Upside-Down Visit

In eight precedent-shattering trips to foreign nations, Pope Paul VI has visited Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and even New York City--all without incident. Last week, in the course of another excursion out of Rome, the Pontiff experienced his first hostile encounter. It came from, of all people, Italians. During a nine-hour visit to the island of Sardinia, Paul and his motorcade became involved in a battle between police and Sardinian anarchists in which rocks and fists flew. Uninjured and safely back in Rome, the Pope next day leveled an unusually caustic criticism--somewhat reminiscent in tone of Vice President Agnew--at Italian newspapers for having headlined that single incident when his reception in Sardinia had been overwhelmingly favorable.

The papal visit to the poor and rocky island in the Tyrrhenian Sea began joyfully enough. Flying into the capital of Cagliari, Paul was welcomed by the blast of boat whistles and salvos of fresh carnations and mimosa blossoms tossed in his path. Never before had a reigning Pontiff been on the island; the last papal visitor was Pontianus, who was exiled there in A.D. 235 by the Christian-hating Emperor Maximinus Thrax.

The reception put Paul in a good mood. Celebrating an open-air Mass in the principal piazza of Cagliari, Paul ended the service with a notable benediction. "Blessed be the Cagliari soccer team," he said smilingly, thus saluting the Sardinians for their first championship in Italy's major soccer league. Gathered under a hot sun, the congregation of 70,000 roared with appreciation.

Trouble began when the Pope visited the slum district of Sant' Elia on the fringes of Cagliari to demonstrate his concern for the struggling poor of Sardinia. While he was accepting gifts of fish and lobster and speaking to a crowd of 4,000 slumdwellers, a group of 20 anarchists held a protest near by. They called Paul an Antichrist, and insisted that Sant' Elia needed toilets and pharmacies more than papal visits. Police moved in to end the demonstration, and a fight broke out; 26 people were injured and 21 arrested before it was stopped. Some stones, newsmen insisted, hit the open car in which Paul and Jean Cardinal Villot, the Vatican Secretary of State, were riding at the close of their visit.

The Vatican later said that no such thing had happened. "It was an argument between police and demonstrators," a papal spokesman said. "Nobody opposed the Pope." Back in the Vatican, Paul used a routine audience at St. Peter's to blast the press. "They are no longer papers of information but deformation," he said. "They turned our visit upside down." Paul and his advisers were apparently worried that the confrontation at Sant' Elia might set a precedent that would encourage demonstrators to seek free publicity during future papal visits.

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