Jurists From Italy

"(Responding to Silvio Berlusconi's provocation: ‘She is more beautiful than intelligent’) Evidently I am a woman who is not at his disposal."

"It is better for a child to stay in Africa than to be adopted by same-sex couples."

"Le Iene [TV program] are a bit of a cheat, but if my colleagues didn't use drugs, it wouldn't show."

"(On the PD premier candidate's primaries) If Renzi wants to run for the primaries, he should resign from the PD, because the candidate is the PD secretary by statute. And if he is changed, then let him know that he will not be alone."

"I do not accept lessons in political ethics from Bindi: she is ugly, mean and a cretin."

"[Speaking of who would preside over a ‘coalition of democratic emergency ’] Rosy Bindi. A woman who represents the reaction to one of the most painful points of the cultural regression, holds a key institutional role such as that of vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, has the right profile to lead a rapid transition to normality."

"When we Will die, nobody will come to ask to us how much we will have been believers, but (how much we Will have been) credible."

"…Tai Ji Men refused all offers of settlement from the [National Taxation Bureau], insisting they were not guilty of tax evasion and should not pay even a single dollar for this. It may seem that this is a battle about money, but it isn’t for Tai Ji Men. They spent in legal fees only, in all these years of struggles, more than they would have paid had they settled with the NTB. They did not settle for a reason of principle. By settling, they would have admitted that they had been guilty of tax evasion, something that is both against their principles and factual truth, and in their eyes would even be a connivance with the criminal actions of some rogue officials. How can they tour the world and lecture about conscience and being good citizens, and at the same time admit they evaded taxes?"

"Sometimes, friendship may change the world."

"…a difficult dialogue is better than [having] no dialogue."

"A world with no place for God is dark, empty without hope."

"Everywhere in the world, young men and women like what is forbidden."

"Social justice without [civil or natural] rights is [maliciously] ideological and false."

"For the [ Chinese Communist Party ] it is better to have a bureaucrat who is not very bright but is fanatically loyal to the Party than a very intelligent bureaucrat who thinks independently."

"[The Supreme Court of California’s 1931 decision “People v. Blackburn”] demonstrates that religious liberty is truly protected only if donations even to the most marginal and “strange” religions are protected."

"China seems to have been very much similar to the West, both in the production of new religious movements and in attracting to them figures from the political left who were officially promoting the struggle against “superstition.” Reconstructions of “Chinese traditional culture” as “non-religious,” and of the rich Chinese religious pluralism as mere “folk religion” should be viewed as propaganda rather than history."

"When a national or local government calls a religious group “antisocial” [or “cultic” or “dangerous” or the like], it jeopardizes [that religious group's] right to honor and reputation, incites [unreasonable] discrimination, and interferes with the citizens’ right of deciding which religion they want to join free from governmental pressures—who would want to bear the stigma connected with joining a religion officially declared “antisocial”?"

"By excluding the intolerants from the scope of tolerance, Voltaire reduced tolerance to an empty box. Worse, he prepared the atrocities of the Terror of the French Revolution, which was in turn the model of Communist terror. Millions were killed by proclaiming they had no right to tolerance because they were themselves intolerant. …The dramatic mistake of Voltaire should be corrected by proclaiming that religions and philosophies have [the] right to be in different ways intolerant, and should still be tolerated."

"[The] Yan’an [Soviet] is [a] synonym of crushing dissent, real or invented, by torturing and killing. As [Communist Party member] Cai Qi reminded the audience at the April 28 [2024] symposium, the Yan’an Rectification Campaign was plotted by Mao, but its main organizer was Ren Bishi."

"It is one of the most difficult exercises for democracy to tolerate those who think differently, think independently from the powers that be, and sometimes behave differently or do not actively support the parties in power."

"You cannot “rejoice in the truth” without rejecting and exposing iniquity. The lack of conscience, charity, and love leads to bad governance, unjust administration, and an unstable society inimical to its own citizens."

"The victims of [pedosexual] priests and other religious ministers deserve our sympathy and respect—but so do those who have been slandered and vilified by the media based on accusations courts have later recognized as false."

"Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, the Shifu (Grand Master) of Tai Ji Men, played a key role in reaffirming that conscience is the basis of [natural and civil] rights and of global peace, inter alia through the Declaration of . Since conscience is universal, so are [natural and civil] rights."

"The lesson of [the story about the Kalaupapa peninsula lepers’ colony of Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi, and Belgian Catholic priest Father Damien De Veuster] is that living together in peace cannot be taken for granted. Even those who share a misfortune can ultimately not be able to live in peace together unless they discover again the role of the conscience. …order can be restored by returning to conscience."

"Wilson himself argued that it would be in the best interest of humanity if organized religions as we know them would disappear. There is, however, a misunderstanding. Wilson was not an atheist, nor was he against asking religious questions. Since his main interest were ants, it is to his interesting we should turn to understand more about his ideas on religion."

"While predicting the future is a rare gift, testifying for the truth is a duty for every woman and man of conscience. …A prophet, Romero added, is one who has an “undisturbed conscience.” This is an interesting statement. Only those who are firmly rooted in conscience as their moral compass may calmly tell the truth about injustice and corruption, no matter the risks. And risks there are since prophets easily make enemies."

"A key point of the texts attributed to Shotoku is that if rulers and bureaucrats believe they are the owners rather than the servants of the law, corruption will follow. Corruption was already a problem in the 7th century, and the Shotoku writings define it as privileging the officials’ private interests over the public ones. …Manipulating the public in the interest of the private is the very definition of corruption."

"Obviously the obedience to the spiritual master includes the risk of abuse. However, charges of abuse should be evaluated within the context of the religious tradition. Gurus who kill or [sexually abuse] their followers may not hide under pretexts of religious freedom. On the other hand, “being a guru” or establishing with the disciples a special relationship of trust and obedience is not illegal. It should not be evaluated through individualist and rationalist standards by media, or even by secular courts of law who do not understand the [ancient] religious principle of surrendering a great part of the disciple’s liberty to a spiritual master."

"Obviously, those suspected of sexual abuse, be they religious leaders or not, should be prosecuted—but not because Netflix says so. …[The television industry] knows that illicit sex always titillates and sells, and this is even more true for the combination between religion and illicit sex. …The producers of the TV shows claim that they give voice to victims of sexual abuse by religious leaders. This is legitimate and also important (if the victims are real, of course). However, the pain of the victims is not relieved if the shows stereotype and generalize, and further pain is inflicted on those who want to remain in the religious movements and are personally not guilty of any crime. …If I learned one thing, it is that in the long run invariably hate speech generates hate crimes, violence, and in the end murder. Netflix and the other networks should remember that hate speech can kill—and television can kill too."

"Tai Ji Men dizi are not professional diplomats, yet they play a diplomatic role through friendship and culture. They know that their effectiveness is rooted in self-cultivation—just as Guiguzi said so many centuries ago. …We all have a lot to learn from Tai Ji Men dizi. The reference to Guiguzi shows that perhaps they are so effective in what they do because they epitomize a millennia-old Chinese tradition, and a gift Chinese culture gave to the world."

"The jury is still out, but what Machiavelli described—either to recommend or subtly denounce it—was a diplomacy without conscience. It may look brilliant, but many who commented on Machiavelli noted that hidden in his works is the idea that a diplomacy totally separated from morality and conscience may achieve results occasionally but in most cases, and in the long run, would not work. …However we decide to read him, Machiavelli listed as the three features of effective diplomacy caution, art (meaning the mastery of a number of technical tools), and above all patience."

"Conscience is desensitized by materialism, but sometimes a “digital manipulation of consciences” by media that serve corrupt powers is also at work. The second [point of relevance for the Tai Ji Men case] is the role of religion and spiritual organizations to “keep alive the flame of collective conscience,” which is a pre-requisite for fraternity and peace. The third is that “corruption in its various forms,” including by “politicians” and “corrupt officials,” is one of the main obstacles that prevent our societies from being fraternal and peaceful. …When conscience is no longer the compass, corruption prevails. Corruption destroys fraternity and peace, tries to manipulate the consciences through slander and fake news, and produces injustices."

"I believe that public schools should not indoctrinate or proselytize for any religion but I am also persuaded that excluding an objective look at the role of religions and spirituality while designing a school curriculum would make it impossible for students to understand much of the art, culture, literature, and history of humanity in all continents. Even when reflecting on the momentous question of how education can produce good citizens, excluding any consideration of values based on spirituality can only lead to catastrophic results."

"I believe that Dr. Hong [Tao-Tze, the leader of Tai Ji Men], who has made himself heard about conscience all over the world, will be remembered for having rescued conscience from the problems Svevo was immersed in when he published his novel. Conscience had been assaulted not only by Freud, but before him by Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). They all suggested that rather than being something natural or native conscience has been artificially created inside us by social forces not particularly well intentioned. …Dr. Hong told us a simple truth, that we should forget ideologies and come back to conscience as the moral compass. Ideologies, as we know from the tragedies of the 20th century and are experiencing again in the 21st century, by obfuscating conscience create war and destruction. Only those who recognize the central role of conscience can build a civilization of peace and love."

"There are several misunderstandings about conscience. One is that the question of conscience is extremely complicated. As Dr. Hong [Tao-Tze] teaches us, this is basically a lie. A philosophical book about conscience can be very technical and difficult to read for the uninitiated, yet the common experience of conscience is very simple. …As Dr. Hong says, “conscience is innate.” It is within us. For believers, it is the voice of God; for non-believers, it is the voice of our deepest and noblest human nature. But the 19th century ideologues told us that it is a false voice of false gods."

"Being one of the scholars who immediately reacted to the 1995 report through press conferences, articles, and a book, I warned that the list [of 173 “cults” by a French Parliamentary Commission] was the most dangerous feature of the whole [anti-cult] enterprise. …I and other scholars coined the expression “effet de liste” (list effect), indicating that the damages done to groups that had committed no crimes and their members was irreparable. It took ten years [for] the French government to recognize that the list had perhaps not been such a good idea, and in 2005 it stated that it should no longer be used as a reference."

"There is physical pollution and there is the moral pollution of injustice. The two of them go together. We will not eliminate physical pollution if we do not eliminate moral pollution as well. …Getting the Buddhas back on their feet and creating a safe environment means changing our hearts, acknowledging the primacy of conscience, and facing and resolving injustice."

"[…]Kant believed that world peace was possible only if the enlightened elites in each country worked hard to promote conscience. Without conscience there would be no peace, no matter how much efforts a society of nations would make. I am not sure that Kant’s notion of conscience was the same as Dr. Hong’s and Tai Ji Men’s. Kant’s one was deeply rooted in a Protestant sense of guilt and sin, and he saw it more as an inner tribunal delivering an internal verdict of guilt for the bad actions we have performed. Yet, his idea of a necessary connection between peace and conscience remains valid."

"[Australian scholar David Thomas] Smith’s theory of religious persecution shows us that a general “system of tolerance of minorities” is perfectly compatible with the persecution of some groups, and the two things in fact go together in many modern democratic states, which answers the objection that Tai Ji Men cannot be persecuted because Taiwan in general protects religious liberty. It also shows that democratic states, unlike their totalitarian counterparts that are often irrational, cease the persecutions when they understand that the political cost of persecution has become higher than the cost of tolerating a group they do not like."

"The real lesson of Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights. His government in his time believed that [civil or natural] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil or natural] rights. He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.” …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is not a valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"Our debate has themes of great significance: the fight against poverty, quality education as a source of personal and social opportunity, and action for the protection of the environment. These themes are held together by the common thread of inclusion, with a human individual at the center of the political action of this organization and of every member state. An “inclusive humanism”, expression I love to refer to, which recognized the equal dignity of each individual, which is a real achievement of modernity. Italy openly invokes an effective multilateralism, because only collective and coordinated action can help us face the multiple challenges before us. We need a multilateral concept based on cooperation, transparency and the principle of equality between states, aimed at correcting the dysfunctional aspects of globalization. But the inspiring source, the polar star that must guide this multilateralism, is respect for the human person, starting with the recognition of his or her dignity, personal and social. Without this foundation, multilateralism becomes a mere technique, which can be useful but cannot expect to guide solid choice and values."

"Although Christian piety tolerates the Jews ... whose own fault commits them to perpetual slavery ... and allows them to continue with us (even though the Moors will not tolerate them), they must not be allowed to remain ungrateful to us in such a way as to repay us with contumely for favors and contempt for our familiarity. They are admitted to our familiarity only through our mercy; but they are to us dangerous as the insect in the apple, as the serpent in the breast * * * Since, therefore, they have already begun to gnaw like the rat, and to stink like the serpent, it is to our shame that the fire in our breast which is being eaten into by them, does not consume them * * * As they are reprobate slaves of the Lord, in whose death they evilly conspired (at least by the effect of the deed), let them acknowledge themselves as slaves of those whom the death of Christ has made free."

"As Cain was a wanderer and an outcast, not to be killed by anyone but marked with the sign of fear on his forehead, so the Jews ... against whom the voice of the blood of Christ cries out ... although they are not to be killed they must always be dispersed as wanderers upon the face of the earth."

"...the Christian people possessed almost all the Saracen provinces until after the time of Saint Gregory. But after that time, a certain son of perdition, the pseudo-prophet Muhammad, arose, and he seduced many away from the truth with carnal enticements and pleasures. Even though his perfidy lasted until the present, still we trust in the Lord who has now made a good sign that the end of this beast, whose number, according to John's Apocalypse, counts 666, of which now almost six hundred years are completed approaches. ... Therefore, dearly beloved sons, changing dissensions and fratricidal jealousies into treaties of peace and goodwill, let us gird ourselves to come to the aid of the Crucified, not hesitating to risk property and life for him who laid down his life and shed his blood for us."

"Know then that whoever denies aid to the Redeemer in this time of his need is culpably harsh and harshly culpable. For, also, insofar as, according to the divine command, he loves his neighbor as himself and for him, he knows that this brethren in faith and in the Christian name are imprisoned by the faithless Saracens in a cruel prison and endure the harsh yoke of slavery, he does not expend the efficacious work for their liberation, that the Lord spoke of in the Gospel. "Do to others whatever you wish them to do to you". Or perhaps you do not know that many thousands of Christians are held in prison and slavery by them and they suffer countless torments?"

"O how great a benefit will result from this cause; how many, converted to penitence, have handed themselves over by service of the Crucified for the liberation of the Holy Land, as is by suffering martyrdom they have obtained the crown of glory, who would perhaps have perished in their iniquities entangled in carnal desires and earthly seductions. This is an old device of Jesus Christ that he deigned to renew in these days for the salvation of his faithful. .. Thus the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought body and soul and other goods to you, will condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you should fail to aid him with the result that he lost his kingdom that he brought with the price of his blood."

"Who, then, in a case of such great emergency shall refuse to pay obedience to Jesus Christ? When he comes to stand before Christ's tribunal to be judged, what answer will he be able to make to him in defense of himself? If God has submitted himself to death for man, is man to hesitate to submit to death for God? ... Shall then the servant deny temporal riches to his lord when his lord bestows on the servant riches that are eternal. ... Let each and all, then, prepare themselves so that in the next month of March [1199] each city by itself and...each of the earls and barons should...send a number of warriors to the defense of the land of the nativity of our Lord. ... we especially conceive as one of our chief concerns our desire to apply every energy to the rescue of the lands of the East."

"For behold, our inheritance has gone to strangers, our houses to alien people. ... The sepulcher of the Lord, which the prophet foretold should be so glorious, has been profaned by the unrighteous and has thereby been made inglorious. ... Take, therefore, my sons, the spirit of fortitude, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, putting your trust in God, not in numbers nor in your strength, but rather trusting in the power of God, to whom it is not difficult to save either with many or the few."

"After the wretched fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem, after the lamentable slaughter of the people of Christendom, after the deplorable invasion of that land on which the feet of Christ had stood, and where God, our King, had deigned to work our salvation in the midst of the earth, after the ignominious removal of the life-giving cross on which the salvation of the world had been hanged, and thereby blotted out the signature of the old death, the Apostolic See, alarmed at the awful recurrence of disasters so unfortunate, was struck with agonizing grief, exclaiming and bewailing to such a degree that, from her continual crying, her throat became hoarse. ... Still the Apostolic See cries aloud, and she raises her voice like a trumpet, trying to arouse the nations of Christendom to fight the battles of Christ, and to avenge the injuries done to him crucified."

"He was vigorous and able, good and clever, a right man at a most critical period for the coming of the XIIIth century was a time when the feudal structure, so indispensable, apparently, to the framework of the Church, was weakening before the formations of nationalism. ... He demanded and received universal allegiance, the papal dignity grew and no monarch could escape, if the occasion demanded, from the sting of his ire or the lash of his chastisement."