The scene is filmed from the balcony of a local woman. It is Monday January 10, it is 2:30 p.m. On the forecourt of the Church of Santa Lucia, in the Prati district, not far from the Vatican, in the heart of Rome, a coffin is carried in procession. Men form a procession of honor. One of them shouts in a loud voice:
"Comrade Alessia Augello"
. To which all respond, in chorus: "Presente!"
(Present!)
, By making a Roman salute: the funeral ritual of the call of the Italian neofascist “comrades”, during a tribute to deceased militants. And then suddenly, a handful of activists, in silence, deploy the fatal red flag with the swastika, symbol of Nazism, on the coffin, under the placid gaze of the other participants.
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The video, published on the Italian news site Open, widely shared on social networks, and repeated in Italian media, immediately arouses outrage: how did this woman's funeral turn into a neofascist commemoration?
The late Alessia Augello, who died of a thrombosis at the age of 44, was an activist with the neofascist group Forza Nuova.
On the video, we also recognize, notes
La Repubblica
, Vincenzo Nardulli, one of the leaders of the neofascist group.
Investigators from the General Investigations and Special Operations Division (DIGOS, Italian anti-terrorism police) were also on site to prevent possible disturbances to public order.
They were therefore able to collect
"evidence"
in order to punish the militants who deployed the Nazi flag on the coffin, continues
La Repubblica
.
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But how could the local clergy have accepted such an anti-fascist and even Nazi show of force at the gates of one of its churches? Was he in the know, worse, accomplice? From the outset, two priests, including the parish priest, Don Alessandro Zenobbi, expressed their indignation in the press, assuring that the event took place without their knowledge:
“We prayed and comforted relatives and friends .
(...) unfortunately for what was observed outside the church at the end of the celebration, it happened without any authorization from the parish priest, nor from the celebrating priest, both unaware of what 'it was going to happen'
.
"We express our deep sadness, disappointment"
, continue the priests, recalling that the gestures and symbols used by these militants come from ideologies
"extremists far removed from the evangelical message of Christ"
.
"A horrible symbol irreconcilable with Christianity"
But to remove any ambiguity in the face of the swelling controversy, the diocese of Rome ended up reacting in turn, the next day, by means of a press release.
"The vicar of Rome (
the bishop of Rome being the pope, editor's note)
firmly deplores what happened yesterday, in front of the parish of Saint Lucia, completely unbeknownst to the parish priest Don Alessandro Zenobbi, occurred without any sign or manifestation which could foreshadow what happened next ”
.
The swastika is
"a horrible symbol inconceivable with Christianity"
, then recalls the vicar.
"The ideological and violent instrumentalisation, even more that which follows an act of worship and close to a sacred place, for the ecclesial community of Rome and for all the men of good will in our city, remains serious, insulting and unacceptable"
, still firmly denounces the diocese.
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On October 16, tens of thousands of Italians marched through the streets of Rome to demand the ban of the neofascist group Forza Nuova.
A demonstration in reaction to the violent attack, a week earlier, led by members of Forza Nuova, since arrested, from the headquarters of the CGIL union (left), the country's main trade union confederation.
Last March, a similar episode occurred during a funeral in a Roman parish, with Roman choirs and salutes, reports
La Repubblica
.
The priest had however anticipated by asking the texts that the militants intended to read in the church.
On the coffin, a flag of the Mezzaluna (half-moon), symbol of the "Political Movement", a neofascist group created in the early 1980s, was then deployed.
"Now that is enough
," reacted the secretary of the Democratic Party (PD) Andrea Casu.
Funerals and commemorations cannot become pretexts to defend fascism and Nazism ”
.