Religion: Square 49

In Naples last week, Italian moppets were gleefully playing a new game—"To Rome in Holy Year." Invented by a Jesuit priest named Sergio de Gioia, who also instructs the youth of Italy with what he calls "a catechistic newspaper with comic strips," the new game is played by spinning a wheel to determine the number of squares the player may advance on his journey to the Holy Father.

Some squares, such as those marked "Courtesy" or "Communion," offer a new spin of the wheel or an advance of several notches. Others impose severe penalties. At square 17 the player loses a turn and must go back to number 10 for "yielding to the Devil's temptation." The same punishment is demanded for reading the red-splashed "evil press" (number 31). The worst penalty of all is attached to the last square—number 49—which sends the young "pilgrim" all the way back to number 5, the square marked "Religious Instruction." On square 49 is a picture of a grim man in a clerical collar, and the single word: PROTESTANTE.