The Priest on Via Veneto

Giovanni (Decameron] Boccaccio, whose medieval priests seemed seldom far from a girl or a glass, would have been surprised at what happened to the Rev. Lino Gussoni in Rome last week. Born and raised in Italy but a longtime U.S. citizen. Father Gussoni. 39, was on leave from a welfare post in New York City's archdiocese, living in Rome for his health (a throat condition). After dinner with three lay friends from the U.S., he dropped in for a nightcap at a relatively unexciting nightspot, Club 84. "We're all Americans," said one of them. "We didn't think anything about it."

U.S. informality gives priests plenty of leeway in where they go and what they do, though they are not often seen in nightclubs. But in modern Italy a priest watching a soccer match--much less a floor show or a movie--is out of bounds. Priests must always wear their cassocks in public, are not supposed to smoke on the street or push baby carriages or carry large parcels, ride horseback except in rural areas, or eat alone at first-class restaurants. A priest should not be seen walking often with the same female--even his aged aunt--and a priest's female housekeeper must be at least 40, the "canon age" prescribed by canon law.

With these restrictions in mind, a horde of tipped-off tabloid photographers descended on Club 84 and Father Gussoni, who panicked and fled. Trailed by the flashbulb boys to another nightspot, Gussoni and his friends sent out a waiter "disguised" as the priest to lead them off the scent, but one alert photographer simply followed raincoated Father Gussoni home and snapped another picture.

THE GRAND MANEUVERS OF THE REVEREND ON VIA VENETO, chortled the next day's picture caption, while the subject of the story, privately reprimanded by the Vatican, prepared to return to the relative freedom and anonymity of New York. "Italy has nothing more for me," said Gussoni. "It's better to lose your health than your reputation."

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