Integration includes 'ius soli' law (4)

(ANSA) - Rome, September 25 - Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) chief Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti said, without naming it, that a ius soli law granting citizenship to immigrants' children would boost the integration of migrants. "I think that the construction of this process of integration may pass through the recognition of a new citizenship, favouring the promotion of the human person and the participation in public life of those men and women who have been born in Italy, who speak our language and assume our historical memory, with the values that brings", he said.
    Bassetti said on the migrant crisis that the rights of "those who arrive, and of those who receive" must be respected.
    The ius soli law, which would grant citizenship to immigrant children who have spent at least five years in the Italian school system, has been held up in the Senate by opposition from rightwing and centre-right parties including the junior government partner, the centre-right Popular Area (AP).
    Premier Paolo Gentiloni has vowed to pass it before the end of the legislative term next spring.
    Speaking in his first opening address to the CEI's permanent council, Bassetti also turned his attention to Italy's persistent unemployment woes despite a burgeoning economic recovery.
    He said that "today work is without doubt the most important priority for the country and youth unemployment is the great emergency. "Despite there being small signs of recovery for the economy in Italy, I cannot but be concerned by the 8 million poor described by ISTAT, half of whom have nothing to live on. "They are young people, they are women, they are couples and they are 50-year-olds who have lost their jobs and have been cast aside by the economic system".
    The CEI head said poverty was "still today a scandal to be hidden" and said Italy must be united by "patching up the social fabric". Bassetti called on the Italian government to draw up "innovative policies" to help families through fiscal measures.
    He said that these measures are "the right thing to do and urgent. This can no longer be put off and must be applied to all families, especially large ones". Bassetti said that this "would have beneficial effects on family income" and positive ones on birthrates as well. Bassetti also said that "I would like to express the most sincere closeness to all those women who in Italy, almost daily, are victims of a blind and brutal violence". He added that he was thinking of the people hit by floods and quakes around Italy and in Mexico.
    Bassetti also urged the faithful to "receive the spirit" of Pope Francis's exhortation Amoris Laetitia, The Joy of Love.