Silvio Berlusconi has gone on the offensive, insisting he never paid women to attend parties at his residence and suggesting that the woman who has told her story about the invitations and about spending a night with him was paid to create problems for him, something she hotly denies.
In effect, the investigation by a Bari magistrate into the prime minister's parties has not (so far) accused Berlusconi of any wrongdoing (for the moment, its target is a Bari businessman named Giampaolo Tarantini accused of "inducement to prostitution"). But the image of the Prime Minister's residences as Playboy Mansions to which access was apparently possible with little or no attention to security, has struck home, at least among many of the country's more conservative inhabitants.

Don Sciortino

To an extent, the photos of several girls primping in one of the mansion's bathrooms or about the repo by one of the women involved that the prime minister - the country's wealthiest man - keeps apparently unending supplies of jewelry on hand to give to women who attend his dinners and parties, is beginning to have a powerful negative affect on some area's of public opinion, although not as widely as one would expect elsewhere.

This week, the popular Roman Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, sharply condemned Berlusconi's lifestyle and behaviour. Responding to letters by readers, the magazine's editor, Don Antonio Sciortino, said Berlusconi's behaviour was "indefensible" and urged the Church to react, saying that "A person in power cannot think that he can trade morality for laws that are favourable to the Church. The church cannot abdicate its mission and ignore the moral emergency in public life in our country. He added that "there are limits to everything and the limit of decency has been passed".

The prelate said that anyone who assumes public office ought to be concerned about the example they give and when necessary to draw the necessary consequences. "In other countries", he added, "if politicians break rules or engage in unacceptable behaviour, they are forced to resign. Why should this not be the case in Italy as well".

Why indeed? Well, as readers know I have been living here a long time and years ago I starter saying to people who asked me my impressions of this country that most Italians wouldn't recognize and ethical principal if they tripped over it. Sorry, but it is true. This explains, among other things, why only a tiny minority of people here ever got exercised over the conflict of interest that arose when Berlusconi, who owns a vast media empire, went into politics, which meant - once he became prime minister - that he also had a lot of influence over Italy's state television. (In fact, a journalist recently appointed as head of news for RAI TG1, assumed to have been backed by Berlusconi, has been coming under fire for having dedicated so little air time to the burgeoning scandal).

Another example. Most Italian  I know, even the ones enraged by the conflict of interest, also didn't get it when I was outraged over Bill Clinton's using the Oval office to get sexual relief from Monica Lewinsky. So are the majority of Italians really going to get upset because their prime minister thinks he is Hugh Hefner? Not likely. Especially because they like him, for his affability, his sense of humour, his anti-communism and his showmanship and would secretly (or not so secretly) like to BE him.

In a recent editorial published in La Repubblica, pundit Edmondo Berselli, blames Italian television, and the world it has portrayed since Berlusconi broke the RAI monopoly back in the 1980s, for much of this moral indifference, or moral amnesia as he calls it. And it is hard to fault him.

At present, in fact, is appears that Italy's classe dirigente, its establishment, seems to have accepted, perhaps even welcomed, the idea that those in power are permitted to break any of the rules which the rest of us are expected to adhere to. Almost no one within the country's elite has even spoken out about the fact that Piazza Grazioli, the prime minister's residence, which of necessity must assume an institutional character, has been used in such a way. Aside from Famiglia Cristiana and, more cautiously, Avvenire, the newspaper of Italy's Episcopal conference, almost no one has said anything about the reports of beautiful girls dressed in Santa Claus suits at last Christmas' party at Berlusconi's Sardinian residence, Villa Certosa. So, you see,  there's a reason why I call this column Stranitalia.