Still Running Off at the Keyboard

While Cardinal Francis Stafford’s comments about Barak Obama are still making waves, Stafford’s predecessor as head of the Apostolic Penitentiary garnered headlines in Italy this week for statements about another politician – in this case, Antonio Gramsci, the legendary founder of the Italian Communist Party, who died in 1937 after a long imprisonment under the fascist government of Benito Mussolini.

Archbishop Luigi de Magistris, who preceded Stafford as Major Penitentiary of the Vatican, asserted this week during an interview on Vatican Radio that Gramsci returned to the Catholic church on his deathbed, receiving the sacraments and even kissing a small image of the child Jesus.