Skip to Content

Alessandro Speciale

Articles by this author:

Global Post

Debt Crisis? Italy resorts to online gambling

By Alessandro Speciale | 08/05/11
ROME, Italy — In a small roadside cafe in southern Tuscany, a loud metallic sound, like the crash of many bells, shatters the Sunday afternoon silence. A couple has just won at a slot machine-like game. They have been playing for nearly an hour.
Global Post

Italy looks to job training programs to prevent prison overcrowding

By Alessandro Speciale | 08/24/10
ROME, Italy — Prisons are, by design, unpleasant places to stay. But what really kept Pasquale — a 45-year-old Sicilian father of four — awake at night was the thought of life outside prison.
Global Post

Will Silvio Berlusconi's former ally be the one to end his reign?

By Alessandro Speciale | 08/06/10
ROME, Italy — Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister for seven of the last 10 years, constantly complains that "hidden powers" and a rigid Constitution, together with closet-Communists from the opposition Democratic Party, hinder his capacity
Global Post

My father, my lover: Priests struggle with celibacy

By Alessandro Speciale | 06/01/10
ROME, Italy — They are used to secrecy, to hiding their feelings, to waiting in the shadows for their men. But now a group of women who have had intimate relationships with Catholic priests has decided to speak up against celibacy.
Global Post

Expect delays before John Paul II is made a saint

By Alessandro Speciale | 04/02/10
VATICAN CITY — Airline ticket prices often seem to fluctuate randomly, with a given route affordable one day and costly the day after. But there is a reason why a round-trip ticket from Warsaw to Rome on the weekend of Oct.
Global Post

Benedict XVI reeling from fallout of a growing priest abuse scandal in Germany that involves his brother

By Alessandro Speciale | 03/15/10
VATICAN CITY — The two Ratzinger brothers have always stood together. They were both ordained as Catholic priests the same day in the same small German town where they came of age.