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

their companions began threatening the officers, demanding that they be released. Police reinforcements moved in, arresting eight men in all. In this and other such cases, what stands out is how many of those arrested were artisans: a tinsmith, a hatmaker, a blacksmith, a cabinetmaker. 10
    Violent encounters between the anticlerics and Catholics erupted with regularity around the city in these first months and years after the taking of Rome; remarkably, none resulted in serious injury. One of the more dramatic of these scenes occurred on March 10,1871, at the Church of Jesus, the Jesuits' principal church, and so a particularly juicy target for the anticlerics. The previous day, a group of young anticlerics had confronted a group of devoted Catholics of the church. Their accounts varied. According to the Catholics, a young man named Enrico Santini, a lieutenant in the national guard, came into the church during the sermon and began to ridicule the preacher. After the service, as he was leaving with his coterie, he again raised his voice to the other churchgoers: "You don't believe all that nonsense that that monk has been spouting?" he asked. A group of angry young men confronted him, and a fight broke out.
    A later government report told a different story: Santini, wearing civilian clothes, had attended mass at the Church of Jesus. At 11:30 A.M., as people were leaving, twenty former
caccialepri,
using as their pretext the charge that they had seen Santini smile disrespectfully, attacked him with fists and sticks, leaving him bleeding. It was due to this unprovoked assault, in this account, that the following day some friends of Santini's decided to gather outside the huge door of the Church of Jesus, waiting for the celebrants to come out from mass.
    The anticlerical crowd grew rapidly to two thousand, spilling out beyond the piazza and into the small streets that fed it.
Civiltà Cattolica,
in its account of the events that followed, characterized the throng as "composed in large part of filthy plebes and lowly beggars," many of whom were "either nonbelievers, or foreign Protestants in the city, or Jews." Again the chaos that ensued spawned two very different stories. In the liberal press, what precipitated events were the
caccialepri,
who strutted out of the church with a threatening swagger. "This is one of the usual lies of the liberal press," responded
Civiltà Cattolica.
"Can you imagine how a handful of young men, courageous, true, but virtuous and modest, as are those whom the rabble call
'caccialepri,'
would want to leave the church with a threatening expression toward such a large crowd?" What both sides admit is that the crowd showered the young Catholic men with insults, and scuffling broke out on the steps of the church. The police already stationed there were soon reinforced by two companies of infantry, who formed a defensive line in front of the church, facing the crowd. Despite repeated orders to disperse, the people would not leave, so the soldiers fixed their bayonets and began to move toward the throng. The crowd retreated from the soldiers but then reformed, continuing to hurl insults at the men filing out of the church.
    Amid the mayhem, the soldiers received orders to move into the church itself. As the secular Roman newspaper
La Libertà
told the story, the police and soldiers were forced to go in to quell the violence that had broken out: "Some police agents and some soldiers entered the church where the disorder was great. Many clubs were seized, belonging for the most part to those who were already in the church; and it was discovered that some of these had blades affixed to them. It has come to our attention that a number of knives were also seized." Again,
Civiltà Cattolica
offered a very different story. The huge doors of the church, which had been closed as soon as the disorder in the piazza began, were flung open violently and "a horde of
carabinieri,
national guard, and policemen