Against a background of continuing Roman Catholic opposition to a new law to recognise unmarried couples, three Catholic priests in Italy have spoken out in defence of civil partnerships.

Fathers Vittorio Cristelli, Aldo Antonelli of Aquila and Beppe Scapino of Ivrea showed their support in an article entitled "We are Catholics in favour of homosexual civil unions" in the Turin newspaper La Stampa.

The three priests have been met with adversity since their statements. Catholics around the world have already published comments on Catholic message boards claiming that the priests are themselves homosexual and are "Trojan horses in the body ecclesiastic."

Father Antonelli was particularly outspoken, and stated that the hostility of the Vatican to gay rights is a demonstration of what he calls "the Talibanisation of the Church," according to Catholic Word News.

The head of Italy's bishops has outraged the gay community by comparing a bill that would grant rights to same-sex couples to allowing incest and pedophilia.

Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who was appointed last month to head the Italian Bishops Conference, is leading the Church's campaign against the legislation, which the Vatican says would weaken the institution of marriage.

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"Why say 'no' to forms of legally recognized cohabitation that creates alternatives to the family? Why say 'no' to incest?" he said at a meeting of Church workers, according to a report in La Repubblica daily. "Why say 'no' to the pedophile party in Holland?" he added, referring to the Dutch Brotherly Love, Freedom and Diversity party, which wants to cut the age of consent from 16 to 12 and legalize child pornography.

Gay rights furore over MP's garter

A battle over legal rights for gay couples in Italy has focused on a gruesome-looking metal garter belt.

With Pope Benedict thundering against the demise of the family and lay politicians fighting to keep religion out of politics, the debate took a bizarre turn when a staunchly Catholic politician, renowned for denouncing homosexuality as 'unnatural', admitted that she wears the spiked metal chain around her thigh to recreate the suffering of Christ.

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Paola Binetti, a government senator and member of the conservative Opus Dei organisation, has been labelled a 'sado-masochist' by gay rights campaigner Franco Grillini for wearing the steel cilice, despite her claim that it is no more painful than wearing high heels or training for an athletic event. Similar to a strip of chain-link fencing with added spikes, the cilice was made famous by the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code.

'People are free to do what they want and I don't object to the cilice, but Binetti should not in turn object to two people who want to live together peacefully,' said transvestite MP Vladimir Luxuria, who also said Binetti should be thrown out of her centrist party if she refuses to back gay rights.

In addition to the cilice, senior members, or 'numeraries', of Opus Deioften use whips to 'discipline' themselves, sleep on hard mattresses and live in shared communities. Binetti, a trained child psychotherapist, donates her earnings to Opus Dei.

The grey-haired, matronly Binetti said the feeling of the spikes digging into the flesh of her thigh reminded her of the hardships of life, but that it was no more damaging to her health than going on a diet or walking around in winter with her belly button showing.

Homosexuality, however, 'represents "different" behaviour', she said, 'very different from the norms written into our morphological, genetic, endocrinological and character codes'.

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At first glance, Binetti and Luxuria are among the better groomed women in the parliament, although on closer inspection there is little of the conventional about either. Luxuria (real name, Wladimiro Guadagno) is a drag artist who has not had a sex change operation but dresses and lives as a woman and represents the Reformed Communist Party in the Italian parliament.

Commenting on Binetti's donning of the cilice, he said: 'If someone is trying to get back to the Middle Ages, it is usually reflected in their outfits.'

After Binetti's statement, which constituted a rare admission by an Opus Dei numerary of self-harm, Grillini brought a cilice into the Italian parliament to pass around 'to show the absurd behaviour of some believers'.

(Rome) Italian Premier Romano Prodi has survived a Senate attempt to turf his left-of-center government out of office. The Senate voted 162-157. He is expected to have less difficulty with a similar confidence vote in the lower house on Friday.

"The government is like the Tower of Pisa: It leans but it doesn't fall," said cabinet minister Clemente Mastella.

But to keep the government from toppling Prodi bargained away legislation that would have allowed civil unions for same-sex couples.

A spokesperson for beleaguered Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi confirmed Monday that legislation creating civil partnerships has been dropped - one of several concessions Prodi made to shore up his crumbling left-of-center coalition government 

Prodi stepped down last Wednesday after an embarrassing parliamentary defeat over foreign policy. Following two days of meetings with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and scrambling by Prodi to expand his coalition, he agreed to remain on until a confidence vote is held in Parliament.

That vote will come on Wednesday his spokesperson said Monday.

But even if Prodi manages to survive the civil partnership bill is dead.

The expanded coalition forced Prodi to agree to a 12-point plan that calls for respecting Italy's international commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and for the construction of a high-speed rail line linking Turin with Lyon, France.

To get the support of Vatican-backed Christian Democratic Party Prodi agreed to shelve any plans to recognize same-sex relationships.