In Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, the Sacristan, looking at the work of Mario Cavaradossi, the revolutionary painter, who was painting the Madonna, placing her face close to that of his lover, in the aria “Recondita armonia,” repeats a warning taken from a popular proverb: “play with the soldiers, but leave the saints alone.” The reproach is clear. Do not mix the sacred and the profane. Respect that inviolable boundary that separates the divine from the human. And for those who do not believe: from the most trivial things of everyday life, in relation to what requires depth of thought.
In the Italian tradition, this distinction has a long history. Dante Alighieri himself, in the 21st and 22nd cantos of the Inferno, alludes to it by clearly distinguishing “in the Church with the saints and in the tavern with the gluttons.” Meanwhile, Umberto Eco, in his masterpiece “The Name of the Rose,” tells us that in that abbey, where the story unfolds, a book in that library is kept secret. Aristotle’s text on “laughter” could indeed have contaminated the austerity of monastic life.
It is hard to believe that Donald Trump was aware of these references. Certainly, as Massimo Franco recalled in Il Corriere, he does not understand the “new phase” that “Catholicism” is going through. Otherwise, he would not have produced, in the past, his photograph, created with artificial intelligence, wearing papal vestments. Nor recently assumed the posture of Jesus, who heals the world’s ailments, while bombers fly in the sky above him and anti-aircraft fire explodes. Incomprehensible episodes in the lexicon of political communication, no matter how great the worm of narcissism may be.
In the past, only partly similar episodes happened on the opposing front. According to what is told, it was Joseph Stalin, during the Yalta conference, who responded to those asking for greater consideration of the Vatican’s positions. “How many divisions does the Pope have?” he provocatively asked, implying that, in international relations, only real power relations counted. According to Winston Churchill’s account in his book “The Second World War,” he himself replied, predicting, as actually happened with Pope Wojtyla, that the Vatican’s influence would be seen later.
Be careful, then, not to overdo it. Even in these cases, the ways of the Lord can be infinite. And it is not said that Donald Trump is not destined to experience them on himself. Meanwhile, however, it is good that everyone takes responsibility. Especially in a country like ours, where foreign policy has always had a decisive weight. In Italy, the “Conventio ad Excludendum” sidelined the PCI for almost 50 years, allowing it democratic normalization only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Previously, that link had blocked any possible alternation. In particular, every act of that Government, with its totalitarian vocation, contributed to narrowing the bases of consensus in favor of the Italian communists. It happened in 1956 with the events in Poland and Hungary, where the Red Army harshly repressed those — and there were many — who fought for freedom and their independence from Moscow’s yoke. Reactions within the PCI were not long in coming. The CGIL, under the direction of Giuseppe Di Vittorio, condemned the invasion. Di Vittorio himself doubled down with a personal statement that irritated Palmiro Togliatti.
Summoning the central committee, the reprimand against the CGIL Secretary began. Emilio Sereni, Mauro Scoccimarro, and Giovanni Roveda (FIOM secretary) gave the party secretary the opportunity to reprimand “comrade Di Vittorio”: guilty of having added to the CGIL communiqué “his own comment, not agreed with the Party Secretariat and divergent in line.” To add, in the end: “one stands with one’s own side even when it errs.” A hypothesis not shared by many intellectuals, among them Antonio Giolitti and Italo Calvino, who left the Party.
In 1968, instead, while youth protests against the “Vietnam War” spread in Europe and the United States, the “Prague Spring” once again triggered the Red Army’s reaction in a harsh repression against a rebellious people. This time the PCI’s position, under Luigi Longo’s leadership, was different. The condemnation was clear. Above all, the start of a process destined to mark a profound discontinuity that, subsequently, under the direction of Enrico Berlinguer first and Achille Occhetto later, would lead to completely cutting the party’s umbilical cord with Third International communism.
The lesson of Hungary had thus been understood. The logic of democracy, indissolubly linked to consensus, had managed to break that secular religion constituted by proletarian internationalism. A characteristic that, from then on, would mark the destiny of the entire West. Today that pendulum, which in the past moved mainly to the left, conditioning it; with Donald Trump and his incomprehensible whims has shifted to the opposite side. Forcing all Western governments: from Canada, to Europe, to Japan to deal with this new variable.
There is, therefore, a symmetry in the passage of time. And it is right then not to forget the lessons of the past. It would be a grave mistake. The actions of a Government, which carry a weight very different from those of any political party, whether majority or opposition, cannot disregard a careful evaluation of all the elements of the risk. The process of freeing the PCI from the USSR lasted a very long time. That of Italy from its main ally — the United States — cannot be resolved in the space of a single conjuncture.
The detachment, if it ever has to happen, can only be gradual. Calibrated on the evolution of the situation and the moves of the various players. Therefore, the patience shown by Giorgia Meloni, contrary to the reprimands of the left, only honors her. Referring to Trump’s judgment of Pope Leo, she did not hesitate to resort to an open condemnation: “unacceptable words,” she said. An evident sign that by now the White House occupant was crossing the line. We can only hope, thanks to the backlash these attitudes are causing, that he does not go further. It would be a terrible blow dealt to the entire West. A damage to the United States themselves. Above all, an undeserved reward for all the autocracies on the Planet.
