As was totally predictable, some people have been scoffing at the drastic regulations to control the COVID-19 contagion, because scoffage is fun. There is a special breed of human who looks at rules like they’re the gates in a giant slalom racecourse, put there just to challenge your skill in avoiding them and provide entertainment in the process.
By now, though, some 4,000 blithe spirits across Italy have been fined for not staying at home — and more to the point, they left home to do things they’re totally not justified in doing. Somehow, meeting up with ten of your friends in the countryside in an old abandoned shed to drink beer doesn’t fall into any of the three approved categories for being out of your house (Work? Medical/health? Necessity? Or did they claim to qualify in all three?) Four members of a family in town A went to town B outside of their province to join the birthday party of their two-year-old relative. Cue the Carabinieri. People with holiday houses in the mountains are thinking of escaping there? Not a chance. A walk on the beach? The mayor of Jesolo is imploring people not to be seduced by a sunny weekend. Because Carabinieri. Because virus. Because just stay at home.
All this — the subject of skipping a rule you don’t like or understand or want to bother with or forgot — brings us to don Riccardo Zanchin, the parish priest of the church of Santi Vito e Modesto in Spinea, a nearby town; Spinea is also the legal residence of Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice. A town where you might think that the art of obeying governmental edicts would be more advanced than elsewhere, but actually, no.
Among the earliest bans affecting normal life was on public funerals; that was back when we could still be shocked. The rule was that only the closest family members would be allowed to attend, without the usual mass. Subsequent edicts on March 8 and March 11 intensified the ban, up to the one forbidding all religious services. No weddings, funerals, baptisms, First Communions, Stations of the Cross, reciting the rosary — nothing. Anything that involved more than two or three people was prohibited. But when one of don Riccardo’s parishioners passed away, the family inquired about a funeral, and he said “Fine.” Here is where things begin to get murky.
Don Riccardo doesn’t appear to belong to the sub-group of priests who like to protest (not to be confused with Protestants). There was one priest the other day who was nabbed for conducting some ceremony, and his clarion call to disobedience was reported as “God is my boss,” and God requires him to continue his sacramental duties. That would be fine in a world where extremely contagious diseases didn’t exist, but as God’s vice-boss observed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “The flesh is weak,” and people are getting sick. I imagine that God’s vice-vice-boss, pro tem, a/k/a the bishop, had something short and sharp to tell him about all this.
Back to don Riccardo, who says that he hadn’t received any instructions to the contrary from the diocese (blame the bishop? Not a good move). Therefore he was all set to conduct a funeral Thursday afternoon of a 93-year-old parishioner. Family? Check. Mortal remains? Check. Hearse and funeral director? Check. Another funeral director? Excuse me?
Alessandro Gardi was the funeral director whose company had undertaken the work and had already loaded the coffin into the hearse. But at that moment who should be driving past but Manuel Piasenti, director of another funeral home. He saw what looked like a funeral drawing to a close, stopped his car, and called the Carabinieri.
“It isn’t possible to celebrate funerals,” Piasenti explains, “it’s a lack of respect toward the families and also toward other funeral homes that, respecting the regulations, aren’t working.” I’d interpret that as meaning especially a lack of respect to other funeral homes, such as his, just to take an example at random. What I don’t understand is his assertion that funeral homes aren’t working — that doesn’t seem to fall into any prohibited category of permitted work, and their services are, sadly, clearly required these days. I suspect Something Else is going on here; for all I know it might have been something that happened when they were in second grade.
The Carabinieri come and discover that the situation has become a little heated. The family members are furious with Gardi, the first funeral director, because evidently they blame him for getting them into this mess. Gardi’s mad at Piasenti because “He blocked the hearse with his car,” Gardi stated, “and the people who were going to the cemetery.” That’s an audacious move. Everybody had something to say, and I’m guessing they were all saying them at the same time, and in a way that attracted the attention of the neighbors.
“I never blocked anybody,” Piasenti rebutted, “I was only waiting” (in a blocking position?) “for the arrival of the officers.” And so it went until the Carabinieri had taken everybody’s testimony and found all three contenders guilty of something.
Don Riccardo had broken the decrees banning religious ceremonies, which in point of fact had not been issued by the bishop, but by a commission headed by the Prime Minister of Italy, so the good priest was probably a bit mistaken in thinking the bishop had the final word on this.
Mr. Gardi had also flouted the decrees, though he defended himself by saying “It wasn’t a funeral, it was a strictly private ceremony. There were only eight people, all of them four or five meters apart. We spoke to the priest and he said that he hadn’t received any opposition from the diocese for the celebration of that funeral rite, so we proceeded.” Noted, but he still broke the rules.
Mr. Piasenti got two fines: One was for being out in his car even though he wasn’t going to work (one of the three reasons that justify your being out of your house; it was stopping in front of the church that gave him away), and the other because he had no authority to use his car to stop a funeral procession. Well, neither does anybody, probably, except the firemen.
So in the end, everybody was unhappy, including the grieving relatives. That flash of euphoria Mr. Piasenti enjoyed by reporting his competitor to the police was so sweet, but so brief.
So let’s review: Stay at home. In the end, it makes life simpler for everybody.
12 Comments
What a brilliant post, Erla. You have so many pertinent things to say about our dark new world and at the same time you manage to lighten the darkness with your wit. We need your take on the times. We in England so much want to know what it is like for you in Italy. Please keep writing. And thank you for the beautiful photographs.
Thanks, Sue. I’ll be sending more brighter glimpses, as I find them. Knowing that people care about Italy gives a wonderful boost. Meanwhile, as England heads into the dark unknown, I have absolutely no doubt that the grit that brought the British through the Blitz will be taken out of mothballs and help everybody through. Don’t forget the doctors and nurses, they’re going to need a boost too. At noon in Bari a few days ago people went out on their balconies and applauded all the medical personnel who are literally slaving away. Because they’re getting sick too, so fewer soldiers to fight on the front lines.
Thank you Erla, for some levity amongst all this misery. Here in Montréal we are now almost in the same situation. Practically everything closed. I am sure that the fines will be next. People may actually begin to read once more out of desperate boredom. Gracie.
Erla, I think the closing down of community activities (in Italy of all places) is a worse infection than the virus! It has begun in Australia, but I hope there will be an outbreak of civil disobedience here. I have been re-reading Richard Lamb’s War in Italy, 1943-1945. If the Italians could come through that much more terrible situation, I don’t understand why there is such complaisance with the current restrictions.
I realize that I am in a minority, but there are many of us here (and they include the so-called “vulnerable people” like myself) who just intend to go on living as usual.
Well okay then. If you’re infected but asymptomatic, you can spend all day infecting people inadvertently. Sounds like fun. I’m proud of the Italians who have overcome their habits and naturally anarchic personalities to find pleasure in sharing hardship for the common good. May sound saccharine, but it’s a damn beautiful thing to see.
It’s hard in today’s world to be a contrarian who sees life sub specie aeternitatis (Spinoza, I think)
It’s a little distressing that some contrarians appear to be so intentionally to cause irritation and trouble to people, people they may not even know or have any reason to wish ill to. Not saying that’s your case. I’m just saying that while being a contrarian may be an entertaining approach to life, it isn’t very entertaining when people are vulnerable and, fairly reasonably and objectively, at risk. Being willing, even happy, to contribute to that risk is an idea I cannot grasp. But maybe the government will allow exceptions on mobility to people who carry a document certifying that they are contrarians? You could add the Spinoza quote to the document, it would be a nice touch and probably very convincing to someone in the ICU whom you don’t know, but who got there thanks to you. Viruses actually don’t distinguish between contrarians and the rest of us, which technically means that you could be infected. I see that that possibility doesn’t concern you, which is fine with me, but the possibility of your infecting someone else doesn’t concern you at all, which is incomprehensible to me. Or perhaps you truly believe that each man is an island? That isn’t being shown to be true elsewhere in the world, but maybe in Australia it will be different.
Dear Erla, Here in Australia in the last few months we saw tremendous courage, self-sacrifice and community spirit in facing the drought, the bushfires, destruction of homes and stock. It was very inspiring. Now, so few weeks later, we see greed and self-interest as people stockpile toilet rolls, pasta, rice and many other goods, depriving other people, and reading about the action of the funeral director who “dobbed in” [an Australian expression meaning “to tell on”] a fellow funeral director is something we can expect to be copied around the world faster than the travels of coronavirus.
Yes, human nature in all its glory will be coming into sharp focus these days. Just bear in mind that the so-clever funeral director who snitched also got two (2) fines. That may make him think twice next time. As some of your countrymen try to start taking short cuts, so to speak, just make sure there are enough police on the job to settle the matter for them.
“And I said to myself: What a wonderful world!”
You couldn’t possibly make the last few weeks up… sadly.
Already it’s becoming impossible, even dangerous, simply to express an opinion – nothing to do with giving hardship to others, Erla. Just because a few of us believe that the world’s gone mad and want to say so doesn’t mean that we are going to behave irresponsibly. Nor should one be pilloried for it.
It’s certainly not entertaining to hold an unpopular opinion! In fact it’s extremely stressful. I think I’ll get back off my soapbox. Convince a man against his will, he remains of that opinion still.
I guess it comes down to what the opinion is, actually. I know we’re now in “defend to the death your right to say it” territory, but while I might be with you on the barricades to defend “unpopular” opinions, I hope we can agree that there are ideas (call them opinions if you wish) that need to be either abandoned or muted. Just as a general principle, I mean. But if we don’t agree even on that, I will beat an orderly retreat and leave the field to you.