It seems like the Anglicans aren't the only church duking it out. A survey in Italy's la Repubblica shows that 67% of Italian Catholics support that proposed civil partnership law that will grant limited rights to same-sex couples. Although, it must be noted, only 35% of those people actually think gays deserve the rights. So, really, 32% support a bill that only applies to sinful living straights. But, pro-gayers still have the majority.

Speaking of majority, 80% of Italians, Catholic or not, support the bill, which means that busy-body Pope Benedict XVI has set himself up against most of the country when he said on Monday:

…The confusion at the level of marriage and the failure to recognize what it means to be humane, from conception until death, leaves us to think we are in a period where humanity does not really exist.

It is necessary in personal life, as well as in public life, to have the courage to tell the truth and to pursue it. I invite the civil authorities to show courage.

Politicians publicly derided the church for interfering in social rule. Family Minister Rosy Bindi - a Catholic woman who supports Prime Minister Romano Prodi passage of the bill last week - says, "I like the Church that concerns itself with matters of God".

If the Vatican intend to argue that God's concerned with the future of Italian society, they re-read a letter sent to them by prominent Catholics which worries that the debate may "plunge Italy back in a situation of conflict between being a believer and being a citizen". From the looks of it, however, that's what Bennie and his boys are hoping.