EDITORIAL
from issue no. 08 - 2008
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Secularism
I often think back to the years of my childhood with the walks I was made to take by my aunt Mariannina whose guests we were in Via dei Prefetti (where I was born). There were daily re-evocations of the personal memories of my aunt, who had experienced the great change of 20 September 1870 as a sixteen year old
Giulio Andreotti
The breaching of Porta Pia, detail Carlo Ademollo, Museo del Risorgimento, Milan
In practice the claim to secularism currently goes along with a critical attitude towards those who relate their behavior and aims to their religious faith. With remarkable nonchalance reference is often made to the Middle Ages. Perhaps the subjects of the Papal States had some justification for their confusion, since the separation of powers wasn’t always clear. In some central streets of old Rome wall plaques can still be seen prohibiting the dumping of rubbish.
The stones recording the flooding of the Tiber a few weeks after the Italians breached the papal walls at Porta Pia are curious. Some last-ditcher defenders of papal temporal power stuck up harsh words on them attacking those who had “driven out” the Pope. To prevent this happening the stones were shifted a few feet higher, something that led to considerable confusion.
I often think back to the years of my childhood with the walks I was made to take by my Aunt Mariannina whose guests we were in Via dei Prefetti (where I was born). There were daily re-evocations of the personal memories of my aunt, who had experienced the great change of 20 September 1870 as a sixteen year old. She would repeat with a touch of irony that some of the inhabitants of Rome, who had been hostile to the Pope up to that day became openly nostalgic for the Temporal Power once it was lost.
Quotes and reminiscences on the topic abound on both sides of the argument. My aunt had remained irremediably in favor of the Pope, regretting the disappearance of the daily ritual when they would go along Via Giulia every afternoon to kiss the hands of a complaisant Pius IX, dispensing smiles and blessings. The “Piedmontese” (as they called the Italians) had spoiled everything.
The Pope banished beyond the door of bronze had perhaps abstractly assumed greater importance, but he was no longer the “superior” neighbor who gave everyone the feeling of sharing in the kingdom.
At a conference of the Catholic Association of University Students in 1941 someone posed the question of whether the status prior to Porta Pia was more a hindrance than a help towards post-earthly life. Personally I have never felt drawn to the question. When I was born (in 1919) incorporation into the Kingdom of Italy had taken place half a century before, and had gradually become less and less a cause for argument. Many years later, a future pope – Cardinal Montini – explicitly declared in a speech on the Capitoline that the loss of civilian concerns had been a gift of God to His Church. In this regard I recall the comments of various people who felt this modern attitude was hardly respectful of those who had fought to defend Porta Pia and who had immediately afterwards preferred voluntary exile to submission to the enemies of the Pope.
I remember on the subject a phrase of President De Gasperi thanking God that he had found the Roman Question resolved, thus preventing those Catholic politicians who had reached high position in the State from having to make a drastic choice. A Catholic militant would have had difficulty, at least psychologically, in going through the change.
Pius IX in a portrait by Francesco Podesti, Vatican Museums
Furthermore, it is no accident that the Church has let an appropriate period of time pass before opening and advancing the cause for the beatification of Pius IX.
It was precisely Pius IX who had the historic role of managing the transition, and his biographers point clearly to his personal detachment from the protests against the usurpers, something which to some extent he could not formally avoid.
In the speeches of Pope Benedict XVI in France in recent days, there were (quite rightly) few references to historical precedents. But there is certainly no sign of nostalgic regret.
We must leave behind the old world – with its shadows and its lights – to make possible the construction of the new world.
Without making petty distinctions and comparisons, I think we must acknowledge a special incisiveness in the present Pope, that – by no coincidence – seems to impress the non-practicing rather than his ... loyalist followers.
I will stop here. Because I have never forgotten the stunning reminder from Don Primo Mazzolari in the article “I too love the Pope”. It is a stupendous testimony to sincerity and plain speaking.
