ABSTRACT: An attempt is being carried out in Italy to abrogate the law on divorce passed by Parliament in December 1970 by means of a referendum. Opposing an attempt to lay the responsibility of the summons of the referendum on divorce entirely on the "Committee against divorce" and its president Gabrio Lombardi, Marco Pannella defends its leaders and their intellectual honesty, despite the fact that they are exponents of that counterreformist tradition according to which only violence and force can save faith. However, Pannella stresses that the committee would have never succeeded in collecting the signatures necessary for the referendum had the Christian Democrat Party not supported it. Those who try to define the campaign against the referendum as a campaign against the "fascism" of Gabrio Lombardi or of Almirante (1) are carrying out an act of mystification of the Italian political reality. The Christian Democrat Party is the only real heir of fascism, the only party that has ensured continuity with the

laws and the methods of the National fascist Party.

(Il Mondo - February 1974 from "Marco Pannella - Works and speeches - 1959-1980", Gammalibri, January 1982).

We have more than one objection to raise against the bulk of discredit (and only indirectly of credit) which is being addressed against Prof. Gabrio Lombardi, Mario Fusacchia and the Committee against divorce. I hold these opponents in great esteem and I respect them. They are generally honest people who have their own ideas, profess them and behave accordingly. Nor is it embarrassing for me to conceive that, within such limits, it is perhaps true they they resemble us, as everyone is anxious to underline. We will grant this.

Both parts testify to conflict, which strikes me as almost eternal, between faith in freedom and faith in the authority. Too many forget this simple truth, charging it with hate, contempt and passions that are to some extent comprehensible.

Lombardi is the direct descendant of the Counter-Reform, of the Italian historical Catholicism. Deep pessimism on human nature, the belief that this world belongs to evil, and that only in the other world the reign of justice, truth and goodness is possible, is not of today and will not die tomorrow.

Only the authority, only obedience, only the force and violence of the law can save what remains to be saved. When Lombardi wants to force the indissolubility of marriage particularly on nonbelievers especially by means of the law, the Carabinieri, the priests, and penal and infernal sanctions combined, he certainly does not ignore that he is or he seems cruel. But he knows or believes that man should be protected above all from himself, and he disregards the sufferance this causes provided this can contribute to the safeguard of the "truth" and of the law that derives of it. The torturers of the Counter-Reform cannot be fully understood unless we recognize that they were convinced, in their humanity, that from torture and from torture only there could arise the hope of a confession, a conversion and eternal salvation for the tortured one, and the assertion of the "truth". An indissoluble marriage guarantied by the violence of the institutions even when it is nonexistent in facts, even when it is but the rel

ics of of love, of dialogue, of respect, of confidence, and a source of pain for the couple and for the children, is the torture Lombardi wants to make sure is guarantied, a necessary torture. All the more so for those who are guilty of being nonbelievers. Their misfortune, their mistake, will be the tangible sign of the power of the Lord, of his law, or of the power of the State. Perhaps this way they will learn.

Yes, this philosophy strikes us as being monstrous. It is no different from the same philosophy that for decades devastated and still devastates, with clerical and authoritarian degenerations, the socialist revolutions, or - further in the past - some parts of the Jacobin revolution, when even the truth was deified and its protectors feared its betrayal. Clearly, it also has strong bonds of ideological kinship with the fascist or Nazi "idealism".

But if this philosophy were only such, or if it were only Lombardi's, we would have little to worry about. But others have advocated the blackmail of the referendum and practiced such blackmail until it slipped out of their hands. The sorcerer's apprentice and the "violent" ones are the Christian Democrat Party, all the Christian Democrat Party, the CEI (2) and the Pope himself. Today the conflict is not, as many claim, against the "fascism" of Lombardi or even that of Almirante. Let's not be ridiculous. If Cefis (3) or Fanfani (4) asked the SID (5), if they asked Monti(6), Pesenti (7) as well as De Mita (8) and Granelli (9) to do so, the avant-gardists of the National Right would immediately lay flowers instead of bombs, not only in banks, but even in the headquarters of the Communist and Socialist parties, and would sing hymns to divorce.

Proposing to today's generations the historical task of defeating "fascism" (or saving the country from it), meaning by this the marginal and deviant palaeofascism of Almirante, is simply ludicrous. Claiming the necessity to defend or use the Constitution against Gabrio Lombardi and Almirante is downright incredible. Saving the Christian Democrat Party from the mephitic embrace of "fascism" is pure nonsense. For thirty years now, the Christian Democrat Party has represented the force which has ensured the defeat of the Constitution, of the hopes of the Resistance, of the democratic character of the public life. The "mephitic embrace" which has dragged the whole country into the current crisis is the embrace of the Christian Democrat Party and none other; it is above all a crisis of hopes and ideals, of credibility of the leading class - often the one at the opposition no less than the one in power. The continuity with the National Fascist Party belongs to the Christian Democrat Party and to no other force.

As for divorce, not one "Christian Democrat" out of a thousand, in three legislatures, has ever revealed problems of conscience whatsoever in Parliament placing him in unison with the immense majority of believers of the whole world, and of the majority of people in this country.

Between Gabrio Lombardi and the army of powerful men, of clerical-democrats who share his views and deny it, or would share our views but have armed his hand out of calculations, I have do doubts about my choice.

The State violence, the violence of the institutions belongs to them: they represent the true "fascism", and it is against them that by means of divorce, we will defend at least a hope of freedom and liberation.

Translator's notes:

(1) Giorgio Almirante (1914-1988): Secretary of the MSI from 1969 to 1987.

(2) CEI: Italian Bishop's Conference

(3) Eugenio Cefis (1921): President of the National Hydrocarbon Corporation (1967-71) and of the Montedison chemical company. (1971-77).

(4) Amintore Fanfani (1908): Politician. Professor of economic history, secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1954-59; '73-75), Prime Minister ('58-59; '60-62; '62-63; '82-83), foreign minister ('64-65; '65-68), president of the Senate ('68-73; '76-82).

(5) SID: Defence intelligence services, in 1977 was replaced by the SISMI.

(6) Attilio Monti (1906): Oil and sugar manufacturer. Owner of the newspapers "Il Resto del Carlino" and "La Nazione".

(7) Pesenti (1907): manufacturer.

(8) De Mita (1928): Christian Democrat politician. Former Vice secretary of the DC. Ministry of Industry and Trade during the 4th and 5th Rumor government, minister of foreign trade during the 4th and 5th Rumor government. Former Prime Minister.

(9) Granelli: Christian Democrat exponent.