Insult to the Pope

In a shabby courtroom* in the little town of Chieti last week, Laura Diaz, a young (30), comely Communist, stood charged with the crime of having publicly insulted the Pope. Under the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and the Italian government, ratified in the republican constitution, insults to the reigning Pontiff are punishable by imprisonment or fine. The prosecution charged that at a 1948 electoral meeting in Ortona, Laura Diaz had said that the Pope's "hands dripped with the blood of the children of Greece and Palestine" because the Pope had not prevented wars in those countries and that "no amount of holy water could wash those hands . . ."

Red Stockings. Laura Diaz is the daughter of rich Augusto Diaz, lawyer for the famous Ciano family of Leghorn. When Mussolini ousted Count Galeazzo Ciano from his cabinet in 1943, both the Ciano and Diaz families suffered. Soon after, Laura Diaz came into contact with the Communist underground, and when the Germans took over Mussolini's crumbling state she was leader of a Communist cell in Leghorn. Her public career began at a Communist convention in Milan in 1948 when she walked on to the stage wearing red stockings, red jersey, a red ribbon in her hair, presented Communist Boss Togliatti with a bunch of red roses. The same year, sloe-eyed Laura stood for Parliament, won her seat by a sweeping majority. The offending speech was made during that election.. The long period elapsing before last week's trial was caused by delay in the Chamber of Deputies which had to waive Laura's parliamentary immunity before she could be brought into court.

In a gabardine suit and sky-blue jumper, a blue ribbon in her hair, Deputy Diaz last week listened to the charge. Said she, her long, black lashes fluttering: "When I spoke at Ortona I had not prepared any speech so I cannot remember the exact words . . . But what I am absolutely certain of is that I never mentioned hands or blood." Judge Pierantoni interrupted: "What I want to know is whether you mentioned hands and holy water." Deputy Diaz tapped her feet on the wooden floor. Said she: "Niente mani" (no hands). She went on: "I did mention holy water . . ."

Help from the Poets. Thirteen state witnesses testified against Laura Diaz. All agreed that words insulting to the Pope had been uttered, but they did not agree as to what the words were. Defense Attorney Fausto Gullo, himself a Communist and former Minister for Justice, pleaded: "Are we going to judge her as we would a sunset, according to our momentary emotions? Gullo quoted from Dante's

Paradise, Canto XXVII, wherein St. Peter states that his successor (Boniface VIII) has turned the Church into a sewer choked with blood. He also quoted from Guicciardini, Carducci and other poets to show that "during 20 centuries, free-thinking men have often had occasion to think of Popes as guilty of other men's blood." Cried he: "So, do you want to send Dante to jail?" After 50 minutes' recess, the court found Laura Diaz guilty, sentenced her to eight months' imprisonment, suspended the sentence on a surety of good conduct.

Said Communist Diaz: "I had expected as much & more. Indeed, I had expected a year in prison."

* The same room where in 1926 U.S.-born Amerigo Dumini was tried for the murder of Socialist Deputy Giacomo Matteotti, Mussolini's chief political enemy. Dumini, who had kicked the wounded Matteotti to death, went to jail for only two months and 20 days.

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