Italy is deeply in mourning this week for the 294 people who perished in Monday morning’s 6.3 earthquake. And usually, after a national disaster, citizens criticize the government for a slow and inadequate response (see Hurricane Katrina). This time, something different has happened: Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, long ridiculed by the press and Italian opposition parties for being a rich businessmen playing in politics, has gained a new respect. Just a few days before the earthquake, the Italian press had blasted him for once again embarrassing Italy with his clowning behavior — at the G20 meeting in London, he called out “Mister Obama!” to the U.S. president after a photo op and received a disdainful look from the queen. The next day, he defied protocol by keeping German Chancellor Angela Merkel waiting to greet him on the red carpet, while he held a cell-phone conversation with the Turkish prime minister. This week, Italians seem relieved to have a businessman, no matter how showy, at the helm. After his “freshman antics” at the G-20 summit, read an editorial in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, “the prime minister has shown that inside the theater impresario is a businessman, capable of organizing and managing.” Another daily, Libero, headlined that the premier is at the peak of his popularity, and that the efficient response to the disaster has silenced the opposition. It is an unprecedented show of solidarity for the prime minister in a country with strongly felt and loudly voiced political opposition. This is partially explained by the left-wing parties’ refusal to criticize in a time of national tragedy. But it is mostly the result of the impeccably swift response of local and national emergency services in a country used to bureaucratic inefficiency, and of the immediate and constant presence of the prime minister at the scene of the tragedy. Berlusconi was on the ground in Abruzzo only hours after the earthquake hit, and visited the site every day last week. He participated in Easter Mass with thousands of homeless in makeshift tent camps, and he chose to spend part of Friday’s funeral Mass in the back with survivors, rather than in the front row with other political dignitaries. Even his jokes did not raise Italian ire this time. Only the foreign press questioned the suitability of telling the earthquake victims to pretend they were camping and to put on sunscreen and go to the beach; Italians saw the comments as a way of lightening the burden of the tragedy. The prime minister’s gaffes are legendary, and a sore point for some Italians who feel he diminishes their image abroad. No international summit goes by that Berlusconi does not make his presence felt with an out-of-place remark that hits the headlines. In 2003 at the European Parliament, Berlusconi told a German MP he could play a Nazi concentration-camp guard in a movie. He called Danish prime minister Rasmussen (newly elected NATO secretary general) the most handsome prime minister in Europe, and said he’d like to introduce the foreign leader to his wife. Famously, Berlusconi called President Obama, just after the American election, “young, handsome, and also tanned.” Under normal circumstances, Italians are scandalized by such comments and deride their leader, and no doubt they will go back to criticizing their showman prime minister. They should — gaffes aside, there are legitimate concerns about a head of government who owns the top three private TV stations in the country and runs the top three public ones. And no doubt, Berlusconi will continue to play the court jester at solemn international summits. But for the first time in Berlusconi’s political career, Italians of all political stripes seem willing to forgive his peculiar way with words; in the present crisis, they are grateful to have a man of action. – Delia Gallagher is a Vatican journalist based in Rome. She is the former CNN faith and values correspondent.