The Flying Friars

On a tour last April through his Communist-riddled archdiocese of "Red" Emilia--a place where village churches are all but deserted and the dead are marched to the cemeteries behind the Red flag--Bologna's Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro came upon a rarely heartening scene. In the piazza of Casaglia, a town near Bologna, a young Franciscan friar was haranguing a sizable crowd through a public-address system. The message he had for his workingman audience: Communism will fail because it betrays the worker.

Cardinal Lercaro. a hustling controversialist himself (TIME, March 30), called in the friar. Father Tomaso Toschi, 31, for a talk. Shortly afterward, Franciscan

Toschi found himself at the head of a group of 20 priests from various religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, Capuchins and Salesians, specifically assigned to bring Emilia's Marxist workers back to Catholicism. The cardinal's name for Father Toschi's group was Fraternltas (the Brotherhood), but Emilia has come to know them, by the speed and aggressiveness with which they operate, as the Frati Volanti (the Flying Friars).

In the Piazza. The Flying Friars have somewhat the same mission as France's controversial worker-priests. But their tactics, as well as their tight, centralized direction, are vastly different. Says Cardinal Lercaro: "The worker-priests hide the fact that they are priests; they act clandestinely, whereas my friars defend the teaching of Christ in the piazza in broad daylight." Like Father Toschi, all the Friars come from working-class families, and they are used to taking hard knocks. (Some of them fought with World War

II partisans.) This is essential for their jobs, since attacking Marxism before Emilia's crowds of tough peasants and laborers, traditionally unfriendly to priests, does not make a clergyman a good insurance risk.

The Flying Friars normally operate in teams of three. Whenever they hear of a Communist meeting or rally, they crank up their ancient Fiat, and bear down on the local piazza, loudspeakers, documentary films and tape recorders at the ready, fighting for a chance to give their side a hearing, too. During the June Italian elections, one of the-friars, heckling a Communist speaker, quoted the man against himself. "But I never said that," the orator shouted, "not even in my dreams." The friar quickly turned on a recording of the Communist's remarks in question. Cried the Red: "My God! Is that me? It sounds awful." Then he retired from the field.

On the Take-Off. The Friars' greatest success was in routing the ex-Jesuit, Alighiero Tondi, who had been booked for a series of speeches in Emilia following his spectacular conversion to Communism (TIME, May 5, 1952). At Tondi's first lecture, before a packed Communist audience at the University of Bologna, Toschi and nine of the Flying Friars were there to heckle. Sample dialogue:

Tondi: Cardinal Mindszenty was arrested not because he was a cardinal, but because he was a traitor.

Friar: You're a liar.

Tondi: I forgive this priest the offense he commits against me.

Friar: Why don't you give him absolution, too?

Tondi (trying to hold his audience):

Just think, when I was still a Jesuit, my colleagues wanted to put me in an insane asylum.

Friar: Good idea. (Applause and laughter.)

When the Friars challenged Tondi to debate them at a counter-rally, also in a Communist stronghold, Communist Tondi failed to show up. He canceled his next speech, excused himself to Emilia's Communist bosses and left without saying anything more in publi.c.

Last week they strikingly augmented the material resources of their mission. To replace the wheezing, borrowed Fiat which had become their trademark, Franciscan Toschi walked into a Bologna automobile dealer's to take delivery of two new Fiat station wagons (bought on the installment plan). Out of respect for his cloth and his impatience, the dealer hustled Father Toschi through the formalities of the sale as quickly as possible. Snapped an irritated lay customer, unwittingly confirming the success of Toschi's mission: "These damn Flying Friars are always taking off without waiting their turn."

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