Posted for Alison Abbott

The new year has barely started, but political troubles have already re-erupted at Europe’s largest university, La Sapienza in Rome.

This time last year, the university hit the headlines when 67 faculty members and a battery of students protested the invitation of Pope Benedict XVI to speak at the inauguration of the university year. The Pope chose to avoid confrontation by withdrawing his acceptance.

Now the new rector, Luigi Frati who took office in October, has sent out a challenge. He has issued the Pope a new invitation to visit the university – and at the same time sent an internal order rescinding an invitation by a professor of history to a former Red Brigades terrorist, Valerio Morucci, to speak to young students. Morucci has distanced himself from his violent past and gives lectures to discourage youths from following terrorist paths.

Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome and a member of the far-right Allianza Nationale party, told newspapers that the university is “being held hostage by 300 petty criminals” – referring to those who protested the Pope’s 2008 invitation and who include some of Italy’s most respected intellectuals, such Carlo Bernardini. Bernardini was instrumental in building up a school of nuclear physics in Italy after the Second World War.

Bernardini says the rector and the mayor are distorting and exploiting the invitation to Marucci to weaken protests against the Pope. “I find it vulgar to use the Pope to distract from [the university’s] true problems,” he says, referring to chronic underfunding and the failure of the government to open up competitions for academic positions, as promised.

The politically powerful Frati was elected by the university’s academics, even as many complained about his habit of electing his family to university positions. Three members of his family, including his wife, a former high-school teacher of literature, are professors in his own medical faculty.

More

“Sapienza in mano a 300 criminali” – Corriere della Sera.

“Sapienza ostaggio di 300 piccoli criminali” – La Repubblica.

Image: university logo / via Wikipedia