As Easter Nears, a Robust Pope Relieves Italy’s Malaise : Symbol: John Paul embodies solidity and morality in observances of Christ’s last days. The nation, reeling from scandal, is thirsty for both.

Spring is smiling on a crowded Rome dressed for Easter, but the national mood is somber and uncertain. Tourists and pilgrims throng piazzas of the Eternal City while prominent businessmen and politicians file in and out of jail. Italy has known better Good Fridays.

The good news is Pope John Paul II. With Italy reeling from scandal and demands for sweeping political change, the 72-year-old pontiff once again dominates the rites of Roman Easter, a reliable symbol of solidity and morality in a country thirsty for both.

As if his major surgery last summer had never happened, the Pope embarked on his annual Easter duties looking hale and sounding full-throated.

On Thursday, he washed the feet of 12 priests, a reminder to Christians of Christ’s humility toward his apostles before the Last Supper. On Friday, he walked around the Colosseum to say the 14 Stations of the Cross in remembrance of Christ’s cross-bearing walk to Calvary and Crucifixion.

In St. Peter’s Square on Easter morning, as his church celebrates the Resurrection, John Paul will deliver the annual papal message and blessing “to the city and the world.”

Italy certainly can use the prayers.

Two former Cabinet ministers are among the most recent victims of the 14-month investigation of political corruption that has tainted around 2,500 members of Italy’s political and business elite.

Increasingly, investigations that began in Milan and now are under way in almost all big cities are linking the political corruption to organized crime.

A thick magistrates’ report to Parliament this week accuses former Interior (Police) Minister Antonio Gava of links with the Camorra, the Naples branch of the Mafia. A similar accusation hangs over ex-Budget Minister Paolo Cirino Pomicino and three other politicians.

All have been fingered by Camorra turncoat Pasquale Galasso, one of the more than 300 mob members who have turned state’s evidence in recent months. Their avalanche of accusations has gravely wounded the Mafia.

In Milan on Friday, judges asked Parliament to allow investigations of 10 legislators on corruption charges, including, once again, former Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader Bettino Craxi and former Christian Democratic administrator Sen. Severino Citaristi.

Arnaldo Forlani, the former leader of the Christian Democrats, who have dominated all Italian governments since World War II, was accused this week of accepting bribes in a highway scandal. Parliament will decide next week whether to lift immunity against Christian Democrat Senator-for-life Giulio Andreotti, a seven-time former prime minister, who is accused of links to the Mafia.

The Socialists bore the brunt of the early investigations, but by now the heat on the Christian Democrats is so intense that there is talk of changing the party’s name as part of a sweeping renewal effort.

Giorgio Garuzzo, chief operating officer of Fiat, Italy’s largest private company, will spend Easter as a free man only because he is abroad. Accused of bribery in a bus contract, Garuzzo has told magistrates in Milan that he will surrender next week when he returns.

The investigations have demonstrated a systemic pattern of payoffs, kickbacks and bribes in which both private and state companies were required to illegally fund political parties in exchange for public contracts. Billions of dollars were involved, and millions of them vanished into private pockets along the way, magistrates charge.

On Friday, the Italian ambassador to Argentina was jailed in Rome as the target of an investigation into scandals involving Italy’s aid projects for Third World countries. The head of the foreign aid section of the Foreign Ministry until 1990 is also in jail, and new accusations were brought Friday against former Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis.

Popular revulsion at the seemingly bottomless scandal directed by arrogant, power-mongering political parties is expected to bring victory for reformers sponsoring a national referendum April 18 on electoral reform and revision of the state’s role in party financing.