The Risorgimento Was Not Against Catholicism or the Catholic Church

Written by Pietro Ricciardi

Professor Angelo Martino in some of his articles has rightly highlighted the adhesion of many Catholic clergy to the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. This has sometimes been denied by polemicists nostalgic for the Bourbons, who have tried to use Catholicism to defend the Bourbon regime or to oppose the Risorgimento. Expressing my personal esteem and consideration for the person of Professor Martino and for his ideas, permit me to express some brief observations on this subject.

On the occasion of the national holiday of March 17, 2011, held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, the then-Pope Benedict XVI addressed his official message to the Italian head of state Giorgio Napolitano. The Pope wrote that the "process of Unification which took place in Italy in the 19th century and which has gone down in history as the Risorgimento, was the natural result of the development of a national identity which began much earlier. Indeed, the Italian Nation, as a community of people united by language, by culture, by the same feelings of belonging, even in the plurality of divided political communities on the peninsula..." The Holy Father continued: "The Unification of Italy, achieved in the second half of the 19th century, did not take place as an artificial political construction of diverse identities, but as the natural political outcome of a strong and well-established national identity that existed for a long time. The unitary political community that arose at the end of the Risorgimento had, ultimately, as the glue that held together subsisting local differences, the pre-existing national identity, to which Christianity and the Church made a fundamental contribution to shaping."

The then-reigning pope, Joseph Ratzinger, who is also an academic and a historian, then proceeded in his message to refute the idea that the Risorgimento was a phenomenon contrary to Catholicism and to the Catholic Church: "For complex historical, cultural and political reasons, the Risorgimento has come to be seen as a movement opposed to the Church, to Catholicism and, at times, even to religion in general. Without denying the role of different currents of thought, some of which had separatist or secularist slants, the contribution of the thought — and sometimes action — of Catholics in the formation of the Unified State must not be forgotten." Benedict XVI then recalled the entire political history of that current within the Risorgimento movement known as 'neo-Guelph': Vincenzo Gioberti, a priest and one of its main representatives; Antonio Rosmini, also a priest and a figure of such importance that his thought shaped significant parts of the present Italian Constitution; various Catholic politicians and patriots such as Cesare Balbo, Massimo d’Azeglio and Raffaele Lambruschini; very important representatives of that literature which helped give Italians a sense of identity and belonging to the national and political community, such as Alessandro Manzoni and Silvio Pellico; even holy figures, such as St. John Bosco, who "was motivated by pedagogical concern to compose manuals on the history of the Fatherland, which shaped the membership of the institute he founded on a paradigm consistent with a healthy liberal concept: 'upright citizens before the State, religious before the Church'."

By endorsing in his official message the value of the Unification of Italy, Benedict XVI continued the now long-established position of the Church regarding the Risorgimento. The then-Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Paul VI, gave a speech at the Campidoglio on October 10, 1962 in which he de facto justified the Capture of Rome, saying that it was positive for the Papacy itself. Even before that, John XXIII, the then-reigning pontiff, officially declared in 1961 that the Risorgimento had been "a design of Providence" and "a cause of jubilation" for the Church.

Some minority fringes of Italian Catholicism continue to rage against the Risorgimento, trying to present it as opposed to the Church of Rome, but this attitude is contrary to the repeated claims of the popes themselves, who, according to their own religion, they must obey. Often these anti-unification Catholics pose as reactionaries, but in doing so they forget that the man who is regarded as the master and undisputed patriarch of the whole reactionary movement, the very Catholic and indomitable counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre, was considered an Italian and was also an early supporter of Italian Unity who believed in and hoped for national unification. It is impossible and contradictory for said Catholics to oppose an explicit and repeatedly reaffirmed papal magisterial teaching on the providential value of the Unification of Italy.

Sometimes these people have attempted to depict the nearly century-old conflict between the supporters and opponents of the Bourbons in southern Italy as a clash between Catholicism and "ungodliness", a broad term that encompasses free-thinking, atheism, Jacobinism, liberalism, and Freemasonry. It is indeed a strongly ideological and reductive revision of history that does not stand up to scrutiny, even on the surface.

For example, the conflict of 1799 is absolutely not due purely and simply to a clash between Catholicism and "free thought". The Republicans in fact had identified a close relationship between civic education and religious education, and therefore between political and social reform and religiosity, as is exemplified by the "Republican catechism".

As is well known, many ecclesiastics of southern Italy were convinced supporters of the new order and often stood for culture and morality of customs. Just to name some of the most important, we may recall Francesco Antonio Astore, Gaetano Carasale, Michelangelo Cecconi, Giuseppe Cestari, Francesco Maria Conforti, Aniello De Luise, Bernardo Della Torre, Antonio Jerocades, Ignazio Falconieri, Francesco Saverio Granata, Carlo Lauberg, Michele Natale, Nicola Pacifico, Giuseppe Pepe, Francesco Saverio Salfi, Marcello Scotti, Giuseppe Andrea Serrao, Antonio Scialoja. But there were many, many other clerics who were convinced supporters of the goodness of freedom and the struggle against monarchical absolutism.

It is for this reason that the massacre carried out by the followers of the Bourbons in 1799 did not spare even the clergy, many of whom in fact ended up assassinated. One may remember the case of the Bishop of Potenza, Monsignor Giovanni Andrea Serrao. He was a Christian of great piety, a valuable intellectual and a prelate who worked actively to improve the living conditions of his flock, almost all of whom were living in dire poverty. Due to his positions inspired by Christian charity, Monsignor Serrao ended up murdered on February 24, 1799 by a gang of Bourbon assassins who claimed he was a "Jacobin priest" — a groundless charge used as a pretext to murder him. In reality, this bishop was far from being a Jacobin, given that all evidence shows he was a convinced and devout Christian, to the point that he forgave his killers as he was dying in agony. They were not moved by this act: they decapitated and impaled his head on a spear, parading it through the streets as a trophy, and then displayed the exposed head of the Monsignor for several days as a warning to everyone. It should be added that after murdering the bishop, the gang of assassins brutally killed another priest associated with the Monsignor, his vicar Monsignor Serra, who enjoyed a reputation of holiness even greater than that of Serrao. According to rumor, one of the instigators of this double murder was actually another priest, Angelo Felice Vinciguerra, a Bourbon who hated his bishop for having rebuked him — not for his political views, but because of his behavior in private life, which was considered unworthy of a man consecrated to God.

Monsignor Serrao was the most famous, but not the only cleric killed by the Bourbons in 1799. For example, a nun, Sister Maria Sabina, was shot after being dragged naked in public. In Picerno, the surviving defenders of the very long battle against the overwhelming Bourbon forces ended up slaughtered inside the local church: among others, those who were killed included the priest Nicolò Caivano, who went to meet the Sanfedisti wearing his vestments and raising (according to one source) the monstrance with the Eucharist, or (according to another source) the image of Christ crucified. This priest was killed inside the church by those who claimed to be fighting for the "holy faith". He ended up being stoned to death by the Bourbons, according to a report by another priest, Don Bernardino De Meo.

Also the city of Martina Franca, stormed by Sanfedisti hordes in March 1799 and subjected to looting and killings, saw acts of sacrilege and violence against clergy by those who claimed they were fighting in the name of the "holy faith". Even the churches were looted, while the monastery of the Sisters of Purity was not only robbed, but the nuns were subjected to rape. The Dominican Father Domenico Colucci preferred to commit suicide rather than fall alive into the hands of the Sanfedisti and be subjected to certain torture. Other clergymen became targets of relentless hunting.

Among the concerns of the Sanfedisti, after their entry into Naples, was finding a bishop who would ritually deconsecrate priests condemned to death, scraping away the skin from their fingertips that held the consecrated host before being executed. Just to provide a comparative example, the above singular concern was also followed by another absolutist regime that called itself Catholic, the Imperial Austria of Franz Joseph von Habsburg, who hanged Don Tazzoli in the town of Belfiore after obtaining his deconsecration. He was then refused a burial in consecrated ground. After the surrender of the Neapolitan Republic and the violation of the agreements at the hands of the Bourbons, the victors then executed even many clergymen, namely the bishop Michele Natale and the priests Nicola Pacifico, Gaetano Margera, Niccola Palomba, Vincenzo Troise, Ignazio Falconieri, Francesco Guardati, Francesco Conforti (former court theologian), and Francesco Saverio Granata.

The Bourbon regime showed no respect even for religious buildings, religious objects, or the saints. In order to finance the war of aggression against France in 1798, the government of the "Lazzaroni King" issued a decree that forced the churches and religious congregations to hand over to the State all objects made of gold and silver, including vestments and objects that were not strictly necessary to the functions of worship. This forced seizure of enormous scale was accomplished by means of special commissioners. After the rapid collapse of his armed forces, King Ferdinand of Bourbon decided to escape to Sicily, bringing with him also most of what had been torn from the churches and the religious congregations. Nor did he bother to return the items after returning to Naples, where he was guarded by his Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim allies, and by criminals recruited into the army of the Sanfedisti.

The self-styled Sanfedisti ("Holy Faithists"), although they would claim to fight for the Catholic religion, also showed evidence of impiety against the venerable St. Gennaro, because he was considered a "traitor" to the Bourbons. When General Championnet entered Naples, the Sanfedisti went to the church containing the saint's blood, which was contained in the reliquary held by the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Giuseppe Capece Zurlo. The blood miraculously liquefied; this happened on January 24, 1798. Once more, on May 4, 1799, the first Saturday of the month, during the usual procession of the relics of the saint to the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, the liquefaction of the blood happened again, this time in the presence of the French General Étienne Jacques Macdonald. The Bourbon supporters had hoped this miraculous event would not be repeated because it could be interpreted as a sign of divine wrath against them. Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel described the incident in the Monitore Napoletano: "Less than ten minutes passed and the blood liquefied inside the reliquary; there was surprise, amazement, then a moment of rejoicing. Even St. Gennaro has become a Jacobin!" This is not about whether the liquefaction of the blood attributed to this saint is a natural or supernatural phenomenon: what matters is that the phenomenon was considered as unequivocally miraculous by the Catholics in 1799. St. Gennaro was therefore considered an anti-Bourbon by the Sanfedisti and was subjected to repeated insults. A statue dedicated to the patron saint of Naples was dragged with a rope around his neck and thrown into the sea. The bust dedicated to St. Gennaro in the Cathedral was stripped of all its ornamental vestments and removed from the devotion of the faithful. They distributed propaganda leaflets in which St. Anthony of Padua was chosen as the new patron saint of the city, while St. Gennaro was forcibly banished. The treasure of the patron saint of Naples was removed from the church and sent to King Ferdinand.

Similar events were also occurring outside of Naples, with saints deemed "guilty" of being the patrons of the Republican communities. These saints were then blasphemed by the Sanfedisti and had their statues mocked and broken.

Besides, though so bloody, the killings of clergy by the Bourbons were not limited at all to 1799. Consecrated priests continued to be murdered by the Bourbon power or by its followers in the decades that followed, such as Don Giuseppe Brigandì, shot on March 2, 1822, or the many priests killed by the brigands after the Unification, among whom we can mention Don Alberto Maria Ciolfi, Don Alessandro Colaneri, Don Pietro Mangano, Don Quintino Manco and still many others... A complete list would be far too long and indeed useless, since these are well-known facts.

Aside from the violence against clergy and against the Catholic Church in general which the Bourbon regime was responsible for, we may also mention a specific case due to its importance and significance: the long and very bloody Siege of Messina in 1848. The Sicilian city revolted in January of 1848, fighting continuously against the Bourbon forces until September, enduring incessant bombardment for all these months and and finally ending up partially destroyed by the expedition led by General Filangieri. Entire neighborhoods were leveled by the Bourbon troops, who in their advance were ordered to take no prisoners. Thus they burned, looted, bombed, killed and shot everyone and everything. Going into more detail about the Battle of Messina would take up far too much space.

For what concerns us here, we may recall that in just a few months time these following episodes occurred: the abbot Giovanni Krymi, the priest Carmine Allegra, and the chaplains Simone Gerardi and Francesco Impalà were severely tortured by the Bourbon police; the female Monastery of St. Claire was desecrated by Bourbon troops and there were also cases of violence against the religious; consequently, the Archbishop of Messina, Monsignor Francesco di Paola Villadecani, outraged by the desecration done by the Bourbon army, launched an excommunication against those responsible; among the countless bombardments suffered during the long battle, the city of Messina suffered one even on Good Friday during Easter Week, on April 21, 1848, when the citizens were all gathered in the churches for religious services; the Bourbon troops then launched a ground offensive on the day of April 24, on Easter Monday.

Outraged by these facts, the Sicilian priest Don Giovanni Krymi (already tortured and sentenced to death by the royal authorities) challenged the Bourbon General Pronio Paul, son of the bandit Pronio, to a duel on May 1, 1848. In his defiant message Krymi also rebuked the crimes of the commanders' father ("That apostate clerk, who you call your father, damned in his youth to the galleys for defamatory crimes, escaped from prison and lived his life as a career criminal.") and also recalled the "robbery and massacre at Monistero and at the Church of the White Benedictines", which the Bourbon troops were responsible for during the revolt of Palermo in 1848. After the repression of the revolt, this courageous priest then ended up locked away in a tough prison, the penal colony of Santa Teresa located inside the fortress of Messina known as the Citadel, where he perished along with others due to the terrible living conditions imposed on the prisoners.

At the time of the final battle of Messina in 1848, the troops sent by Ferdinand II engaged in very serious violence against the civilian population, without stopping even before the churches, where many people had sought refuge. Priests were massacred and women raped inside the religious buildings, which often were also looted, including liturgical objects. After being sacrilegiously looted, the following religious buildings were destroyed by the Bourbon army: the Archbishopric, the Church of St. Dominic, Church of St. Nicholas, Church of the Holy Spirit, Church of the Holy One, Church of St. Homobonus, the Magdalene Monastery and the nearby Church of the Benedictines (after a strong defense against Swiss mercenaries in the pay of the "Bomber King" Ferdinand II, who fought against the same monks of St. Benedict), the Church of the Madonna of the Sacred Letter with the adjoining seminary, the parish archive of the Church of St. James, the Convent of the Dominican Fathers, the parish archive of the Church of St. Peter and Paul of the Pisani, the church and monastery of St. Catherine of Valverde, and the Sanctuary of Montalto.

It is true that the Bourbon regime posed as Catholics and as defenders of Catholicism, but its practical behavior was antithetical to that "pure faith" which pro-Bourbon propaganda often claims they represented. Returning to 1799, the so-called "Army of the Holy Faith" offers a prime example of how a name, a symbology and a mission statement that was heavily influenced by Roman Christianity, was merely a propaganda tool used to disguise men, means and ends which had nothing to do with religion.

The army of the Sanfedisti — both in its main body under the direct leadership of Cardinal Ruffo and in its smaller departments under the guidance of other leaders — was in fact a hodgepodge of inmates released from prison, bandits on the run since the Bourbon era (who found it convenient to join these hordes for reasons of financial gain or because they were paid), and lumpenproletariats who enlisted in hope of plunder, to which was added foreign mercenaries of the Islamic faith (Albanians and Turks who arrived from the Balkans), with the support of Russian regular army units and the English Navy. It is truly unusual that an army could claim to lead a holy war in the name of the Catholic faith, when in fact it was based on the necessary support of Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and Muslims, and consisted largely of criminals recently released from prison. This army, claiming to fight for the Catholic religion, was essentially a lot of common criminals who indiscriminately attacked all the lands they came across, looting and terrorizing the civilian population. The behavior of this criminal mass was marked by constant and severe violence against the civilian population: murder, mutilation, looting, rapes, torture, sometimes even cases of cannibalism.

The famous "Fra Diavolo" Michele Pezza had become a brigand (or bandit, if you prefer) when King Ferdinand of Bourbon still sat on his throne, and therefore the reasons for his brigandage had nothing to do with politics: simply put, he had murdered an elderly man, a respected music teacher, following an altercation that happened while sitting at a table with the victim. His nickname "Fra Diavolo" ("Brother Devil") derived from the fact that he was an ex-cleric who had thrown off his cassock. In his exploits he set fire to the monastery where he was housed, the convent of the Galdini near San Giovanni in Fiore (Calabria), killing dozens of monks, including the prior and the guardian.

Another Bourbon brigand leader, Pronio, was also a cleric before abandoning the religious life and becoming a murderer, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment. He escaped from prison and turned to brigandage, then passed to the service of the Bourbons in 1799.

Donato de Donatis, one of the principle leaders of the Sanfedisti, was ordained a priest, but he turned to brigandage, devoted to lootings, rapes and murders. This priest was engaging in a behavior quite contrary to Catholic moral norms, especially since in addition to engaging in acts of brigandage (including rapes), he was also a blasphemer and a bisexual, had a French lover, and had a predilection for young boys. Working together with him in the same group was Don Carlo Emidio Cocchi, Don Donato Naticchia, and a former monk named Vincenzo Benignetti, who was several times incarcerated for theft and fraud. The work of this brigand, in name and in fact, was so notorious that the Bishop of Teramo excommunicated him and for a long time the name Donato (previously quite common) was not used for newborns in that diocese.

The brigand Gaetano Mammone, appointed "General" of the Sanfedist army by His Eminence Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo di Calabria, praised personally by His Royal Highness Ferdinand IV (better known as the "Lazzaroni King"), was a notorious cannibal. We will quote just one source, one of the many available: "Gaetano Mammone, a miller by trade, became the head of the Sora uprising. He is an evil monster, whose equal it would be hard to find. In two months of his command in a small area of land he had 350 unfortunate men shot; possibly more than double this number were shot by his henchmen. This is not even to mention the looting, violence and arson... nor the new kinds of death which his cruelty invented. ... His thirst for human blood was such that he drank all the blood shed by the unfortunate individuals he had slaughtered. I myself witnessed him drinking his own blood after it had been let, and greedily thirsting after that of others who had their blood let with him. When he dined, heads still pouring blood sat at his table; he used to drink from a skull..." (Vincenzo Cuoco, "Historical Essay on the Revolution of Naples", Bur 1999, ch. 44, p. 265, note 4). The brigand Mammone went into hiding after he strangled with his own hands a child who mocked him for his deformed appearance. He enlarged his gang in the midst of the chaos that arose after the collapse of the Bourbon Kingdom, and established a regime of terror, shooting about 350 people in two months. This cannibal, who King Ferdinand of Bourbon called his "General" and his "friend", went so far as to celebrate a satanic parody of the Mass, complete with human sacrifice and cannibalism. Having captured a Republican prisoner, Mammone went to a church, forced open a cabinet containing priestly and liturgical furnishings, such as the Eucharistic chalice, the stole, and a cope; after taking the vestments, he staged a sort of Eucharistic celebration, surrounded by his bandits. When it came time for the consecration of the Eucharistic species, when the wine is supposed to be in the liturgical chalice during the Mass, Mammone slew the prisoner, poured the blood into the cup and then drank it (Rosario Villari, "Giacobini e Sanfedisti: saggio critico storico di Napoli al 1799"). This same man also killed clergy, such as the archpriest of Gallinaro, and ordered his subordinates to kill the abbot of Montecassino. The alleged "defender" of Christianity against the revolutionaries, depicted in Bourbon propaganda as a "hero", was therefore not only a murderer, but also a cannibal, a sacrilegious man, and perhaps even a true Satanist.

Even Ruffo acknowledged in a letter to his sovereign in September 1799 that they created a "state of disorder and upheaval, in which the insolent people of the Kingdom, driven by false zeal and devotion to the Crown, go about robbing and looting, causing a breakdown in families and turmoil in society." Decades later, a royalist senior official, Rafael Tristany, hired by the Bourbon government-in-exile to lead an attempt to reconquer southern Italy, soon realized that the vast majority of the brigands were not politically motivated in their brigandage. Tristany summed up this situation by precisely recalling the infamous Mammone. He said: "Even in the days of Mammone, his followers did not care about the Monarchy or the Papacy." It is not surprising, therefore, that a Bourbon general, Vito Nunziante, could speak of the brigands as "monsters steeped in crime."

The leadership of the Bourbon State itself, who claimed to support monarchical absolutism, that is to rule by divine will (according to their presumption), could they really be said to be truly Catholic? Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, known in history as the "King of the Lazzaroni" ("Beggar King"), was interested only in fun and having a good time: hunting, parties, vulgar jokes and women. His wife, Queen Maria Carolina of Austria, in addition to despising the Kingdom of Naples, as well as implementing policies favourable to Austria rather than to Naples itself, which resulted in the disastrous war with France, she was also a bisexual and adulteress (behavior which certainly does not conform to the dictates of Catholic morality), she appointed people to high positions based on personal preference, or better yet sexual preference (a kind of pornocracy), and for a long time associated herself with Freemasons who had libertine tendencies. Queen Maria Sophie of Bavaria, wife of Francis II of Bourbon, who became a sort of sacred figure of legitimism, was in reality an adulteress who betrayed her husband with an officer (Armand de Lawayss) in the service of Pope Pius IX. She became pregnant and gave birth in secret. The last Queen of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had already acquired a certain notoriety in Naples when she formed the habit of bathing naked in the sight of the populace who were more than pleased to gather in crowds in order to gaze at Her Royal Highness dressed as Eve. Even today, despite the spread of pornography and extreme immodesty in dress, such behavior would still be considered unseemly for a ruler. What would you think of those people who acted this way at a time when showing an ankle in public was still considered provocative and sinful? Queen Maria Sophie of Bavaria claimed the throne of Naples in the name of "legitimism", an ideology that purported to justify itself quite arbitrarily on a theological basis, yet committed adultery with a lover, who was also theoretically Catholic and a legitimist, seeing as he was a nobleman serving as an officer for the Holy Father Pope Pius IX. It is contradictory and untenable for them to present themselves as defenders of the Catholic faith and Catholic morality, and at the same time act and behave in a manner completely opposite. The Catholic religion did not allocate the throne of Naples to Maria Carolina nor to Maria Sophie, whereas adultery on the other hand has always been prohibited. Nevertheless, these same people were demanding a royal crown in the name of a religion whose founder said that "my kingdom is not of this world", and a religion whose moral principles they did not bother to respect.

The Bourbon invasion of Lazio in 1849, resulting in two net losses at Palestrina and Velletri and the shameful flight of the "Bomber King" Ferdinand II back to his military frontier, provides an insight into the merely external religious mentality widespread among the Bourbons. Aside from the fact that the soldiers were poorly armed, with obsolete rifles (demonstrating the economic and technological conditions of the kingdom), one may recall that they had sacred images and amulets of all kinds on their necks, pockets and backpacks. ... Trevelyan acutely observes that in the Bourbon army the normal principles related to what is called military honor was replaced by an entirely outward religiosity. But this did not prevent the military of the "Bomber King" from hating the pope and cursing him. The soldiers in fact continually repeated the phrase "God damn Pius IX! Arrassosia!" The term "arrassosia" is a hispanicism (a term derived from Spanish) of Naples, which is roughly equivalent to "the devil". Additionally, the Bourbon commanders, to better animate their soldiers, had promised them they would be able to "enjoy" the women of Rome. This mixture of an entirely superficial religiosity, superstition (they had amulets!), impiety and anomie, with blasphemies against the pope and intentions of raping women in the Holy City, — this was the "Catholicism" of the Bourbon Kingdom.

What must one think of the Catholicity which was claimed by the Bourbon regime? Mutatis mutandis, it is comparable to those forms of religiosity that can be found in the Italian Mafia. Abstractly and theoretically, the Mafia and the Camorra habitually claim they are Catholics, have their children baptized, observe various religious precepts such as going to church, but only in a completely formal way. This outward adhesion does not prevent them from murdering, injuring, raping, torturing, stealing, cheating, and dealing drugs. In fact, by kissing crucifixes, taking part in processions, going on pilgrimages to shrines, communicating, and bestowing offerings with blood money, the Mafia is doing nothing but engaging in self-serving propaganda, trying to pass itself off as respectable people, merely "men of honor".

The work of the Bourbon monarchy was not dissimilar: they clung to an alliance made with the Mafia, armed prisoners and bandits, violated oaths, stole from the people and perpetrated massacres, yet at the same time professed adherence to the Catholic faith.

Catholicism was not the cause for which the Sanfedisti, Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina fought for, but only the false pretext. In other words, the Christian religion was reduced to instrumentum regni (instrument of monarchy) and used to support and prop up the throne of the Bourbons and the very restricted caste which surrounded them. The Bourbon monarchy sacrilegiously exploited the Catholic religion, in a manner comparable to that of the Camorra, who in prisons used to strip the detainees of their possessions under the pretext of "making a contribution to the oil of the Madonna" (in other words, maintaining a light in front of an image of the Virgin).

Cardinal Ruffo, in order to better exploit the religious beliefs of the people, went so far as to pretend to be the pope in Calabria, a false declaration which is formally equivalent to a schism, and which caused him to anathematize the Archbishop of Naples Cardinal Zurlo. The episode can be considered emblematic: those who are proposed as "champions" of the Faith in fact supported a liar who committed a sacrilegious act (pretending to be the pope without being so) in order to achieve their own political objectives.

An ancient theological maxim reads: diabolus simia Dei, the devil is the ape of God, meaning the devil can not do anything except clumsily imitate and pervert God's work. A Sanfedist stamp depicted a cross surrounded by scenes of Republicans being hung and burned by those who sang praises during the massacre of their enemies, not those of Christ the King, but only the "king of the beggars". The ancient symbol of the cross, dating back to the most ancient ages of humanity and full of so many meanings such as the reconciliation between heaven and earth, the union of opposites, the deliverance from evil, the redeeming sacrifice, was in this way reduced to a low journalistic ploy in the propaganda of the Sanfedisti in order to justify the massacres committed by those who cruelly slew venerable clergy, raped nuns, and ate the flesh of their victims. It is diabolical to use Catholicism and the sacraments for evil purposes, and thus, in a similar way, using the image of the cross can only be considered diabolically counterfeit. Similarly, from a Catholic point of view, whenever religion is exploited for purely secular and worldly objectives it is considered diabolical, because that which is sacred becomes perverted in the etymological sense of the term, and thus is diverted and distorted from its providentially preordained end and profanely transformed into its opposite: not God, but Mammon, the material power.

From a Catholic point of view, which one of these men has truly served God: the learned, compassionate and merciful Archbishop Giovanni Andrea Serrao, who at his death forgave his executioners? Or the Sanfedist thief Gaetano Mammone, a murderer and drinker of human blood? Despite the intense cries of ad maiorem Ferdinandi gloriam, can you not sense the unmistakable smell of sulfur?