At the Conference "Friuli 10 anni," promoted by the Charitas organizations on March 1, 1986 in Gemona, Antonio Comelli retraced the most difficult moments of the emergency, examining the relations between the Church of Friuli and the choices of regional leadership.

He focused his attention on three episodes: the visit of Andreotti to the "Goi" barracks in Gemona on 4 September 1976, the Robi Ronza's book "Friuli from the tents of the desert?" (Milan 1976), and the Assembly of the Christians which was held in Udine on 17,18, 19 June 1977.

The problem that he wanted to raise aimed at clarifying how the political group he was leading had never been indifferent to the suffering of the people in the tents, and how the leaders of the Christian Democrats had always recognized the role played by the Church in favor of the devastated communities. Also he brought to the public attention the attacks led by unscrupulous press, through continuous and unjust defamatory news.

The first fact that Comelli recalled is the most meaningful for the symbolic value that the gesture of Bishop Alfredo Battisti still plays in the public eye, especially of Friuli.

The bishop of Udine, invited by the president of the ANA, was preparing to meet with the Honourable Andreotti at the "Goi" barracks when he was stopped by a crowd of demonstrators requesting his solidarity and the possibility to speak with the Prime Minister. Because the officers did not let the delegation in with him, Battisti refused to go in and remained with protesters at the gate.

Comelli argued that Andreotti and President of the ANA were not informed of Battisti's request and insisted: "I can tell you for sure, because I have been close to the two throughout the ceremony."

A further review of those events seems futile because by now it would be based on mere assumptions and dubious speculations. It is certain, however, that the "Catholic Life" presented the bishop's choice as a desire to be with the last ones, to share their requests. He spoke then of "missed encounter" and "missed opportunity" while not exacerbating – as other Catholics argued - the separation of the Church from the political forces, especially from the Christian Democrats.

In November 1976, in the climate of tension and fears generated by the imbalance between social demand and institutional response during the crucial stages of the emergency, Robi Ronza published "Friuli from the tents of the desert? Scene and background of a reconstruction missed". The provoking intent of the publication is already clear in the subtitle. In the "chronicle of the events,", or in other words in the first and last chapter of the book, the author listed the opportunities for conflict with the ruling class which had upset the villages of th earthquake victims from May 6 to 30 September. Delays and failures of the State, of the Region, of the mayors are punctually noted, without drawing, however, general conclusions and without putting forward coherent alternatives to the "official" choices.

The Coordination of Tent City, widely an expression of groups of extra-parliamentary left parties, became a sort of parallel municipal administration in Gemona. The idea of managing the reconstruction from the bottom and building at the same time a new form of civil coexistence came from the assumption that the catastrophe had created the conditions for rewriting the rules of communal life. The systematic mobilization of the homeless organized by the Coordination culminated in the demonstration in Trieste on 16 July. On the same day, in open dispute, a "meeting" on reconstruction was held in Udine, attended by the official left parties and the unions. The hegemony of the groups of the extreme left on the people of the tents began its decline when the "seismic compromise", that is the meeting of the Christian Democrats with the Communist Party, promoted the immediate interventions of Zamberletti and collaborated with the Region's decisions.

Comelli finally addressed the problems of his party's relations with the Church, focusing his attention on the assembly of Christians which in June 1977 examined from multiple points of view the problem of reconstruction.

The reconstruction-rebirth of Friuli – according to Battisti - imposed the local church to become the critical consciousness, the animator of all the Friuli people in an atmosphere of truth, freedom and love. Hence the need to report errors, delays, excesses, distortions, silences, omissions and abuses. Hence the impossibility of identifying with a specific political force, the obligation to accept a "real dialogue" involving everybody, with the awareness that the encounter with other people can always be an enriching experience.

Comelli recognized the Assembly as a moment of great participation and lively tension, but he thought it was not right to separate the political class from the suffering people. On the whole – according to Comelli - the (different) positions of the Church were to coincide with the official political expressions: "From the political front, to those who worked on the ecclesiastic and apostolate fronts I can say that, even if sometimes we were apparently divided, we've worked in unity of purpose in the substantial and mutual respect for our own autonomies."

Two years after the earthquake, the diocesan pastoral Council had discussed a paper on the reconstruction of the earthquake-stricken areas of Friuli (1978) in which it expressed formal recognition of the good will of all those engaged in public duties responsibilities, operating among the "immense difficulties" caused by the disaster. In fact it had denounced the centralization of powers in the hands of the Regional Council and the Regional Secretariat. According to the Pastoral Council, ousting the local authorities would cause tensions close to the breaking point between peoples and governments. To fight the "false unanimity" and the supine behaviour which would have mortified political and cultural actions of those supposed to collaborate in the reconstruction and rebirth, the Council intended to pursue its "task of courageous and often lonely work of advocacy of the poors."

Chiavola - in unison with Comelli - reacted against the "most threatening" behaviours showed by the most organized counterinformation, trying to prove how the true and proper reconstruction had already been started in May 1978 and was now going to get into full power, as relations between mayors and the Extraordinary General Secretariat had always been "positive and productive" in the wide majority of cases. What Chiavola ascribed to that "strange figure" of Father Antonio Riboldi, priest of Santa Ninfa in Belice, and to the distrust of the Carinthian Caritas towards public institutions, were the unmotivated and heavily negative opinions on the administrative structures of the region and the State. He hated and suffered the sorestant qualification especially because he felt deeply invested with the duty to serve the earthquake victims and because he had never refused the confrontation with the people.