Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [84]
The city authorities accept this pattern with some alacrity. When a Franco-Italian research team looked at ways of improving suburban conditions, moreover, the French were apparently shocked to discover that the Italians had in place a fully articulated system for acknowledging the ownership rights of those who had built illegally and for authorizing their active participation, on the basis of these illegal constructions, in the process of self-regeneration (auto-ricupero). Carlo Cellamare, who was a participant, recalled that the French partners were utterly astonished by the Italians' "culture of sin" (cultura del peccato) and their application of a system of pardons whereby the state, far closer to Catholic models than the self-consciously secularist French republic, allowed offenders to pay off their misdemeanors while also incorporating the illegal constructions in successive phases of planning.
Forgiveness and Calculation
The practice of giving indulgences was one of the major causes of Martin Luther's break with the Catholic church. Luther's objections, which sometimes find a sympathetic echo in modern Italy, centered on the monetary aspect; indulgences were sold to further the Vatican's earthly goals, and the church's alleged greed made it virtually certain that a pretense of penitence would suffice to bring about the desired pardon. The discomfort of the Left with the practice of the condono has a distinctly "protestant" feel to it, but it is also grounded in a reluctance to let the old masters of corrupt government-with their well-known ties to the construction industry25- continue their shameful deeds.
The theme of forgiveness came into particularly sharp focus during the Jubilee year, especially with an acrimonious debate in parliament about whether and to what extent state prisoners should receive acts of clemency, as urged by the pope; the very root of the word jubilee ~Giubileo~ is a Hebrew term denoting a ritual time for the forgiving of debts-and this fact also acquired considerable resonance in a city more than ever conscious of the role Jews have played in maintaining its specific identity. The traditional Left also became increasingly angry with Mayor Rutelli because, having seemed to promise no cooperation with the big construction firms many of which are reputed to have mafia ties, he then proceeded invoke the emergency of the jubilee as a reason for developing massive projects in conjunction with precisely this category of operator-entrepreneurs.
The general attitude to the pope's call for clemency appears, nicely satirized, in a cartoon accompanying a message from Pasquino, the talking statue. The pope's face is shown overlooking the Regina Coeli prison, and to the left appears the inscription, "Ammate, ammate, ammate, fili mi'; ammate, arirrubate, stuprate, Dio ve perdona" (Love, love, love, my children; love, rob [and] rape; God pardons you), and to the right, "Qui commanno io" (Here it is I who commands) and an apostrophe "a Ii fedeli ammaestrati" (to those trained in the faith) and the "signature" of Pasquino. The disapproval is clear: pardoning convicted criminals appeared to exonerate criminals of extraordinary influence and wealth while also encouraging permissiveness toward street crime. But it also signals rejection of the Vatican's paternalism, with its pervasive expropriation of charity and mercy for suspect political ends.
The bureaucratic adoption of the indulgence principle and the secular