The Hounds Are Catching Up With Fr Volpi

Mirror, mirror... no, wait!

As many of you know, Volpi in Italian means, literally, “foxes”. More probably it is the usual patronymic, from the Latin Vulpii, “(the son) of Vulpius”. Be it as it may, the man's name means “fox”. And a very, very ugly fox this one is. Fox is, as every Englishman knows, officially classified as vermin. Father Volpi is, of course, not vermin. He has an immortal soul. But I doubt this fox will – vermin, or not – manage to escape the hounds.

We are now reliably informed that even the Italian civil justice (which has improved in the last decades, but still is a rather Kafkaesque experience) is more rapid than the heavily modernised, poor-minded, environment-loving, Christ-oblivious, shower-installing apparatus of the Bishop of Rome. Which says not something but, actually, an awful lot.

What has – we are reliably informed – happened, is that the Fox has been condemned to pay the non indifferent amount of €20,000 as a compensation for the slander against Father Manelli.

Now, please understand how the Italian defamation laws work. If one is a public personage, the public criticism against him can go rather far. In doing this, however, it must be clear that the criticism is a political one, not a personal slander.

If one were to say: “Berlusconi is the prostitute of the tax-evaders”, it would be clear that Berlusconi is not being accused of prostitution in the proper sense of the world, and the criticism is a robust criticism of his political activity. But if one were to write: “Berlusconi has stolen from the secret funds of the Italian Home Office” he had better have reliable, at least anecdotical evidence of what he is saying, or else an awful lot of Elton John treatment will soon be in store for him.

Slander is a serious matter. No one can accuse someone of misappropriating the funds of a religious order just because he wants to massacre his reputation, on the way to the massacre of his order. This is something that completely destroys the credibility of the man making the slanderous accusations, and that makes him unfit to keep having influence on the man he has slandered and on his order.

Volpi will, if Francis has any decency left, be made to go. The hounds are very near to his throat.

Still, two considerations must be made.

1) it is doubtful whether Francis has any decency left. I would answer that in the negative. One who lives under the roof of a poof, and receives a Trannie and his “fiancé”, clearly does not know where decency lives. If Francis forces Volpi to go it will be because of opportunity, not decency.

2) it is even more doubtful – it is, actually, unrealistic – to think that when the hounds hunt down this very ugly fox the persecution of the FFI will end. The FFI is persecuted because Francis wants it so. Volpi is mot the main culprit; merely the very nasty, ugly executioner.

Therefore, if you think that the FFI is soon to be restored to normality I suggest you curb your enthusiasm. In order for this to happen, Francis must see a political advantage for him in rehabilitating them. I do not see why Volpi's behaviour would change anything in Francis' one.

The only hope that the persecution ends during Francis' pontificate lies in the common, universally spread knowledge that the FFI's persecution happened because of his will, and on his orders. Then, and not before, Francis will have a real, concrete interest to say he never had anything to do with it because he happened to be in the bathroom, or was about embracing wheelchairs, or was just conversing with some Trannie buddy of his.

The hounds might well kill this fox; but the persecution of the FFI will, I am afraid, soon go on unabated.

M