Dodo is no-go despite her community relations act

by Desmond O'Grady in Rome THE Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano is criticising Rome's Christian Democrat-led town council more trenchantly than it did the preceding Communist-Socialist administration.
L 'Osservatore Romano's attacks began in June. One effect has been that the Communists have refurbished aspirations of an "understanding with Catholics". Only the Communist daily Paese Sera is more critical of the administration than L 'Osservatore Romano.
Last year the Pope's vicar for Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, called for a new Roman administration after a decade of leftist rule. Elections resulted in a (Catholic) Christian Democrat-led coalition replacing the leftists. A former government minister, Nicola Signorello, became mayor.
The sharpest criticism has been inspired by a town councilsponsored striptease show. In the previous administration, the Christian Brother-educated, Communist Councillor for Culture, Renato Nicolini, launched a controversial programme of "ephemeral" inner-city cultural events.
However, none was as ephemeral or as controversial as an open-air striptease exhibition by 50-year-old "Dodo" of Hamburg which achieved the miracle of forging a common front of outrage between
L'Osservatore Romano and feminists. The new Councillor for Culture is Republican, but the Christian Democrats shared the blame for Dodo.
L 'Osservatore Romano has also criticised the city's inefficient rubbish collection, lack of facilities for the aged, Tiber pollution, ill-equipped hospitals.
Mayor Signorello has given some embarrassed interviews claiming that the Vatican has not disowned the Christian Democrats. He has also made an
unsuccessful appeal to the National Government for more funds to tackle Rome's problem's.
Inevitably people ask who is behind /. 'Osservatore Romano's criticisms, is it John Paul II, the secretariat of state? It seems L'Osservatore Romano's editor, Mario Agnes, is acting on his own initiative in this crusade. He is a former Christian Democrat town councillor. It has been claimed that, during his term as councillor. He was absent from 86 per cent of meetings.