ItalBooks.com

Scandal and legend of a sinner priest in the exceptional art of Alberto Bevilacqua

“Down there they are all excommunicated. One way or another they will kill you!” These are the words shouted out by the desperate Don Ersilio’s mother to her son. Superiors have bound him to Parma, where the anti-fascist resistance of Arditi del Popolo rages. Why does this young priest have to abandon his little church in Piacenza, with its great webs and fields “with the biggest tomatoes of Emilia”? Why has he been sent among the armed anticlerical of Parma? The reason is in the formula by protocol of his transfer: “Young mistake, because of scandal and legend”. It is a punishment. Don Ersilio, huge blue eyes and a too nice body for a priest, has fallen in the worst sin: flesh sin. Would it be impossible to call it “love”? And if it was a way of human holiness? And would not be a place in the world where the sinner priest could love his way in the grace of God? The scandal and the legend of Don Ersilio, called Bell’Arma, related in sensual and lyric, mystic and historic pages, the exceptional art of Alberto Bevilacqua.