Prisoner of the Vatican by David I. Kertzer Read Free Book Online

anticlerics and loyal Catholics. The police kept the anticlerics under careful watch, and the government had little affection for them. Not only were their raucous demonstrations and sacrilegious publications a source of continuing embarrassment for the government internationally, but they were apt to direct their barbs against the government and the king as well.
    On October 15,1870, the Roman authorities wrote to the provincial government of nearby Frascati to ask about reports they had received of a hostile demonstration against a priest who had allegedly refused to baptize a baby. "They tell me," the Roman police official wrote, "that the population has even descended into violent acts against the parish priest's residence, which was pelted with stones and damaged." Two days later the head of Frascati's provincial government responded, re-counting the facts. Tarquinio Balzoni had brought his newborn baby to the cathedral to be baptized, but the priest in charge "vigorously refused to administer the Baptism because the Godfather had been excommunicated both for being the Vice Secretary of the Municipal Government and for having voted in the plebiscite for the annexation of the Roman Provinces to the Kingdom of Italy." The priest's refusal provoked the ire of the citizenry, and attempts by the head of the province and the chief of the police squad to convince him to perform the baptism got nowhere. But, the provincial head hastened to add, there had been no violence and no attack on the priest's home. These were malicious rumors. 6
    On December 6, 1870, in a typical report, a Roman police official wrote that some youths were running through Rome's streets at night shouting "Long live Pius IX!" Other small groups—of a different bent—had been disturbing public tranquility by shouting "Long live the Republic!" The official assured police headquarters that he was doing all he could to discover who was behind the disorders and to prevent them in the future. 7 Meanwhile, other disturbing reports told of the Vatican's plans to use the observance of the Immaculate Conception to organize a demonstration against the Italian government. The police official in charge of the area around the Vatican, warning of these plans, relayed a bizarre rumor. Word was circulating around the Vatican, he reported, "that on the sacred day of the Conception a miracle will take place. People will wake up to find that not a single Piedmontese soldier remains in Rome!!" 8
    The Italian authorities did have reason to worry. At 4 P.M. on December 8, disorders erupted on the imposing steps of St. Peter's and beneath the columns stretching out around the square. The police report the following day found fault on both sides, blaming the violence on "the reciprocal hatred between the lower classes of Rome and those who see themselves as the most loyal supporters of the Pope's temporal power." Angry shouts and threats had led to fisticuffs and general may hem. With the arrival of a squad of police, the rioters dispersed, and seven arrests were made. 9
    Three days later, new violence broke out in St. Peter's Square. The police had gotten word that the troublemakers were going to return to the basilica to create more mischief, so the official in charge stationed police throughout the square in front of the world's most famous church. Through the afternoon, more and more men of an anticlerical bent streamed into the piazza—at least a thousand, according to later police reports. The police struggled to get them to disperse. Around 5 P.M., as two young members of the pope's Swiss Guard left St. Peter's, one of the groups of young men approached them, accusing them of being
caccialepri,
former members of the reviled urban papal police squad. A growing crowd, in an increasingly foul mood, began to shout "Kill them! They're
caccialepri!
" The police rushed in and escorted the two young men to safety. When they arrested two of the troublemakers, hundreds of