Pope’s condolence for death of former Italian President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro

(January 30, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI has paid homage to former Italian President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who died on Sunday in Rome. He was 93. In a condolence message to Scalfaro’s daughter, Marianna , the Pope remembered the former president as “an illustrious Catholic statesman.” Scalfaro was Italy’s president from 1992-1999, during the sweeping corruption scandal of the early 1990s that reshaped the country's post-war political landscape. The Pope’s message recalled Scalfaro as an upright lawyer and faithful server of institutions who “did his best to promote the common good and the perennial ethical and religious values of Christianity that is proper to Italy’s historical and civic traditions".
Scalfaro, from the northern city of Novara, was a key figure in postwar Italian politics, helping to write the constitution and to found the former Christian Democrats. He held numerous prominent government posts before becoming Italy's ninth post-war president, a position that is largely ceremonial but carries the significant role of moral compass for the country. The “Clean Hands”' investigations launched in the early 1990s during his presidency, uncovered a broad system of bribes that wiped out much of Italy's political class, including key members of the conservative Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats.