At sunrise, at midday and at dusk, church bells call to each other across the Emilian plain. In the past year anticlerical terrorists in the diocese of Reggio Emilia, near Bologna, had answered the bells by murdering five priests. Two months ago the Vatican sent to the tough district a tough bishop, Beniamino Socche.
One evening last month a popular, mild-mannered priest, Don Umberto Pessina, was walking along a lonely lane to his home in San Martino, suburb of Correggio (where the painter of that name was born). There was a bright orange flash among the yellow fireflies. Don Umberto fell, shot...
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