to do more damage. And even if we're judging them in the context of their times, the eleventh-century papacy had at least a little more moral credibility than the ninth-century papacy, so Benedict comes off worse by comparison there as well.

Benedict IX was literally younger than your current age when he became Pope (which, for Christ's sake, what the ****) so I like that you characterized him as a "playboy".
But really, the Counts of Tusculum and their ilk were all so inexorably morally decaying...

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Alexander VI or Julius II?

> Implying the answer is not Pius III

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

HenryWallaceVP once again displaying his prejudices and false assumptions about Catholics. Sad!

[I love you Henry]

In other news, I came to this realization yesterday: since your two favourite foreign countries are Italy and Japan, does that mean you really love old people?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

In the Kulturkampf, who was the morally superior actor? The authoritarian Chancellor who had an opinion of Catholicism so low that HenryWallaceVP pales in comparison, or the Pope you have called with such nice epithets as "evil son of a bitch"?

Please don't answer "German bishops" or "the Centre Party" or something along those lines, 'cause that's lame.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Elaboration on this?

Yep. "Simultaneously gay and homophobic" is the peak Catholic mood, just as it is, in many ways, the peak mood for Western cultural and artistic traditions as a whole.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Do you believe that 2026 will see a hinoe uma-related plunge in birth rates like 1966 or have Japanese society and demographics changed enough from then for that to happen?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Opinion of

1. Rerum Novarum
2. Quadragesimo anno
3. Fratelli Tutti
?

All freedom encyclicals, although I think all three have their blind spots (too little Thomism in Rerum novarum, too much Thomism in Quadragesimo anno, and some "old pope yells at cloud"-iness about sociopolitical issues related to internet use in Fratelli tutti). I was lucky enough to get an embargoed copy of Fratelli tutti about twelve hours early because I write for a Catholic news and opinion website and I stayed up all night reading it. There need to be middlebrow popularizers for this tradition the way there are for theology of the body.

Since I am currently reading Fratelli tutti I will say that I have noticed that too, but I didn't really take it as a blind spot because I feel like I am guilty of a certain kind of Internet use myself so that just struck on me.
I agree that there should be middlebrow popularizers of course!