ITALY:Several thousand residents in Rome who face eviction from their rented homes by the Catholic church have accused church bodies of indulging in a "speculative frenzy".
In a letter to the head of the Italian bishops' conference, Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, a committee formed by tenants said: "We have always paid the rent and taken care of our flats. None of the evictions is for non-payment of rent; they are all because of expired leases."
The problem is most acute in the centre of the Italian capital, where a quarter of the property is owned by the Vatican and church organisations.
The protest could scarcely have come at a more embarrassing time for the Italian Catholic hierarchy. In recent weeks Archbishop Bagnasco made a widely reported speech in which he deplored a shortage of low-cost housing.
Former Archbishop of Siena Gaetano Bonicelli, who advises the bishops' conference on social policy, insisted that the evictions were being carried out, not by the church directly, but by the property agents of organisations linked to it. However, he said, their conduct was "certainly not in line with the teaching of the popes on the right to housing".
"It would be better to take below-market rents than to refuse to give a hand to those who can't make alternative arrangements."
Organisations behind the agents range from religious orders and papal colleges to foundations originally set up for charitable purposes that nowadays have only tenuous links to the church.
The daily newspaper La Stampa said that from today, 4,000 properties could be repossessed, of which half were in Rome. A surge in rents at the beginning of the decade made Italian landlords reluctant to grant new leases to existing tenants on the same or similar terms. In many cases they were getting modest rents for properties in enviable positions.
So far, Italy's politicians have reacted by blocking the removal of some categories of tenant. The latest measure applies to low-income families with children and households with members who are elderly, seriously disabled or terminally ill. It runs out today.