Word: affrico
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Dates: during 1949-1949
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...Giorgio Vannini, a spry, cheerful young priest, was about the most popular man in the tiny mountain village of Affrico. As assistant to the parish priest, who was old and failing, Don Giorgio climbed tirelessly up & down the mountainside, ministering to the flock. For the children he organized picnics and games, in which he himself joined. He made a bowling green for the men, and bowled with them. Villagers remembered how, after war's end, three youths wandered into a German minefield and Don Giorgio walked in boldly to give them help...
...Affrico lies in the district of Emilia, Italy's Reddest region, and most of its 500 people voted Communist at the last election. Don Giorgio is a staunch antiCommunist, but the whole village loved him. Last spring, when the old parish priest died, the people of Affrico allowed themselves, after a suitable interlude of grief, to exult over the prospect that Don Giorgio would now become their priest. But after a competitive examination the Archbishop of Bologna decided otherwise, gave the post to one Don Luciano Massa. Don Giorgio sadly left the village...
...Affricans composed a blunt letter to Don Luciano: "It is with the greatest sorrow that we learn of your nomination as the parish priest of Affrico . . ." They sent a delegation to him, and another to the Catholic authorities in Bologna. On their weather-beaten, 17th Century church and on the rocky mountain road they put up big signs: "Affrico wants Don Giorgio . . . Don Giorgio, come back to your parish." Said a burly peasant: "If Don Giorgio doesn't come back, the carabinieri had better get themselves a barracks up here...
...guard against a surprise invasion by the unwanted Don Luciano, the Affricans posted sentries on the road, with conch-shell horns and a bell. They barricaded the doors of the church with stones. When the priest of an adjoining parish, fearing that Affrico had gone too long without the sacraments, came up the mountain to say a Mass, the villagers took down the stones temporarily, but only five people attended...
Last week the church of Affrico was still empty, and its doors still walled up. Don Luciano had not appeared. The archbishop, who could not with dignity knuckle under to the rebellious flock, had referred the matter to Rome. The stubborn Affricans were considering an appeal to the Pope. Said one sharecropper, who is nominally a Communist but whose ideological reliability is subject to grave doubts: "Don Giorgio has been good to our children and risked his life for us. In him we have faith...
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