Religion: A Sword Is Raised

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"Stalin can't see into the election booth, but God can." With this slogan, in Italy's 1949 election, Catholic Action workers backed up the Vatican's excommunication of any Roman Catholic who gave his vote to the Communists. Last week the ten-year-old slogan was dusted off. The Vatican's Holy Office published a decree giving Catholics another set of instructions. It is not permissible, said the decree, "for Catholics to give their vote to those parties or candidates which, although not professing principles in contrast to Catholic doctrine, nonetheless . . . unite with Communists and by their action favor Communists."

The situation that brought the decree was essentially a local one: in Sicily an aggressive, spectacled politico named Silvio Malazzo had broken away from the mainland Christian Democrats to lead an alliance of Christian Democrats, Communists, Socialists and Fascists. He is facing his first electoral test in June, and Sicily's Ernesto Cardinal Ruffini had asked the Vatican for ammunition.

The Vatican decree did not specifically mention excommunication, though it referred to the 1949 decree. Except in the most flagrant cases, offenders will be guilty only of grave sin against the church. But the decree is binding on Catholics everywhere, and it produced a strong reaction in Italy. Right-wingers were delighted ("A helpful clarification." purred one news agency), and left-wingers, who had welcomed the election of Cardinal Roncalli as a "liberal" Pope, were dismayed. Commented Rome's fellow-traveling newspaper Paese Sera: "We thought Pope John was a Pope of new coinage, but now he has raised a sword."