Funeral of last European Father of the Second Vatican Council, who subverted Church teaching on abortion

Bettazzi, from the Catacombs Pact to abortionist exegesis

Today in Ivrea, the funeral of the prelate, who died at the age of 99, after a long life spent on the most progressive demands, dreaming of a 'Church of the poor' that too often has been reduced to a social agency.

The funeral of Bishop Emeritus Monsignor Luigi Bettazzi, who died last Sunday at the age of 99, will be held today in Ivrea Cathedral, celebrated by his current successor Monsignor Edoardo Cerrato. Born in 1923, Monsignor Bettazzi was the only Italian bishop still alive to have participated in the Second Vatican Council (he was consecrated bishop in 1963, as auxiliary of Bologna, later becoming ordinary of Ivrea in 1966).

He was the last Italian exponent of the Second Vatican Council and perhaps also of that 'Vatican III' vaguely envisaged by those who, in the aftermath of the Council, were still not satisfied with the earthquake of changes that followed in the space of a few years. So much so that, even before the Council ended, 42 bishops (Bettazzi was the only Italian) gathered in the Catacombs of Domitilla to sign a pact under the banner of the... 'Church of the poor' (a slogan that not infrequently ended up rather impoverishing the Church, reducing its message to mere social support). Bettazzi's letters to Berlinguer, the battle on the fiscal objection for military expenses, the pacifist marches and finally the openness - in open support of the Prodi government - on the subject of the Dico and various stances that have made the elderly prelate a (red) flag are especially remembered in his thirty-year episcopate in the Province of Turin and also in the long years that followed as Emeritus.

In the cursus honorum of Monsignor Bettazzi nothing is missing, including a rather fanciful exegesis in November 2022 in which the prelate admitted to 'subverting the Church's conception of abortion', hypothesising in short that the embryo is not automatically a person, or at least not immediately (speeches that we have recently heard echoed at higher levels). In short, he was undoubtedly a 'prophetic' voice - where 'prophetic' usually means 'left-wing priest'. Prophetic he was, however, indeed in the famous interview in February 2012 when he spoke of Benedict XVI's possible abdication, which then actually took place a year later. When Benedict died, in a new interview in January 2023 he repeated the experiment by announcing Francis' abdication (who will live, will see). And the remote 'prophecy' of the catacombs also came true, but in the sense of first of all depriving the Church's action of its spiritual dimension and thus depriving the poor themselves. Also thanks to the contribution of 'prophetic' voices like his.

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