VATICAN CITY (RNS) – On July 1, police in full riot gear stormed the rectory of Santa Maria Maggiore parish in the Tuscan town of Vicofaro, clearing out the last dozen migrants sheltered there by Don Massimo Biancalani.
The operation, authorized by Bishop Fausto Tardelli after years of tensions with residents and right-wing politicians, turned dramatic: The indignant priest hurled two baguettes at officers while shouting “vergogna!” (“shame on you”) and tried to shield migrants — some led out in shackles. Later, megaphone in hand, he recited the Hail Mary as police sealed the parish doors.
“I experienced that epilogue as something dramatic, that I did not accept,” Biancalani told Religion News Service.
Public safety officials told local media that Biancalani’s ejection from his parish “was not an indiscriminate eviction, but the conclusion of a relocation process that was already completed,” said Licia Donatella Messina, the prefect for the province of Pistoia, which includes Vicofaro, northwest of Florence.
Biancalani said that roughly 120 migrants had been relocated to diocesan structures. “Many were moved to diocesan or Caritas structures. But the most fragile refused facilities with surveillance, and many others didn’t have the right papers. Caritas only wants them when they are ‘all in order,’” said Mauro Matteucci, a volunte …