An annual celebration of the 1929 treaty that governs relations between Italy and the Vatican took an awkward turn Friday, with Premier Silvio Berlusconi, engulfed in a prostitution scandal, attending a ceremony with the Vatican's No 2. official.
Berlusconi has come under criticism from the Catholic church as the scandal centering on his alleged encounters with a 17-year-old Moroccan girl has unfolded.
The 74-year-old leader was recently indicted on charges he paid for sex with the girl, and then abused his influence to cover it up.
Berlusconi denies the charges.
The premier and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, arrived with their respective delegations at the Rome palazzo housing Italy’s embassy to the Holy See for the early evening ceremony.
When asked how the meetings went, Berlusconi smiled and said "great as always" as he left the embassy, nearly two hours later. He declined further comment.
During the meeting, Berlusconi was seated between Bertone and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops Conference who has been equally critical of the scandal.
In comments last month, Bertone said the Vatican was concerned about the scandal and following its developments attentively. He called for a "more robust morality, a sense of justice and legality" among everyone, particularly those in public office.
Pope Benedict XVI has not mentioned the scandal directly, though he did say last month that public officials must "rediscover their spiritual and moral roots."
The Vatican’s criticism is a blow to Berlusconi, whose conservative coalition had gained the church’s favor thanks to its pro-church positions on family, life and social issues.
Still, Berlusconi has so far survived a scandal that would have forced most European leaders to step down. Newspapers have been filled for weeks with revelations of alleged sex-fueled parties at Berlusconi’s villas, with topless women dancing around.
Both Berlusconi and the girl, named Karima el-Mahroug and nicknamed Ruby, have denied a sexual relationship. Berlusconi has denied he exerted undue pressure when he called Milan police in May to seek the release of the woman, who had been detained for an unrelated theft.
Berlusconi insists he will finish his term, which ends in 2013.
The premier has been working — successfully — to improve his parliamentary majority, which was eroded after a split with a longtime ally, Gianfranco Fini, who commands a few dozen lawmakers in parliament.Some of the lawmakers who had initially followed Fini are now going back to Berlusconi’s side.
The Lateran Pact was signed in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, giving the Roman Catholic Church many privileges in Italy.
In 1984, the Vatican and the Italian government, led then by the late Socialist Premier Bettino Craxi, agreed to a revised pact that eliminated Roman Catholicism as Italy’s state religion.
