“Actually it went like this. Our decision to oppose us to what appeared to us as one maneuverbeyond Scalfaro’s undoubted good faith, it was unanimous. And to think that Scalfaro had been a man for me big friend“. The cardinal is speaking Camillo Ruinifor 16 years at the helm of Italian Episcopal Conferenceresponding in an interview with Corriere della Sera on the request that in 1994 the then head of state made him, Oscar Luigi ScalfaroOf help him bring down the Berluscon governmentthe. An invitation that arrived during a lunch at the Colle, where the cardinal was also present Angelo Sodano and monsignor Jean-Louis Tauranaccording to what is contained in the book on the presidents of the Republic The Hill of Italy.
Ruini talks about his in the interview influence on party decisions: first with the A.Dthen – after Mani Pulite – with the Italian People’s Party and finally the decision to “open a door” to Silvio Berlusconi. The cardinal, considered a true political leader, also recounts the other “significant moments” in which “the Church positioned itself on its own, directly expressing its position“: The referendum on assisted procreation of 2005 (for which the Vatican pushed for theabstention) and opposition to the law on I say of the Prodi government in 2007, “which opened the doors to the recognition of unions between homosexuals“, recalls Ruini. “I was no longer president of the CEI, but I again led that passage“, says the 93-year-old cardinal: “Thanks to the demonstration of Family day that measure stopped,” he claims.
But Scalfaro’s request during that lunch at the Quirinale was not appreciated by Ruini. “I remember when De Mita in 1987 – he tells al Courier – had offered him to become Prime Minister, in opposition to Craxi and with the benevolence of the PCI. Scalfaro then he had come to me and he told me he would refuse. ‘It’s good,’ I replied. And in fact he would then go to Palazzo Chigi Amintore Fanfani“. “That’s why I was struck by the way he had it changed position, so clearly”, explains Ruini again. According to the cardinal, it was not necessary to bring down the Milanese entrepreneur who had become Prime Minister. “I think Berlusconi has shown his merits and his limitslike all other politicians, but what did not have subversive purposes in any way. If anything, the dangers for the Republic they were others”, comments Ruini. In the end, however, Berlusconi presented his opinions resignation on 22 December 1994 following numerous tensions with the North league Of Umberto Bossi, who decided to leave the majority. Scalfaro, thus, found a new majority in Parliament instead of calling new elections, as requested by the centre-right, giving life to the Dini government, the first case of “technical government” in republican history. Two figures, those of Berlusconi and Scalfaro, who clashed several times in delicate moments of the second Republic.
