"We thought the church had withdrawn from interfering in Italian politics... but instead there is a terrible resurgence. These are ugly signs for freedom of expression"
About this Quote
Fo’s alarm lands with the bite of someone who knows how power really behaves: it doesn’t retire, it rebrands. The opening “We thought” isn’t nostalgia; it’s an indictment of civic complacency, the comfortable fantasy that secular modernity is a one-way ratchet. By framing the church’s role as “withdrawn,” he sketches a supposed postwar settlement in which spiritual authority stays in its lane. The punchline is that the lane never held.
The phrase “terrible resurgence” does two jobs at once. It evokes a cyclical, almost contagious return of influence, and it implies strategy: institutions don’t merely drift back into politics, they seize openings. Fo’s theater was built around puncturing sanctimony and exposing the backstage deals between pulpits and parliaments; the subtext here is that clerical “moral” interventions tend to arrive wearing the costume of public good while quietly narrowing the boundaries of permissible speech.
“Ugly signs” is deliberately unspecific, a playwright’s gesture toward atmosphere. He’s pointing less to a single law than to the chill that settles in when gatekeepers start policing language, art, and dissent. In Italy, where Catholic authority has long braided itself into cultural legitimacy and political leverage - from censorship battles to referendum wars over divorce and abortion - Fo is warning that the fight is never just about doctrine. It’s about who gets to define decency, and therefore who gets to define what can be said out loud.
Fo’s intent is preventative: name the encroachment early, before “expression” becomes something you’re allowed to have only on approved terms.
The phrase “terrible resurgence” does two jobs at once. It evokes a cyclical, almost contagious return of influence, and it implies strategy: institutions don’t merely drift back into politics, they seize openings. Fo’s theater was built around puncturing sanctimony and exposing the backstage deals between pulpits and parliaments; the subtext here is that clerical “moral” interventions tend to arrive wearing the costume of public good while quietly narrowing the boundaries of permissible speech.
“Ugly signs” is deliberately unspecific, a playwright’s gesture toward atmosphere. He’s pointing less to a single law than to the chill that settles in when gatekeepers start policing language, art, and dissent. In Italy, where Catholic authority has long braided itself into cultural legitimacy and political leverage - from censorship battles to referendum wars over divorce and abortion - Fo is warning that the fight is never just about doctrine. It’s about who gets to define decency, and therefore who gets to define what can be said out loud.
Fo’s intent is preventative: name the encroachment early, before “expression” becomes something you’re allowed to have only on approved terms.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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