Constantine's Sword Page #5

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as a Catholic priest.

I am saying my first mass...

in a chapel at Bolling Air force Base

because that's where my parents live.

It's the tradition.

And in the chapel...

my mom and dad's neighbours,

friends and colleagues...

the general officers

of the United States Air force.

But we are in the middle of a war...

and I knew that the intelligence

assessments in Vietnam...

were coming from the Defence

Intelligence Agency...

from my father.

Vietnam tore this country apart...

set one generation against another.

And my father and I have long

since stopped discussing it.

But I had to give a sermon.

And I preached on a text from Ezekiel...

where he describes

a valley full of dead bones.

I said that the bones he was looking at...

had been burned,

scorched by the sun...

and then I said and by napalm.

It was as close as I could get...

to referring to the war in Vietnam.

But it was plenty close,

believe me.

The word "napalm"...

in that chapel on that day...

was a deep offense...

and my father never forgave me for it.

I was under my father's window

in the Pentagon.

He was there and I was here.

I was surrounded

by 50,000 other people...

but still it was a defining moment.

I spent the years

of the anti-war movement...

as a Boston University Chaplin...

counseling those who faced the draft.

I think we have opened up these

grievous questions a little further...

as to whether or not Americans

are allowed to kill the innocent.

A powerful wing of the peace

movement was Christian.

We hope we could change

the church's future...

even if we couldn't erase its past.

Once I focused on the good

the church could do.

Now my faith hangs

on facing directly the worst.

I looked back to the 14th century..

when the Church in Spain thought

it was extending a helping hand to the Jews...

with a campaign to convert them

to Christianity.

But it was followed by an Inquisition.

A violent paranoia that those

conversions could not be trusted.

Once a Jew, always a Jew.

The sin was no longer in their belief...

but in their blood.

In Spain and then across Europe...

Jew were tried and burned.

As mobs accused them

of poisoning well...

causing the black plague...

and killing Christian children

for their blood.

Finally the Jews were driven

out of Spain.

Surprisingly...

they were invited by the Pope

to take refuge in Rome.

They settled along the banks of the Tiber...

not far from the Vatican.

My family came to Italy

from Spain in 1492.

- Why?

- The Catholic queen of Spain, in 1942...

expelled the Jews.

We are what they call Sephardic Jews,

Jews of Spanish origin.

Sepharad in Hebrew means Spain.

There was a market place here,

across was the Jewish quarter

in ancient Roman times.

For sixty years, inquisitors threatened Jews

and Popes protected them.

Then in 1555 the Inquisitor himself

Gian Pietro Carafa

was crowned Pope Paul the 4th.

"It is absurd and improper...

that these Jews have erupted

into insolence.

They presume to dwell side by side

with Christians...

with no distinction in their dress

to separate them.

Therefore we do issue

the following ordains.

Jews are to own no real estate.

Jews are to hire

no Christian servants.

Jews are no longer to ignore

the ancient requirement...

to wear distinctive clothing

and badges.

The taxes of Jews are to be increased.

Jews are to live in a distinct quarter...

cut off from other sections of the city.

This quarter is to have only one entrance...

to be locked at sundown."

After Carafe's edict...

the Jews of Rome were walled up

in a tiny ghetto.

Four square blocks...

into which thousands of families

were squeezed...

in cramped and squalid conditions.

- So this is your neighbourhood.

- Yes.

My family they are Jewish...

start to live here in the ghetto in 1555.

- Which begins with Carafe.

- Yes.

The Jewish people cannot

go out from this area.

So my family and all the Jewish family...

that they are from all over Italy...

they come here in Jewish Ghetto...

and they lose all of their possessions.

The only thing that they remember

is that they came from Mentana.

So our name that is Limentani...

means the people from Mentana.

- To come to the ghetto was to lose your

name as well as your possessions. - Yes

And what did they do?

The Jewish people can only sell

or buy used things.

They cannot work with new stuff.

- No manufacturer

- No manufacturer. Only used things

So my family start to work with glass.

- And that was in the middle

of the 16th century? - Yes.

- And your family has been here

ever since. - Yes.

For hundreds of years,

the uneasy threat of conversion...

was hanging over the Jewish enclave.

There is a church in this neighbourhood

with a Hebrew inscription on the front...

saying, "Come, you unbelieving Jews."

And that's where the Jews were

forced to attend Catholic sermons.

It's documented that in order not

to listen to what the priest was saying...

they put wax in their ears.

So the priest was talking and talking,

but I don't know how much they listened...

or how much they believed

what they were being told

One of the cruelest stories...

was played out on this Roman bridge...

underneath statues commemorating

Helena's discovery...

of the true cross

and the holy robe.

Right on this location on what is most

probably a very cold winter morning in 1572...

a group of four women,

who were Christian,

they have been convicted by the

Inquisition of practicing Jewish rites...

were brought here and first hung

and then burned.

Many of these people underwent

forced baptisms...

or their parents or grandparents

underwent forced baptisms...

and the children continue

to practice Jewish rites...

and a group of comforters

who told them to be penitent...

and have a good Christian

death brought them here

and with some sort of crowd

looking on they were killed.

These people were called

the holy comforters?

That's right, yeah.

If you admitted you're wrong...

and you were resigned to your fate,

you can be hung first.

If not, you would just be burned alive.

In spite of this on-going persecution...

I learned that the Limentani family

had not only survived.

They had prospered.

In 1820 we opened our first store.

- Where was that?

- It was in this street.

This is your family shop over here?

Yes this is my family shop in this street.

Ah, this is my father.

Your daughter has been telling me

the story of your family.

- All the stories of the family.

- Yes.

Would you explain to me

what the passport was?

We start to work with the Pope in 1870.

When the Pope moves

to the Vatican city...

our family gave him the first set

of dishes and plates...

just to thank the Pope

for giving us the passport.

How many Popes

have you made dishes for?

Starting from 1870 till now.

Are you making plates for the new Pope?

Yes, we are expecting the order

from the new Pope.

The Limentanis received their special

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