Carla, my beautiful Italian wife and the mother of our six young children, is what I call a Catholic fundamentalist. She believes abortion is murder and goes to Mass several times a week. But unlike more mainstream conservative Catholics, she will not hear a word said against Pope Francis. I met her 20 years ago in Predappio, in the foothills of the Tosco-Romagnolo Apennines, where I had gone to write a biography of Mussolini who was born and is buried there. I lived in a small and isolated rented house, 14 hairpin bends above the little town. Next to the dictator’s former castle and a tiny church was a raucous bar where people came to dance and sing karaoke late into the night. I became pretty good actually at “Light My Fire” by the Doors. Everyone called me Inglese. Sergio, a local cowherd, could never resist making slicing motions across his throat at me with his right index finger with a big grin on his face every time he caught my eye through the crowd from his usual position leaning against a wall. “You risk death, Inglese,” he used to tell me, “You want death.” The first I knew that Carla was interested in me was one summer night towards dawn when she came crashing through the open kitchen window of my little house where I had returned from the bar alone as usual. It was only later that she discovered her faith. I am convinced I am to blame: it was the only way she knew to cope with me. Is this something I should be proud of?