The Rationalist

Alighiero Tondi always wanted to believe in something--if possible, rationally. He entered the Jesuit order in Rome 16 years ago with this in mind. "I was confident," he recalled, "that scientific proofs of Catholic truth existed." In 16 years as a Jesuit, he made his mark. His lectures to young people at Gregorian University's institute for laymen--on "religious science"--were immensely successful. Superiors admitted that Father Tondi could chase away spiritual doubts among Rome's younger generation "as no one else could."

Secretly this skillful curer of souls began to doubt the rational proofs of Catholicism as not so all-inclusive as he had hoped. He began to investigate "scientific" philosophies. One seemed especially satisfying, since it held forth the "scientific possibility of dominating national and social events." In the Italian elections of 1948, Father Tondi, on the surface an ardent worker for Italy's Catholic Action movement, voted for the Communist Party.

Through the next four years, his secret studies took him further. Catholic teaching on social injustice--if looked at in the new scientific manner--became a comfortingly rational conspiracy. Tondi reached a conclusion: "The game of the man who is well off is to convince the man who has nothing that there is no remedy for the suffering and disorder of the world because this is God's will . . . Communism throws out this rubbish and restores to man the dignity of his reason." Rationalist Tondi began to spend his evenings exchanging his new views with Communist friends. (He told his superiors that he was out electioneering for Catholic Action.)

Early last week, just a month after a brilliant lecture on why he became a Jesuit, Father Tondi slipped out of his room at Gregorian University. "I'm not coming back," he telephoned the rector next morning. "Don't look for me." Four days later, a front-page spread in Rome's party-lining daily Il Paese announced that Alighiero Tondi had joined the Communist Party.

When fellow Jesuits visited him to remonstrate, ex-Jesuit Tondi, wearing a pair of gaily colored pajamas, threw them out. (Wrote Tondi in Il Paese: "You should know that there is no real friendship among Jesuits.")

A Vatican spokesman said that Tondi was automatically excommunicated. Countered Tondi: "[The Church] epoch is bound to pass away." At week's end, to dodge an influx of visitors, Communist Tondi moved out of the comfortable apartment where he had been staying. Instead of his cassock, he wore a loud tie and a dark blue pin-striped suit.

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