Dear De Falco, I understand your perspective, but Ranucci is a desecrator and you should relinquish your involvement with the churches

Gregorio De Falco, former coordinator of the Costa Concordia rescue operation (“Get back on board, for fuck’s sake!”), is now organising the rescue of Sigfrido Ranucci. And we’re still in the midst of a shipwreck. A former naval officer and then a Five Star Movement senator, De Falco now lives in Eboli with the poet Filomena Domini (I’m not spreading rumours; he writes this in his public CV), and in Eboli he presents Ranucci’s books in the church. Co-ordinated by the poet Filomena Domini. When I wrote about Ranucci’s ‘presentation-desecration’, I was unaware of these affectionate details, and even if I’d known them, nothing would have changed: we all have families. Moreover, I rather like venial sins. What really infuriates me, however, are flaunted mortal sins. First and foremost, pride – the diabolical sin par excellence. For example, the pride of presenting secular books in a consecrated church, and the pride of boasting about it.

De Falco wrote in “Pressenza” – described as an “international press agency for peace, non-violence, humanism and non-discrimination” – an article in support of the presenter of “Report” and to the detriment of myself: “The attack by Il Foglio coincides perfectly with a media and legal storm involving Ranucci. This synchrony is no coincidence: it is proof of sinister manipulation’. In short, I am alleged to have criticised the presentation—or desecration—(“Christ snubbed at Eboli...”) in collusion with Giampaolo Rossi or Paolo Corsini or perhaps even Giorgia Meloni, the sinister opportunist that I am. I understand him, De Falco (after a moment of anger, I often have a moment of forbearance). I understand these sacristy-goers: accustomed to dealing with PD priests, Zuppi-aligned bishops and Bergoglian cardinals, they cannot conceive of religious criticism. For them, all criticism is political. They have no other perspective: the Code of Canon Law (“In a sacred place, only that which is necessary for the exercise and promotion of worship shall be permitted”) is a complete mystery to them.

De Falco could benefit from a further mitigating factor: a rather hypocritical archbishop. In his article, he writes that authorisation for the blasphemous use of the Church of St Anthony came not from the clergy of Eboli but, astonishingly, from the Archbishop of Salerno, who is said to have described the book "Il ritorno della casta" as one of ‘great spiritual depth’. If true, Monsignor Bellandi has confused one thing for another, journalism with mysticism, Ranucci with St John of the Cross. One wonders how this could have happened. A Jacobin and partisan tome, extolling the omnipotence of the judiciary, which is elevated to the status of the Gospel (where, incidentally, magistrates are detestable: see Luke 18). And an inevitably self-important television celebrity who becomes Saint Sigfrido the Martyr. Now the Ranucci supporters are pressing ahead and threatening further sacrilegious occupations. St Anthony as ‘Spin Time’, the house of God as the headquarters of the ‘Report’ Fan Club. Because, according to the former head of the operations section of the Livorno Harbour Master’s Office, ‘the nave of a church can and must also be a place of moral and social growth’. Leave the churches in peace and get back on board, De Falco!