Rome : The Catholic Church and the local Jewish community in Rome on Tuesday strongly condemned as “offensive and unacceptable” a funeral procession outside a local church in which the casket was draped in a Nazi flag and mourners gave the fascist salute.
Photos and video of the scene outside St. Lucia church following the Monday funeral service were published by the Italian online news portal Open. They showed around two dozen people gathered outside the church as the swastika-draped casket emerged, shouting “Presente!” (“Present!”) with their right arm extended in the fascist salute.
In a statement Tuesday, the Vicariate of Rome strongly condemned the scene and stressed that neither the parish priest, nor the priest who celebrated the funeral, knew what was going to transpire outside after the funeral Mass ended.
“This ideological and violent exploitation, especially following an act of worship near a sacred place, remains serious, offensive and unacceptable for the church community of Rome and for all people of good will in our city,” the statement said.
The statement quoted the parish priest, the Rev. Alessandro Zenobbi, as distancing himself and the church from “every word, gesture and symbol used outside the church, which are attributed to extremist ideologies far from the message of the Gospel of Christ.”
Rome’s Jewish community expressed outrage that such events could still happen more than seven decades after the end of the second world war and the fall of Italy’s fascist dictatorship.
The Jewish community statement on Tuesday said the funeral incident was “even more outrageous because it took place in front of a church”.
“It is unacceptable that a flag with a swastika can still be shown in public in this day and age, especially in a city that saw the deportation of its Jews by the Nazis and their fascist collaborators,” read a statement from the community carried by Reuters.
Italian news reports identified the deceased as Alessia Augello, a 44-year-old former militant of the extreme right-wing, neo-fascist Forza Nuova group. She died over the weekend of a blood clot.
The group was blamed for violent protests in central Rome last October that targeted Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s office and parliament.
Forza Nuova was created in 1997 in the tradition of the violent, extreme right-wing organizations active in Italy’s so-called Years of Lead in the 1970s and grew into a national force in 2008. The group is openly neo-fascist.
La Repubblica said police had been present at the funeral and were investigating. A similar incident took place outside another Rome church in March last year.
-TOI