Liturgie funebri e sacrificio patriottico: i riti di suffragio per i caduti nella guerra di Libia (1911-12)

This essay analyses the importance that funerals for the fallen in war acquired as part of the Italian national pedagogy of the early twentieth century, focusing on the Catholic contribution to the ethics of martial sacrifice and to the devotion towards the heroes of the fatherland. After a brief excursus about the politicisation of the memorial rites during the process of Risorgimento and the "First War of Africa ", the investigation focuses on the religious services dedicated to the dead in the Libyan campaign (1911- 12). The conflict against the Ottoman Empire marked in effect, a strong discontinuity: Through the several requiem Masses, the churchmen provided an unprecedented involvement in the cult of patriotic sacrifice, which was interpreted, in the context of the colonial expedition, in an aggressive and imperialistic way. The ideology of "crusade" and "martyrdom" became dominant in the soldiers'funerals, consolidating a national-Catholic "war culture which would shortly thereafter shift in the consensus to WWI and to the fascist regime. At the same time, the warmongering enthusiasms aroused doubts, oppositions and concerns. Some diocesan ordinaries, integrist sectors and the Holy See itself moved to regulate the rites of mourning, as they threatened to tarnish the specific characters of Christian piety in favour of a pagan religion of the nation. With the circular letter De suffrages pro defunctis in bello Tripolitano (3rd February 1912) the Sacred Congregation of Rites reaffirmed the prohibition of commemorative speeches, recognizing, however, the lawfulness and the inevitability of those "hybrid" ceremonies. Because of this ambivalence too, that directive was widely disregarded or circumvented. Symbols, epigraphs and prayers continued in fact to convey the stereotypes of the "holy war ", explicitly overlapping the hierocratic plan of Christian reconquest and the territorial expansion of Italy.