Vatican City (Fides Service) - The Pope's message for World Day for Peace is giving rise to reflection all over the world. Fides Service asked the opinion of Alberto Negri, of the Italian daily Il Sole 24ore. Here is our English translation from the original Italian

Europe/Italy - "The Pope supports democracy because he fills it with the values of which it is gradually being emptied, as it reduced to a mere technique of government and no longer a method which is also a philosophy
Rome (Fides Service) - "Very often the media, particularly in Italy, fail to reflect public opinion. Before speaking about the effects of the Pope's words and the actual effectiveness of a papal message, it should be said that the media are certainly mediators in the sense that they mediate and diffuse the Pope's words, but the impact these messages have on public opinion in Italy and the world at large is far greater than the purely media effect would seem to show. This is because Italian society is profoundly Catholic, attached to the word of the Pope, and also because he represents that moral and ethical conscience which in politics today is lacking. The Pope succeeds in filling the moral void left by politics. This means that it is not always the length of the titles or time given by a newscast which measures the impact of a message especially when it comes from the Church and the Holy Father: and in this case the impact is, in my opinion, far greater.
I am sure this is because today Italy's political scene is not nourished by any great ethic, ideological or moral charge: it is a policy closely linked with partisan interests and with economic aspects of pressure groups. It is in this enormous void of Italian politics that the Pope's message resounds. The message is also important for the international political scene because at the world level we have leaders who say little from the ethical moral point of view. Therefore today, more than ever, the voice of the Pope is important. Indeed the fact that the media have difficulty in elaborating it, reveals the size of the problem: today no one is eager to comment the Pope's message because it is uncomfortable and it obliges people to discuss themes and problems of high ethical profile.
The Pope speaks of peace almost every Sunday. He does so in various ways, reflecting on Africa, missionaries, situations of unbalance, the Holy Land. Whereas it is only when a war appears on the horizon that the secular world and political leaders speak about peace. This reveals the enormous void of projectuality and capacity for ethic and moral mobilisation that exists in the West today. It is precisely on this void that terrorism and fundamentalism thrive, taking possession of ethic and moral values, exploiting them for violence and then reaffirming them. But this struggle cannot be won only with bombs and armies; it can be won also with ideas and values. And the Western world is shaky on its own ideas and values. This is almost a repeated mantra, the claim to democracy. However this will remain pure "propaganda" unless it is filled with values and morals: this is why the Pope in words and messages supports democracy because he fills it with the values of which it is gradually being emptied, as it is reduced more and more to simply a technique of government and no longer a method which is also a philosophy". (Fides Service 14/1/2003)