ABSTRACT: The text of this letter of invitation for the first event of the "Anti-clerical Year" was sent to about 50,000 people. The event was organised by the Radical Party at the Teatro Adriano in Rome on Feb.12, 1967 and featured appearances by Mario Berutti, Mario Boneschi, Loris Fortuna and Marco Pannella. The appeal to public opinion to support the anti-clerical events and program, read: "There is no sector of Italian public life that does not require a clear anti-clerical commitment if our country is to travel the road of civil progress and alignment with contemporary social realities".

(Agenzia Radicale - special number - August 10, 1967)

Rome, Jan.15, 1967

Dear Sir,

On Sunday, February 12, at 9.30 a.m. at the Teatro Adriano in Rome, there will be a public anti-clerical meeting to denounce the Concordat between the Church and State. Speakers will be the attorney Mario Berutti, honorary public prosecutor of the Appeals Court, the attorney Mario Boneschi, the hon. Loris Fortuna,and Dr. Marco Pannella of the Radical Party's National Secretariat.

The representatives of all lay parties, lay cultural organisations and democratic labour unions, will be invited to extend their greetings. This event will mark the beginning of what we hope will be a vigorous and popular campaign bearing the motto "1967 - Anti-clerical Year." The concluding event will be a mass demonstration on Sept.20, 1967. We hope that after that date we can count on all other Italian lay groups and parties taking up the battle on their own initiative.

Accepting the request that came from various sources, the Radical Party has decided to give its full support to this undertaking. It was certainly to be hoped that other parties would also assume the responsibility of calling for the duty-bound re-awakening of the ideals and the great civil battles that are an insuperable historical achievement of the entire democratic movement in all of its components, socialist, libertarian, republican and liberal. Unfortunately this has not so far been possible.

For decades there has been an attempt to accredit the myth of an "antiquated" and anachronistic anti-clericalism. From time to time they have tried to make of it the expression of a reactionary will against the idea of a "revolutionary union" of the great clerical and socialist masses, or of extremist "infantile maladies" of the movement for the liberation of mankind preceding a more scientific and effective version of socialism, or yet of antiquated analyses of contemporary historical realities that ought instead to entrust all hopes of progress exclusively to society's strxuggle for the realisation of new economic and productive structures.

In reality this has only made the laity sterile, subservient and meaningless. For decades, and more than ever in Italy for the last twenty years, the demands of the laity have thus been reduced to empty declamation or to the specious pretexts of a leadership that confuses the laity with systematic agnosticism and the rejection of a clear, real and concrete political battle

for the emancipation of mankind.

We maintain that this kind of "laity" is out of date and mendacious. Reduced to being the constant street companion of the monstrous revival of clericalism in our country, it has become corrupt and once again morally and politically prostrate. It may perhaps not even be worth recalling that there is not one sector of Italian public life that does not demand a clear anti-clerical commitment if our country is to travel along the road of civil progress and contemporary social reality.

The public schools are daily more in crisis and inadequate; families are suffocated by the subjection of state laws to those of canon law applied by the Vatican's judicial organs; social security and assistance are sacrificed and thrown into confusion by being put back in the hands of the clerical monopoly on assistance that extracts enormous advantages from it and distorts its ends and its democratic, humanitarian justifications; the immense weight of financial speculation that risks completely conditioning any serious and responsible reform in the credit sector and in that of a modern and efficient fiscal system.

Therefore we must again organise a frank and resolute anti--clerical proposal that is tuned to the democratic ranks. The excuse of an insensitive populace, of an irresponsible country, of a necessarily agnostic and pre-political laity, hides the reality of a "lay" leadership that is cowardly, subservient and much more retrograde and incapable than the citizens it pretends to represent and direct.

Anti-clericalism as a political qualification must be fully restored as a necessary expression of the ideals of the laity. To this end we have begun work on the first draught of a program.

As an example, in Rome, parallel to the hard work of organising the meeting at the Adriano, investigations are being made into the damage done to monuments and plaques that testified to the age-old tradition of oppression by the clergy. As of February 12 plaques and inscriptions will be replaced and repaired that recall the murders of heretics, masons, carbonari and city patriots. At Mentana, where the Garibaldi Museum is practically closed, on Feb.12, if possible, groups of laymen, republicans and the populace will gather for a great protest meeting to celebrate this centenary year of the struggle. The possibility is being studied of publishing anthologies of anti-clerical and historical

writings, etc. We must not delay in organising a meeting of at least 10,000 people for Sept.20 if we do not want to run the risk of failure.

Consequently this series of undertakings must be organised on the basis of direct, individual contributions of money and energy and suggestions on the part of those who feel the necessity and the value of this program. We urgently appeal to all our lay and democratic friends, to all citizens of good will who are not resigned to being the subjects of a Vatican republic, an expression of the world's worst clerical forces.

The financial difficulties are great: an event such as that at the Adriano in Rome, which we will necessarily have to repeat in other cities, even if on a modest level, will not cost less than a million lire. Mailing costs alone in Italy for 50,000 letters will cost as much again. Similar amounts, if not higher ones, will be necessary for publications and posters. Let us then open a public subscription so that the organisers will not have done their work in vain. We will keep friends and subscribers continually informed not only of the results of the subscription as it proceeds, but also of how the money will be spent. Let everyone contribute according to his possibilities. Each one can send his contribution in the way he prefers: he can send postage stamps, deposit money in accounts (on the enclosed forms), send postal money orders. We ask subscribers to indicate how they want their names to appear in the account books: either in full (first and last name), with initials or in some other way. Letters should

be sent to Rome, to "The Autonomous Fund For The Anti-clerical Year".

This first concrete effort on a vast scale to organise a meeting of true Italian laymen is thus mainly entrusted to the sense of responsibility of each individual.

The Radical Party therefore is only intending to figure in this initiative as organisers and executors on behalf of the lay citizens whether independents or enrolled in other parties. As on other occasions, it will entirely respect the autonomy of this undertaking. Promotion and other work for the Lega Italiana per l'Istituzione del Divorzio (Italian League for Divorce), which today is clearly independent and an expression of the encounter of citizens from the entire range of the laity, can be a useful example of the spirit that moves us in this field too.

If the Radical Party is opening its 1967 membership campaign under the aegis of the "Anti-clerical Year"; if it's imminent III National Party Congress is is making that its main theme; if everywhere the Radicals are being invited to give this undertaking their primary attention, this is nothing other than the dutiful and autonomous support that some of the promoters have committed themselves to giving for the purpose of re-establishing the laity in the country.

We hope that the campaign for the Anti-clerical Year will contribute to definitively overcoming the operations of a leadership that has aimed at amputating the struggle of the democratic coalition, in all of its vigorous and traditional components, for the historical conquest of freedom and modernity and anti-clericalism. We hope that resignation, passivity, the guilty sense of impotence or of defeat will disappear from our rank and file for good.

On this occasion we are certain that our faith in the conscience and responsibility of the country will be reciprocated and justified.

In sending you our best wishes and respectful greetings, we beg you, dear friends, to reply promptly by post, giving us also your suggestions and proposals, and to actively support this difficult and important undertaking.