In the discussion about same-sex marriage the daily Kristeligt Dagblad says politicians should refrain from obliging the Danish National Church to perform marriage rites between homosexual partners: "Politicians shouldn't play at being theologians. The Danish National Church should decide for itself what rituals take place within the church. For obvious reasons such a decision will revolve around other factors than equal treatment. ... There's much at stake here, including the historical understanding of wedlock as the fundament of the family, which remains the smallest and most important social unit. The politicians who are making the Church a battleground for party politics should not simply ignore this." (11/03/2010)

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After an extramarital affair came to light, the Czech human rights minister Michael Kocáb has offered his resignation without seeking to publicly justify his actions. For the left-leaning daily Právo this is precisely the wrong thing to do: "The minister is a Protestant and guided by his Church's moral code. A Catholic would quip that Kocáb doesn't have a balanced attitude to sin. The minister made a surprise public announcement on how long he has lived with his wife already without having intimate relations with her. But of what interest, if you please, is that to the public? Similarly the fact that his spokeswoman is now his girlfriend is of no import whatsoever. ... Kocáb has not failed morally, but politically and culturally. Giving the public access to his intimate private life only takes us further in the direction of the un-European double moral standards typical of the United States." (12/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Petr Uhl

Twenty years ago Romanian civil rights activists in Timişoara published a draft for a lustration law proscribing that former members of the communist party and the secret service Securitate be barred from running for political office for the space of three legislative periods. If that law had been passed, this is how things would look in Romania today according to the daily România Liberă: "The country's capitalism would not still be dominated by nepotism and Romanian politics wouldn't be in the hands of cliques. ... Romania would have changed more swiftly and sensibly, bad roads would have been replaced by motorways and the best railway network in Eastern Europe wouldn't have been taken to pieces, the average salary would be between 800 and 1,000 euros like in the Czech Republic or Poland and the media wouldn't be in the hands of a few moguls. ... Romania missed its start because the parliamentarians never wanted to accept a lustration and preferred to privatise the secret service rather than the economy. Twenty years after the Proclamation of Timişoara an assessment of morals leaves much to be desired even though by joining the EU and Nato Romania managed to catch up a bit." (11/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Infrastructure / Travel and Transport, » History, » Economic Policy, » Elections, » Remembrance culture, » Poland, » Czech Republic, » Romania
All available articles from » Sabina Fati

The sexual abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church is now spreading in the Netherlands too. The country's religious community bears part of the responsibility for the incidents, writes the Christian-oriented daily Trouw: "Naturally nothing good can be said about what the Church and some of its priests did to the children who were entrusted to their care and pastoral supervision. ... Power corrupts, and uncontrolled power corrupts absolutely - this is also true for the Church, as we have long been aware. These things happen in an environment where the clergy and laity close their eyes to abuse and are deaf to the signals of the victims, where they hinder denunciations and abandon the victims to their fate 'in the name of peace'. It would be too easy to point fingers in collective indignation at the Church exclusively. The religious community makes and gets the Church it deserves." (11/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Henk Tieleman

Following the sex abuse scandals in which Catholic priests have been implicated, Germany's Bishop's Conference will meet with Pope Benedict XVI. The celibacy rule is the fundamental problem at the root of the abuse and must therefore be seriously called into  question, writes Swiss theology professor Hans Küng in the daily De Standaard: "Is the Church not also entitled to a mea culpa from the Pope? And shouldn't such an expression of remorse be coupled with improvement by finally allowing the celibacy rule that was barred from discussion during the Second Vatican Council be openly and freely subjected to the assessment of the entire Church? The same openness with which the Church is currently trying to deal with the problem of abuse is now required to deal with one of its most important structural causes: the celibacy rule. The bishops should boldly and forcefully propose this to Pope Benedict XVI." (10/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Hans Küng

After activities organised around International Women's Day, Polish feminist groups want to hold action days in April to bring out the positive aspects of female sexuality. The Polish news magazine Wprost welcomes the breaking of another taboo: "The feminist milieu in Poland has crossed yet another boundary. It has taken a ... taboo as the central element of its ideology and approach. ... In this way April is to become the official month of - please excuse the word - the pussy. After the demonstrations on Monday feminist organisations are once more striking while the iron is hot and scheduling the first official Pussy Days for April! The idea is to improve the acceptance of the word, they say: ... 'Our goal is to give the word 'pussy' a more positive resonance and to start a common search for other terms and ways of discussing the female body without scientific or medical - or for that matter vulgar - overtones on the one hand, and which stress on the other hand the joyful, positive aspects of female sexuality'." (10/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Irena Szafrańska

In the 20th century Romanians traditionally moved from the country to the city. But the reverse trend has been observed for roughly a decade, writes the daily România Liberă, although exclusively among pensioners: "It's not hard to see why the elderly are moving back - it's still possible to live on pensions in the country where costs are lower and you can possibly grow your own vegetables in your garden. This is what sets the trend. Rural populations aren't aging because young people are leaving, but because old people are coming back. ... The Romanian villages are becoming old age homes. But under such conditions the possibility of modernising the villages is slowly dwindling. The problem is no longer how to keep young people in rural areas, but how to ensure a good life for the 56 percent of Romanian pensioners now living in the country." (10/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Migration, » Demographics, » Romania
All available articles from » Mircea Kivu

Austrian media have ridiculed as North-Koreanisation the new law aimed at making Slovaks more patriotic. Blogger Ivann agrees in the left-leaning daily Pravda: "We are rightly being compared with the most primitive regime in the world, with headlines like 'Pyongyang on the Danube'. Do you remember how as boys we tried to outdo each other with the size of our penises? The one with the biggest was a real guy. Today real Slovaks are the ones who love their country the most fervently. Patriotism, decency and belief in one's country can't be decreed by law like in North Korea, where millions of people have to come out and wave flags when new factories are opened or the leader gives a speech. Patriotism, faith and decency don't belong in electoral programmes, statutes or laws. They are values that must be borne in one's breast. This measure is intentional, purposeful rape and must be rejected outright, for example at the polls." (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Blogger Ivann

After several cases of sexual abuse at institutions run by the Catholic Church have come to light, the German government is now planning to set up a round table on the matter. Walter Schmidt comments in the political authors' blog Achse des Guten: "Naturally neither Protestantism … nor Catholicism with their servers, their sexual ethics and their celibacy are to blame, but rather the forgivable perversions of teachers who are more or less forced to spend their days and weekends cooped up in boarding schools with their pupils. … While Minister for Family Affairs Kristina Schröder ... has now taken up the issue and called for a 'round table' against child abuse, Chairman of the German Episcopal Conference Robert Zollitsch sees the education and therapy of his fellow believers, sorely tried by their celibacy, as the ultimate solution. Perhaps in analogy to the well-known definition of an anti-Semite we will soon read that: 'A paedophile is someone who likes children just a tiny bit more than is customary for a teacher!'" (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Walter Schmidt

In the last few days citizens have taken to the streets in two southern Romanian cities to show solidarity with mayors who are under investigation on charges of corruption. Citizens distort values when they go to these lengths for such a reason, writes Liviu Antonesei in the daily Adevărul: "I can imagine many things but I would never have believed we were capable of organising civil protests and using the term 'honour' to protect corruption and the corrupt. To what extent are we willing to turn values we believed unassailable upside down to allow such a thing to happen? It is astonishing, embarrassing, and dirty; words fail me. Romania is undergoing a chemical transformation in which petty, medium and grand-scale corruption reach out to each other to produce a true systemic corruption, in which the corrupt and the corrupted are seemingly bound together in an eternal alliance and civil courage is spectacularly directed against civil values. ... We need not be surprised that Europe not only is 'monitoring' us but already sees us as some kind of foreign body that represents a danger to its own ethics." (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Liviu Antonesei