Catholic churches across Rome shut due to virus

VATICAN CITY, Holy See — All Catholic churches across Rome have been closed to stem the spread of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1,000 people across Italy.

The churches will reopen when a broader Italian government crackdown on public gatherings expires on April 3, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the papal vicar for Rome, said in a statement.

Catholic faithful have been exempted from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass.

The Vatican had spent days resisting having to take the drastic measure of shuttering places of worship in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

It closed its museums and even the Saint Peter's Basilica — parts of its soaring dome designed by Michelangelo — to tourists as the death toll continued to mount.

All masses, weddings and funerals across the country have also been called off.

But some church buildings in the country will stay open as long as the faithful follow government regulations and remain a metre (three feet) apart while inside.

It was not immediately clear when Rome's churches were last forced to close en masse.

The Nazis and Italian Fascists kept Pope Pius XII confined to the Vatican during World War II.

Some Rome churches kept their doors open during the war.

'Domestic churches'

The closures come with the pope himself suffering from a cold and communicating with the faithful by livestream as a safety precaution.

Pope Francis complained of feeling "caged" while reading his traditional Sunday Angelus Prayer into a camera from a Vatican library instead of his usual window overlooking crowds on Saint Peter's Square.

The 83-year-old was also forced to miss his weekly Wednesday appearance on the square that he often uses to hug and shake hands with the faithful from across the world.

The new regulations cover the Italian capital and not the Vatican City statelet located entirely within Rome.

The Holy See has recorded one COVID-19 infection and is awaiting the results of another person who attended one of its functions at the start of the month.

The cardinal's statement said access to "churches of the Diocese of Rome open to the public — and more generally to religious buildings of any kind open to the public — is forbidden to all the faithful".

The statement added that monasteries would remain open to "communities that habitually use them as residents".

"This provision is for the common good," De Donatis wrote.

The Italian government on Wednesday announced a comprehensive crackdown that closed all stores except for pharmacies and groceries.

De Donatis said he was finally moved to close Rome's churches by "the even more binding restrictions placed on the ordinary movement of people".

Agence France-Presse

Pope Francis criticizes corruption in Rome in New Year's Eve message

VATICAN CITY - In the traditional year-end Vespers prayers, Pope Francis denounced the corruption infecting the city of Rome.

Before thousands who were packed into Saint Peter's Basilica, he said: ”Without a doubt, the serious affairs of corruption in these recent days require serious heart-searching and action for a spiritual and moral rebirth of the city of Rome, as well as a commitment to build a more just and brotherly city, where the poor, the weak and the marginalized are at the center of our actions and daily activities."



He was referring to a police investigation that uncovered a network of connections between politicians and criminals in Rome.

The Pope delighted the masses after his homily when he paid a visit to the nativity in St. Peter's Square.

source: interaksyon.com

30 killed in Italy coach crash - ANSA

ROME - Thirty people died after a coach came off a flyover and plunged 30 meters (98 feet) down a slope in southern Italy on Sunday, an ANSA news agency photographer at the scene said Sunday.

"Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside," said photographer Cesare Abbate. Several cars that had been hit by the coach lay piled up on the flyover, he added.

source: interaksyon.com

Actress Sophia Loren to return to big screen in son’s short film

ROME – Italian actress and long-time Hollywood star Sophia Loren is set to return to the big screen in a short film directed by her son, which they are shooting in Naples this week.

Loren, 78, will star in her son Edoardo Ponti’s adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s one-person play “The Human Voice”, which charts the breakdown of a woman who is left by her lover.

Wearing a cream suit and a polka dot scarf, Loren drew crowds of onlookers to watch her film scenes on the streets of Naples, the city she grew up in.

The French play has been translated into Italian, much of it in the Neapolitan dialect, according to media reports. Filming is set to last about a month and will take place in Rome and Naples.

Loren became established as an actress in Italy during the 1950s but a contract with the U.S. studio Paramount Pictures saw her catapulted to international stardom and perform opposite the likes of Clark Gable, Charlton Heston and Marlon Brando.

In 1962, she won an Academy Award for best actress for her role in Italian director Vittorio De Sica’s “Two Women”.

Loren last appeared on the big screen in the 2009 romantic musical “Nine” by U.S. director Rob Marshall, which also starred Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Day-Lewis.

In 2010 she appeared in Vittorio Sindoni’s “My House is Full of Mirrors” an Italian television mini-series about the life of her mother Romilda Villani.

Cocteau’s “The Human Voice” is best known in its 1959 opera adaptation by Francis Poulenc.

source: interaksyon.com

Pilgrim image of Blessed Pedro Calungsod now in Rome

CEBU CITY -- The pilgrim image of Blessed Pedro Calungsod arrived in Rome, Italy at about 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to Fr. Mhar Balili, a member of the liturgical committee for the Calungsod canonization in Rome.

Calungsod’s canonization, the Philippines’ second saint and the first Visayan martyr of the Catholic Church, is set on Sunday, Oct. 21.

Calungsod’s image was accompanied by Fr. Charles Jayme, the custodian of the image, aboard a Cathay Pacific flight.


The Cathay Pacific aircraft carrying the image took off from the Mactan Cebu International Airport at 12:56 p.m. Tuesday.

It arrived in Hong Kong at 3:15 p.m. and left at midnight for Rome.

The image occupied a passenger seat next to Father Jayme.

Jayme said being the custodian of the image is “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

An estimated 20,000 people in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu went out to the streets waving palm leaves, small flags and Calungsod’s pictures Tuesday morning to send off the image of the teenaged martyr.

A convoy of nearly 100 vehicles accompanied the red pickup that carried the three-foot-tall image from Cebu City to Mandaue City and then to the Mactan airport.

More than 200 pilgrims were on the same flight with the pilgrim image of Blessed Pedro Calungsod.

A teenaged catechist, Calungsod was part of a Jesuit mission sent to teach catechism at the Ladrones Islands or the Marianas Islands in the late 1600s.

He served as the "sacristan" of Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores. They were killed when they tried to baptize one of the natives.

Calungsod was beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in March 2000.

source: interaksyon.com

Italian magazine says Kate pics a 'scoop' they have to run

ROME - The editor of an Italian gossip magazine planning to print topless photographs of Prince William's wife Catherine said Saturday the pictures were "a scoop" he could not let pass.

"First of all, if I wasn't capable of recognizing the true value of a scoop I would do better to go and sell artichokes at the market," Alfonso Signorini, editor of the weekly magazine Chi, told the ANSA news agency.

"Secondly, and regarding the law, the photos do not harm the dignity of a person, they are not morbid or exciting -- unlike the ones of Prince Harry published by the English papers," he added.

Britain's top-selling daily The Sun broke ranks with the rest of the British press last month and defied royal orders by running photos of Prince Harry, William's younger brother, frolicking naked in a Las Vegas hotel suite.

A spokesman for William and Catherine on Saturday denounced the "greed" of an Irish Daily Star newspaper, which printed the papers on Saturday.

And the family has also warned Chi magazine that "unjustifiable upset" would be heaped upon Catherine if it went ahead with its plans to print the photos.

But Signorini argued that the paparazzi photos were taken on a terrace, in a public place, in conformity with the laws regarding private life.

The photos of Catherine, who was sunbathing at a private chateau in the south of France wearing just her bikini bottoms, appear to have been taken from a road some distance away using a long lens.

Chi magazine has already said it will devote 26 pages to the pictures in an edition coming out on Monday.

Both Chi and the French magazine Closer belong to the Mondadori Group which is owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi -- himself no stranger to scandals involving revealing photos taken by paparazzi.

source: interaksyon.com

Prada first-half sales climb despite economic crisis

ROME - Italian fashion group Prada said Monday that 2012 first-half sales leapt by a provisional 36.5 percent amid strong demand in most regions of the world, and Asia in particular.

Prada recorded revenues of 1.547 million euros ($1.9 billion) in the first six months of the year, a gain of 36.5 percent from the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

The results were driven by soaring sales in the Asia Pacific region, which gained 45 percent, as well as a significant sales increase in Europe (up 37.3 percent), Japan (up 34.2 percent) and the Americas (up 31 percent).

"The growth of the business was driven mainly by the Prada and Miu Miu brands which grew by 40.5 percent and 23.6 percent, respectively," Prada said.

The luxury brand continued to develop its retail network in the first half of the year, opening 28 new shops and bringing the total number of directly operated stores to 414 at the end of July.

The results "were achieved in an extremely difficult economic environment with the market continuing to reward Prada for its unyielding commitment to style and the pursuit of quality," the statement said.

source: interaksyon.com

Italy Cuts Spending to Delay Increase in Sales Tax

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's cabinet after an almost seven-hour meeting on Friday approved state spending cuts worth 4.5 billion euros (3.58 billion pounds) this year, heading off an impending sales tax increase and funding emergency help for earthquake stricken areas.

The cuts, which increase to 10.5 billion euros in 2013 and 11 billion in 2014, will push back a 2 percentage point hike in the sales tax until July of next year, and help pay for aid to the industrial Emilia-Romagna region, hit by earthquakes in May.

The package will reduce health expenditures, cut in half the number of provincial governments, gradually trim the number of public-sector workers by 10 percent, and reduce state managers by 20 percent, according to a government statement.

"The cuts will in no way reduce the quality of public services provided to citizens, and instead aim to improve quality and efficiency," Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti told reporters after the marathon meeting.

Job reductions in the public sector have already drawn fire from unions, who have threatened a nationwide general strike.

The plans do not envisage significant lay-offs and will be achieved mainly through hiring freezes and schemes to encourage early retirement.

The level of job reductions also refers to planned notional staffing levels rather than the number of people actually employed, which may be lower.

Staffing levels will be assessed by October, and some workers will be sent home for two years on 80 percent of their salary before being laid off or sent into retirement.

Public Administration Minister Filippo Patroni Griffi said after the meeting he could not accurately estimate the number of jobs that would ultimately be cut.

Labour unions, who put up tough opposition to Monti's labour market reforms, which parliament approved last month, are fiercely resisting the job cuts and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has also expressed misgivings about the package. "Be careful of creating social conflict," Susanna Camusso, leader of Italy's largest labour union, the Cgil, said this week.

By presenting the package as a decree, Monti will leave political parties less scope to amend and water down the measures. The decree is immediately effective, but must be passed by parliament within 60 days or else it expires.

DEFICIT

Unlike the unions, financial markets may be reassured by the cuts, which show Italy has a handle on its budget deficit even though its economy is mired in a severe recession which shows no sign of easing.

The deficit in the first quarter stood at 8 percent of GDP, up from 7 percent in the same period last year and the highest since the start of 2009.

Borrowing costs fell after last week's EU summit, but rose again on Thursday after the European Central Bank seemed to rule out additional measures to bring down interest rates.

For Monti, preventing an unpopular tax increase, even if it means angering public sector employees, may be a good way to revive his popularity, which is hovering near its lowest level since he took office in November.

Among the decrees included in a 13-page statement is a reduction in the network of small, state-owned companies, a halving of spending on automobiles by the public administration, and a centralisation of the purchase of goods and services by the state, especially in health care.

source: nytimes.com

Woody Allen's film premiere rekindles 'Dolce Vita' Rome

ROME—US director Woody Allen on Friday premiered his latest film "To Rome With Love" in which he stars alongside Penelope Cruz, rekindling some "Dolce Vita" glamour from the movie heyday of the Eternal City.

"It's like no other city. It's extremely exotic!" Allen told reporters at a press conference in a luxury hotel in the Italian capital alongside fellow stars Alec Baldwin, Jesse Eisenberg and Oscar-winning comedian Roberto Benigni.

"I grew up on Italian cinema," said the famously neurotic New Yorker.

"It would have been impossible in the years that I grew up not to be influenced by the Italian movies that were coming out in New York," he said.

Asked why some of his most recent films like "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Midnight in Paris" always seem to be set in European cities he quipped: "I could not make films in some rural place or in the desert.

"These cities are very similar to New York in terms of energy and culture. It's easy to live in them and to find stories there."

A question about his breathless film-a-year record also elicited a half-joking response from the 76-year-old comedy legend.

"It's a great distraction... If I wasn't making a movie, I'd be sitting at home obsessing over how terrible life is," he said.

"To Rome With Love" is made up of four vignettes and producers characterized it as "a carefree comedy, a kaleidoscopic film."

Benigni, who shot to international fame with his bittersweet Holocaust comedy "Life is Beautiful", plays an ordinary man mistaken for a celebrity and chased by paparazzi as he goes about his daily life.

"It's so rare to have a film in Italy! It's like a lunar eclipse!" said the famously hyperbolic actor, who won three Oscars in 1999 and made an impression at the award ceremony by climbing over the seats to the stage.

"We have someone for which our century will be remembered," he said, defining Allen as "a unique cross between Ingmar Bergman and Groucho Marx."

Benigni hinted that the film, shot last year and distributed by flamboyant former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset company, reflected some of the atmosphere of scandal of the billionaire's last months in power.

"The film is set in the Italy of that time. We had our prime minister, we had the escorts, we had parties... Now we have penniless pensioners, rain and (Prime Minister Mario) Monti. The situation has really changed!"

In the film, Baldwin is a famous architect who bumps into a young man played by Jesse Eisenberg of "Social Network" fame and re-lives his youth.

Penelope Cruz plays a prostitute who spends the day with a young man with puritanical parents who is separated from his wife-to-be for a day.

At the press conference, Baldwin joked that he had mistakenly read the script and understood that he would be a character who gets to make love to Cruz in his hotel room. "I immediately said yes," he said.

Cruz said Allen had given her "a jewel of a character" and said the director was "peculiar" and "mesmerizing". "I always drive him crazy with a thousand questions. There is absolutely no bullshit in his personality."

Fans of Allen's films have seen signs of a creative revival for the master after his 1970s classics such as "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" with "Match Point" in 2006–a dark thriller that marked an unusual departure from comedy.

Last year's "Midnight in Paris"–a homage to the Golden Age of the French capital–also won acclaim and box office success, as well as bagging the cult director his fourth Academy Award for best original screenplay.

Born Allen Konigsberg on December 1, 1935, to a family of second-generation Jewish immigrants in New York, Allen said he spent much of his Brooklyn childhood alone in his room, practicing magic tricks or playing the clarinet.

He was reportedly hired while only a teenager to write one-liners for well-known comedians of the day. He studied film at New York University but was kicked out for failing a course before going on to work as a stand-up comedian.

He wrote for television in the late 1950s and early 1960s before making his film debut in 1966 with "What's Up, Tiger Lily?". He has written and directed more than 40 films in a career spanning nearly half a century.

His homage to Rome also marks a return to the spotlight for the Italian capital, whose mix of ancient Roman ruins and Baroque facades provided the setting to film classics "Roman Holiday" (1953) and "La Dolce Vita" (1960).

Wearing a fisherman's hat and his trademark thick-framed glasses, Allen was seen filming last summer, including at the Spanish Steps -- the backdrop to a famous scene of "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.

Among other shooting locations were the Colosseum, Via del Corso and Via Veneto–the hub of Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" which famously coined the word "paparazzo" to describe celebrity-hunting photographers. —Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com