FAST DAY….For all those American conservatives who have decided to give Silvio Berlusconi’s egregious corruption a pass just because he supported the Iraq war, maybe you’d better take a second look at your guy:
In a newspaper interview published this week, the health minister in Italy’s right-of-centre administration, Girolamo Sirchia, announced that he would be doing what he could to reinstate Friday as a day of fasting throughout Italy.
“Apart from being an ancient religious tradition, the weekly fast is a useful health measure,” Mr Sirchia told the daily La Stampa. “It has a scientific basis. It helps to purify the system of the effects of an unhealthy diet.”
….”In school and works canteens and in the hospitals, we shall take the path of reduced portions and a day of abstinence,” Mr Sirchia declared.
A day of fasting in hospitals? Enforced by the government?
