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Levada Helps Sink Rome's Gay Parade

By Stephen Schwartz

After waffling over the wording of comments Archbishop Levada made in Rome recently about the annual San Francisco homosexual parade and its displays of anti-Catholic bigotry, Archbishop Levada's representative said that the archbishop's office turned over videotapes of the parade to Italian media and that Archbishop Levada shared his views of San Francisco's annual gay pride parade with Italian officials. In addition, the Italian press says his revelations to high Church officials were crucial to the decision of Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and other high political figures to seek postponement of a gay pride event that had been scheduled to take place in Rome on July 8, during the Jubilee Year celebrations.

Early in May, the influential Italian daily, Il Messaggero, reported that Levada had told Vatican officials at a dinner in a cardinal's home in Rome, "I can't believe it. It's not possible for this to happen during the Jubilee. I'm amazed that the government would permit it. Obviously the Italian authorities have no idea what might happen. This kind of demonstration is not controllable."

The paper reported Levada saying that the San Francisco march went by St. Mary's Cathedral and asserting that many of the marchers dressed in clerical costume. Homosexual activists from the Bay Area, including some active in the Rome campaign, protested that the first statement was factually untrue and that few marchers appeared dressed as priests and nuns. Levada seemed to prefer to deal with the issue by qualifying details of facts in the Italian media. Archdiocesan press spokesman Maurice Healy said the dinner had taken place three months before the first Italian press report. Levada himself said, "When asked in conversation about the annual Gay Pride parade in San Francisco, I said that I personally had not seen it, because I usually go out of town. I said that there were reports of public displays of nudity that were offensive and displays of costumes that ridicule Catholic leaders and members of religious orders."

The archbishop insisted that his comments were made at a private dinner, that a journalist present took no notes, and that Levada later declined a request for an interview. Nevertheless, the substance of the matter remains: Archbishop Levada warned the public as well as fellow clerics in Rome of the excesses that might be committed at a homosexual demonstration in the Eternal City.

Most recently, the respected daily Corriere della Sera reported that Levada also provided Vatican officials with a three-hour video of the march, including footage of men and women garbed as nuns and priests who stripped naked in the streets. Healy has confirmed that the videos were sent by his office. In reply to an inquiry, he said, "The same journalist [present at the dinner] asked if the archbishop's office could provide some film of the San Francisco parade. The archbishop's staff did obtain a videotape of a television broadcast of the 1998 Gay Pride parade in San Francisco and other video footage showing public events of another [previous year's] gay parade [along with] an NBC-TV Extra feature on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence including footage of them in a public parade, and scenes from a June 1994 public street celebration in the Castro district showing people dancing naked, and that year's Gay Pride parade also with public scenes of nudity."

"These tapes were sent to the Italian journalist, Piero Schiavazzi of Telepace, in response to the journalist's request by the archbishop's staff without being reviewed by the archbishop," Healy added.

Locally, many Italian Catholics are supporting the archbishop. San Franciscan Carlo Lazzareschi said, "From the Catholic perspective, the whole affair is offensive. It includes the celebration of unnatural relations, the display of the sexual organs, and propaganda in favor of sadomasochism and other perversions. But as an Italian-American, I'm concerned about the encouragement of anticlericalism in Rome. A lot of Italians love baiting the Church, and giving the gays authorization to march in Rome is an invitation to outrageous behavior."

Kim Burrafato, a North Beach Italian-American, said, "The whole thing is offensive to Catholics, and especially to Italian-Americans. Italians knew San Francisco as a city with a large Italian-American population, a city named for St. Francis, one of the greatest Italians and greatest Catholics of all time. Now they know it as a city where thousands of people assemble to mock religion and to outrage the sensibilities of their Catholic neighbors. If Levada spoke up, he did the right thing. If the pope said no to the parade, he also did the right thing. Rome doesn't need this."

In Italy, Christian Democratic politician Rocco Buttiglione said, "Everyone has the right to march, but nobody has the right to offend, and these gentlemen have clearly said they want to offend the pope and Catholics." The Rome demonstration has been promoted as an assembly of 200,000 in "the greatest gay and lesbian manifestation ever" in Italy. The Vatican had lobbied hard against the event, arguing that it would conflict with a pilgrimage of Polish Catholics to Rome. Given that Holy Father himself is Polish, that could be a major consideration. But notwithstanding its anticlerical traditions and strong leftist political movements, Italy remains a country where Masses at St. Peter's are broadcast every Sunday on state television to a national and international audience.

Italian politicians have been divided about the matter. Prime minister Amato noted that Italy's constitution prevents him from banning the march outright. Diana Vincenzi, Amato's wife, denounced her husband and said, "I'm on their side." Early in June, Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli withdrew official sponsorship of the event, which he had endorsed in 1997.

Even Italian homosexuals seem to be split. Franco Zeffirelli, the famous film director, had come out as a homosexual, even though he is a practicing Catholic. But he described the proposed demonstration as "vulgar and imbecilic," and "a zoo of obscene clowns."

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