Politics of the Grave

When a Communist dies in Italy's heavily Red region of Emilia, the funeral cortege, decked out with red banners, slogan-bearing streamers and a brass band, looks like a political rally. Prohibited by law from parading across holy ground, the procession stops at the churchyard fence--but not necessarily the propaganda. Not long ago the priest of Ruina Ferrarese (pop. 800) found that at least one gravestone in the cemetery behind his tiny church was decorated not with a cross but with hammer and sickle.

Horrified, he notified his bishop; equally horrified, the bishop consulted canon law and found a clause stipulating that "epitaphs...and tomb decorations must not contain any material offending the Catholic Church or piety." Forthwith, he ordered the godless symbols removed from the tombstone.

Like most of Emilia's mayors, the mayor of Ruina is a Communist, but he proved to be in no hurry to tangle with the church. He found a fast face-saver: an old town ordinance stipulating that all gravestones must be approved by the city council. Since the offending stone had not been approved, the mayor ordered not merely the symbols but the stone to be taken away.

As the news spread through the region, priests and mayors locked horns. "Politics cannot go beyond the tomb!" wrote a Red-strafing priest, Reggio Emilia's Don Wilson Pignanoli, in his paper. La Liberta. "Inquisition!" cried the party-lining Socialist paper, Avanti!. "It seems to us that a dying man should be able to choose for his tombstone the symbols he believed in while he lived, whether they are religious or political. What about the Star of David over tombs of Jews? And lamps which illuminate the headstones of free thinkers?"

At week's end the Communists seemed unenthusiastic about pressing the matter. Growled one comrade: "Politics in the piazzas, religion in the churches, peace for the dead." Meanwhile, throughout Red Emilia, farmers and workers, priests and parishioners were peering through weed-grown cemeteries to see what other instances of mortuary Marxism they could find. Most notable example, in addition to dozens of hammers and sickles: the well-known Italian version of the revolutionary slogan--"Push on, 0 people, push on to Redemption Day"--painted on a headstone in red.

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