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Geopolitics

Pope Slams Gay Marriage. Where's The Tweet?

So far Benedict XVI's new @Pontifex on Twitter has avoided controversial topics.

LA STAMPA, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy), AFP

Worldcrunch

VATICAN CITY - The Pope's regular Christmas season schedule is underway, with Friday featuring the lighting of the Christmas tree in St Peter's Square and the release of the text of Benedict XVI's message for the World Day of Peace.

The pontiff's annual message covered familiar ground: human dignity, religious tolerance, economic justice and, of course, peace itself.

But there were other ideas that not all "people of good will" necessarily share, including some notably strong language on gay marriage, as a debate rages on legalizing same-sex unions in traditionally Catholic countries like France and Uruguay.

Laws granting legal status for gay unions, he said, "actually harm and help destabilize marriage" by obscuring its specific nature as a union between man and woman that forms the basis of society, La Stampa reports. "These principles are not truths of faith, or a derivation of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, identifiable with reason and are therefore common to all mankind."

Strong stuff, though hardly surprising. Still, this combative "message of peace" raises a question from the real BIG papal news of the week: His Holiness' hopping (and hoping) on Twitter.

Though it has since topped one million followers, Benedict's @Pontifex account has been quiet since firing off his first seven tweets on Wednesday with plenty of 140-character eloquence, but little edginess:

Offer everything you do to the Lord, ask his help in all the circumstances of daily life and remember that he is always beside you

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

Amidst all the online giddiness about a tweeting Pope, no one asked when or if he will cover more controversial ground on the network. A former professor of theology, Benedict is known for his sharp prose.

His message Friday said that gay marriage, abortion and assisted suicide are an "offense against the truth of the human person, with serious harm to justice and peace." Wow, that would work as a tweet, and is well within Twitter's 140-character limit; and anyone with any experience tweeting knows: such provocative messages are the way to get lots of followers, which is after all what Popes are about. The problem is that such clarity is how you lose them too...

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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