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

raced in furiously with their swords out and their daggers drawn, followed by soldiers with their rifles aimed straight ahead. It was this violent entry of armed forces in the church that was the true cause of the disorder that followed, especially because of the fright it gave the women who were inside. Many were arrested in the church, honest, upstanding young men, guilty of nothing other than having attended the sacred gathering, and among them a young priest, the son of Count Barbellini." For the Jesuit journal, the lesson was clear: "These disorders, which have by now become so frequent, are proof of the ... impossibility of the coexistence in Rome of two Sovereigns, the one spiritual, the other temporal." 11
    Italy's minister of foreign affairs, Emilio Visconti Venosta, was so concerned by the poor impression that news of the melee was making abroad that he sent a long dispatch to his ambassadors, offering the government's account. "It is possible that the reactionary press," he wrote, "is seeking to give these incidents an importance that they are far from meriting. It would be well if you were in a position to counteract these exaggerations with the truth." In his account, the troubles had all begun with the priest, the Jesuit Father Tommasi. In a series of sermons at the Church of Jesus, the priest had angered the city's patriotic majority by his constant, and barely veiled, political diatribes. The partisans of the old regime, Visconti charged, saw attending Tommasi's fulminations as a way to flaunt their own hostility to the Italian state. Realizing the potential for an outbreak of popular anger against the champions of papal rule, the government made sure that police were outside to maintain order. Indeed, on the day in question, the crowd was well behaved until, as the worshipers began to file out, some in the crowd began to whistle at them. "A
caccialepre
surrounded by many of his comrades responded," Visconti wrote, "with various gestures and ironical remarks." This in turn led to an exchange of punches and blows with clubs on the church steps.
    According to the Italian foreign minister, the police and soldiers moved in immediately, making some arrests and quelling the disorder, but at the same time they heard shouts of distress from women in the church, so they moved inside, quickly restoring order there as well. Thanks to the authorities' quick response, there had been no serious injuries. It was worth noting, Visconti pointed out, that among those arrested inside the church was a priest, Count Barbellini, caught as he was distributing clubs to the
caccialepri.' 12
    If Visconti and Lanza were eager to trumpet the Church's freedom in the new Italy and the continued respect enjoyed by the pope, anticlerics had a very different agenda. For them, the taking of Rome meant the end of centuries of clerical tyranny, the close of an era of medieval superstition, and the beginning of a bright new future of science and reason. And in showing their disdain for the central beliefs of Catholicism, they found few occasions more potent than those that marked the death of one of their heroes.
    An early opportunity of this kind presented itself in April 1871 with the death of Mattia Montecchi, one of the leaders of the 1849 Roman Republic. Rome witnessed an event that would earlier have been inconceivable, a civil funeral and burial. To aggravate the Church further, the ceremonies were scheduled for Ash Wednesday. Seven thousand people strode solemnly through Rome's streets. The banners of scores of republican societies were held aloft while assorted veterans of Garibaldi's battles marched proudly. For the first time, too, Rome saw a group marching publicly under the banner of the Freemasons and, just behind them, another carrying the white banner of Rome's Society of Freethinkers. Many of Rome's municipal councilors walked behind the funeral carriage, whose cross had been removed for the day, and each guild—of goldsmiths,