Challenge to Berlusconi as Church backs new centre-right party

Talks to form a new, Church-backed conservative party in Italy to challenge Silvio Berlusconi are under way as polls showed that support for the Prime Minister among Roman Catholic voters has faded. It emerged yesterday that Catholic politicians are attempting to form a new centre-right party supported by the religious establishment to try to tap into the growing dissatisfaction among the church-going public with Mr Berlusconi’s behaviour, and a rift between him and the Vatican. Rocco Buttiglione, president of the Christian Democratic UDC party, said a “new centrist political force” would be discussed early in October at a gathering of Catholic groups in Sicily aimed at reviving the fortunes of an alliance which dominated Italian politics for almost half a century after the Second World War. Mr Buttiglione said Mr Berlusconi had proved “a great disappointment” to Italian bishops, who favoured the idea of a new party to challenge his ruling People of Liberty (PdL) party in regional elections next March. Mr Buttiglione, who is close to the Vatican, said Catholics were at odds with Mr Berlusconi not just because of allegations that “he went to bed with a prostitute” but because of his crackdown on immigrants, his failure to help the poor, and his attempt to silence the press and stop the Church “making moral judgments”. Continue ...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6824087.ece