'Broad vision required for recovery', bishops' chief says

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 19 - A broad vision is required to create new jobs and relaunch Italian excellence, the President of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco said Tuesday.
    "(Italian excellence) is coveted by many foreign eyes, which have sometimes already become its owners," Bagnasco said. "Recovery means innovation," he continued.
    "Politicians must focus all their time and energy on development, on continual and rapid innovation," Bagnasco said, warning against the "art of muddling through". "This can easily lead to dangerous roads that create further serious problems for individuals, families, social cohesion," he warned.
    Bagnasco also said recent measures taken by Europe to tackle the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean were a "commendable but miserly signal".
    "Certain EU norms appear to be in the interest of just a few rather than the common good," he said.
    The CEI president also questioned the wisdom of a recent law introducing so-called quickie divorce in Italy.
    "Is suppressing a longer time-frame for reflection, especially in the presence of children, really a good thing?" he asked. The cardinal was also critical of plans to introduce what he described as "instruction in gender equality" in all Italian schools.
    "Such a hypothesis appears to represent the umpteenth example of what Pope Francis has defined 'ideological colonization'," Bagnasco said, adding that "certain words" spoken by the pope that are not in line with prevailing thought appeared to be "selected and obscured by those who have other words to promote and spread among public opinion".