Aldo Moro affair a watershed for the West and for the Church
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of a watershed event, both for contemporary Western politics and for the Catholic church: the kidnapping of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the left-wing terrorist group the Red Brigades, followed by Moro?s execution on May 9, 1978, after 55 days of captivity.
The morning Moro was kidnapped, he was on his way to Parliament to savor what was to be his defining achievement: the compromesso storico, a plan to bring Italy?s Communist Party into a governing alliance with the Christian Democrats in order to promote national stability. It was a controversial move, opposed bitterly in Washington and elsewhere as a violation of the cardinal rule of post-war Italian politics: to keep the Communists out of power.