That obituary with the writing “anniversary” and underneath “Fiamma Tricolore remembers Benito Mussolini” with an appointment for a religious celebration scheduled for yesterday at 7pm did not go unnoticed by the Catania curia. “The Holy Mass in the Santa Caterina church in Catania, to remember Benito Mussolini, has been cancelled”, decided Archbishop Luigi Renna who also ordered the closure of the church this afternoon until tomorrow.
Archbishop Renna’s decision
“The decision is motivated by Monsignor Renna to avoid that on the sidelines of a suffrage mass there could be inappropriate ideological expressions which in the recent past have had unpleasant precedents”, states a note from the Etna archdiocese. Yesterday was the anniversary of Mussolini’s death which occurred on 28 April 1945 in Giulino, a hamlet in the municipality of Mezzegra (now Tremezzina), in the province of Como, where the founder of fascism was shot together with his lover Clara Petacci.
The precedent in the same church
There is a similar precedent, dating back to 28 April 2016, when a mass was celebrated in the church of Santa Caterina in memory of the death of Benito Mussolini, complete with fascist greetings. In a film, published by the Meridionews website, dozens of people can be seen standing at attention at the end of the service, answering “present” three times to incitements chanted out loud by a man wearing a black shirt and jacket: “For the Duce of Italy Benito Mussolini”, “For the fallen of the Social Republic”, “For all the fascist martyrs”.
April 25th in Catania
On Liberation Day, the PD banner was blocked in Catania by a group of activists who contested the presence of Elly Schlein’s party, accused of being complicit in unacceptable international choices. The reaction of the PD militants is harsh for whom “A magnificent day, clear of freedom, gathered around the monument of the Resistance, dirtied by the usual 4 despotics who, representing only themselves, pretending to be organizers of the ANPI, blocked the banner of the PD physically preventing us from starting the parade. Discovered, they then railed against their comrades, demanding that we abandon the procession.”
