The Pope and Mussolini

by David I. Kertzer

  Romania’s ambassador, in an appointment with Pius XI, made the mistake of suggesting that the pope could give the world a lesson in peaceful dispute resolution by offering to have a trusted mediator work out his differences with Mussolini. The pope snapped back: his rights were given by God and could not be compared to those of a temporal ruler. “I am ready for anything,” he said. “I will never abandon what I believe to be my mission, never, never, never!”

  Pius XI, recalled the ambassador, “became more heated, striking the table with both hands. Finally he rose and continued his protests while standing, shouting almost as loud as he could. He was panting and bursting with indignation until suddenly, probably becoming aware of the impression his excited speech was making on me, he tried to control himself, sat down again and, still panting, added, ‘But as you see, Minister, I remain calm.’ ”5

  The New York Times lead story on June 1, reporting Mussolini’s decision to close the Catholic Action youth clubs, described relations between Mussolini and the pope as at the breaking point. The fifteen thousand local clubs, with their membership of over half a million, would all be shut down by the next day.6 In protest, Pius XI forbade Italy’s churches from holding their traditional—and popular—Corpus Christi processions, scheduled for June 4.7

  Worried that the conflict was spiraling out of control, and convinced that the new secretary of state was too weak to avert disaster, a group of cardinals contacted Pietro Gasparri and proposed that he meet with Mussolini. Unhappiness in the Curia had been building since the crisis began, fueled by the cardinals’ anger that the pope did not consult them and their belief that Pacelli was in over his head. The pope, Gasparri was convinced, lacked any diplomatic sense—he thought he could treat Mussolini as he would an archbishop, “with whom a reprimand is more useful than a debate.”8 Still upset about his dismissal, Gasparri would have loved to play the role of peacemaker, but he told the cardinals he could do so only with the pope’s approval. The pope refused.9

  In April rumors spread that Pacelli was about to resign.10 In late May the Fascist daily Il Popolo di Roma reported that the pope was planning to fire him.11 In early June Cardinal Sbaretti, the secretary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, told the pope that it was the unanimous opinion of the cardinals of that office that Gasparri, not Pacelli, should spearhead negotiations with the government. Pacelli was isolated. The pro-Fascist cardinals thought him too weak to get the stubborn pope to back down; the anti-Fascists thought him too eager to protect the Vatican’s alliance with Mussolini.12

  On June 9 Cesare De Vecchi went to see Pacelli and was pleased to discover that he “was completely on our side.”13 The pope had told Pacelli not to discuss the crisis with the Italian ambassador, but Pacelli ruefully shared the pope’s instructions, and his disappointment at the pope’s lack of confidence in him, with the French ambassador to the Holy See. The ambassador marveled at how thoroughly the pope was excluding his secretary of state from handling the crisis. Pacelli, realizing he should not have said so much, begged the French diplomat not to tell anyone.14

  Seizing on the divisions in the Vatican, Dino Grandi, Italy’s foreign minister, urged Mussolini to increase the pressure. He recommended recalling the Italian ambassador and threatening to abandon the concordat. “I am convinced,” he wrote, “that if we focus only on the pope, declaring ourselves at the same time to be the most fervent supporters of the Church and of Religion, and at the same time showing the pope to be failing in his duties as head of the Catholic religion, we will truly be able to put the Holy See in serious difficulty.”15

  Later that month Giuseppe Talamo, chargé d’affaires and De Vecchi’s number two, met with Pacelli at his Vatican office. “Combining unctuousness and embarrassment,” as Talamo described it, the secretary of state told him the pope was preparing a statement on the conflict. Pacelli added that he hoped it would not make the situation any worse.16

  In fact, the pope had decided to escalate his assault and was preparing a lengthy encyclical aimed directly at the Duce. Worried that Fascist censors would prevent its distribution, he gave copies to the American prelate, Francis Spellman, to smuggle across the French border. The encyclical, Non abbiamo bisogno (“We Have No Need”), appeared in foreign newspapers before being published in L’Osservatore romano in early July.17

  In the encyclical the pope denied that Italy’s Catholic Action was involved in anti-Fascist activities, and he rejected the claim that the Church’s only proper role in educating young people was to provide religious instruction. “For a Catholic, it is not in keeping with Catholic doctrine to pretend that the Church, the Pope, should limit themselves to the external practices of religion (Mass and Sacraments) and that the rest of education belongs totally to the State.”

  But even as he lashed out, the pope was careful to distinguish between good Fascism—that which recognized the Church’s rights and followed its precepts—and bad Fascism, which did not. By protesting the harm that was being done to the Church in Italy, the pope argued, “We believe that we have at the same time done good work for the [Fascist] party itself and for the regime.”18 While condemning those who would turn Fascism into pagan worship of the state, he concluded with conciliatory words: “In everything that We have said up to the present, We have not said that We wished to condemn the party and the regime as such. Our aim has been to point out and to condemn all those things in the program and in the activities of the party which have been found to be contrary to Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice.”19

  The pope had other levers to use in pressuring Mussolini. A grand ceremony inaugurating Milan’s new train station was scheduled for July 1, to feature the king himself. Because of the dispute, Milan’s archbishop let it be known he would not attend. The king, rather than face the embarrassment of standing alongside a lower-ranking clergyman, bowed out. For years, no major Fascist ceremony had taken place without a high prelate there to bless it.20

  Surprisingly, rather than trigger a worsening of the conflict, the encyclical marked the beginning of its end. With the encyclical, the pope gave voice to his anger. Now, it seems, he was ready to get all the unpleasantness behind him. Perhaps his advisers had finally persuaded him of the need to make peace with Mussolini, or perhaps they had simply worn him down. Too much was at stake to let the conflict continue.21

  At a mid-July ceremony, the pope prayed for a miracle to “help the blind see.”22 He asked Tacchi Venturi to help them out of the impasse. Mussolini let the Jesuit envoy know that he too was eager to end the conflict.23 Tacchi Venturi rushed to report these encouraging words to the Vatican. “If I am not mistaken,” he wrote to Pacelli, “the Holy Father’s prayer of last Sunday is beginning to be answered. Let the Lord kindle his holy light so that the blind can see!”24

  The pope relied on his Jesuit emissary to work out a deal with the dictator. On July 25 he spelled out his two conditions for settling the dispute.25 First, he wanted Mussolini to acknowledge that the Church had a role to play in educating children and that it had the right to organize Catholic Action groups within “its proper religious and supernatural ends.” When, later that day, the Jesuit met with the Duce, he said he would have no trouble agreeing to this request. It was the pope’s second condition that posed the problem. Pius XI wanted Mussolini not only to reopen the Catholic Action youth groups but to acknowledge that his order shutting them down had been illegal. On this point, the Duce would not budge. To demand an apology, he said, was to seek to humiliate him.

  Convinced that the crisis would not end unless the pope backed down, Tacchi Venturi went to Gasparri to enlist his help. The two had never been close, but they now had a common mission.

  Following the meeting, Gasparri sent a letter to Pacelli. “I write with an extremely worried soul,” he told him, underlining his words for emphasis. What Mussolini had already conceded to the pope, Gasparri argued, was “enormous.” It was stupefying that over a matter of “procedure”—namely, requiring an apology from
the Duce—the pope “would go to a condemnation of Fascism, and with it a renunciation of the concordat.” It was up to Pacelli, as secretary of state, to get the pope to change his mind.26

  “According to the rumors that have been racing around for many weeks,” reported the French chargé d’affaires to the Vatican, “Cardinal Pacelli himself is being kept at a distance from the preparatory work for the resumption of talks with Italy.… It is the pope and the pope alone who continues to impose his will and he does not take advice from anyone.”27

  In the end, it was the pope who backed down. In mid-August, after running back and forth several times between the pope and Mussolini, Tacchi Venturi drafted their agreement, which they signed on September 2.28 It specified that Catholic Action was to be organized on a diocesan basis, under the authority of the local bishop. No one known to have been critical of the regime could be chosen for a leadership position, and Catholic Action would confine its activities entirely to the religious sphere.29

  The pope had bowed to the pressure. He had issued a dramatic encyclical, hoping to rally Italy’s Catholics. But the Catholic faithful, having for years heard everyone from the pope to their parish priest praise Mussolini as heaven-sent, were disoriented by the dispute and wanted it settled. The pope found himself alone, and now he drew back.30

  Not all of Italy’s priests and bishops were delighted by the agreement. From exile in London, Popular Party founder Don Luigi Sturzo observed that while he was not surprised that the pope wanted to preserve his alliance with the regime, it was sad to see him agree to a deal that represented a complete victory for Mussolini. Another former Popular Party leader, also in exile, was more cutting: “The pope gave in, he retreated, he was frightened. He bowed down before the altar of the Fascist Moloch.… This is what they are saying in Italy and abroad after the conclusion of the ill-omened agreement of September 2.”31

  Some of the cardinals likewise grumbled at the further limits put on the Church. They thought, according to the French chargé d’affaires, “that it was Cardinal Pacelli’s desire for appeasement that prevailed in the course of negotiations.” The French diplomat speculated that the pope was getting old and, having spent his initial anger, he had been worn down by Pacelli and others around him.32 There was certainly much truth to this view, although Tacchi Venturi, rather than Pacelli, seems to have played the more influential role.

  Foreign ambassadors to the Holy See expressed surprise that the principled and stubborn pope had capitulated so abruptly. It had been barely two months since his encyclical had denounced the Fascist regime’s claim to have a monopoly on the education of youth and warned about the worship of the state. The agreement said nothing about any of this; nor did it contain what the pope had long demanded from Mussolini, an apology for the violence against the Catholic organizations and the insults aimed at him.33

  THE DAY AFTER MUSSOLINI and Tacchi Venturi signed the final agreement, Pius XI called in his nuncio and apologized for having excluded him from the negotiations. He instructed Borgongini to make an appointment to see the Duce. It was time to restore relations to their proper channels.

  “How are you?” a smiling Mussolini greeted him a few days later. “After the storm comes the calm.”

  “That’s why I’ve come,” replied the nuncio. “I thought that, with calm restored, it was a good idea to reestablish contact with Your Excellency.”

  “You will see,” said the dictator, pressing his point, “a long period of calm will begin now.”

  “God be praised!”

  “Come and we’ll take care of everything.” The Duce pointed to a series of notes that Tacchi Venturi had sent him with the familiar list of papal requests. There were books to ban and Protestant proselytizing to stamp out. “I will issue orders immediately to have everything you want done.”

  The nuncio had one other request: although the Duce had been government head for almost a decade, he had never come to see the pope. “The pope,” said Borgongini, “told me to let you know that you will be the most welcome among the welcome.” Ever since the signing of the Lateran Accords, the pope had expected the Duce to visit, but the dictator had dragged his feet, finding one excuse after another for the delay—he would never be comfortable in the Vatican, surrounded by priests, and even less comfortable in a setting of such splendor that he would look insignificant in comparison. But after his latest victory, he felt more secure, less likely to be seen to be prostrating himself before the pontiff. Now that the crisis had passed, great things, he was convinced, lay ahead.34

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  MUSSOLINI IS ALWAYS RIGHT

  WITH THE RESOLUTION OF THE CATHOLIC ACTION CRISIS, THE links binding the Church to the Fascist regime became ever stronger, the collaboration deep and wide-ranging. Mussolini, now enjoying the enthusiastic support of Italy’s Catholic clergy, was acquiring an image of almost godlike proportions.

  Many historians have identified the pope’s 1931 battle with the Duce over Catholic Action as a papal struggle against Fascism. But a look at what the organization actually did during the 1930s shows just how mistaken they are. The pope, far from seeing the Fascist regime as an obstacle in his efforts to use Catholic Action to Christianize Italian society, viewed it as an indispensable ally. Without close working relations between Catholic Action and Fascist authorities, the organization could not succeed. Its lay national head, Augusto Ciriaci, was an ardent admirer of the Duce; he was, De Vecchi told Mussolini, “not far from acting as my man and therefore also Yours” in the Vatican.1

  Pius XI viewed Catholic Action’s members as soldiers in his “battle for morality.” In each diocese, a Catholic Action “Secretariat for Morality” was established to identify and report any sign of immoral activity. It put out lists of plays and films to be boycotted, and members badgered the police to shut them down. Catholic Action members were told to scour their villages and towns to identify anything the Church found offensive and report it to the authorities.2

  Among the signs of moral decline that most upset the pope were reports of immodestly dressed women. Since 1926 Tacchi Venturi had been in constant contact with the regime’s highest police authorities in an effort to get them to crack down on the bare legs, bare backs, and partially uncovered bosoms of Italian women.3 In June of that year, in reaction to this pressure, the minister of internal affairs ordered prefects to clamp down on scantily clad bathers. The minister also ordered that dancing while wearing a bathing suit—a particular irritant to the pope—be banned.4

  So great was the pope’s interest in prohibiting the public exposure of women’s bodies that even in the intense final days leading to the Lateran Accords, when he heard that barely dressed dancers were to be seen in Rome, he dispatched Tacchi Venturi to get the Duce to do something about it.

  Eight days before the historic signing, they met. Tacchi Venturi began by letting Mussolini know how pleased the pope was that he had banned burlesque performances in Rome. But what had been chased out the front door was coming back in through the window. Cinema owners had discovered they could attract more patrons by having dancing girls perform during intermissions. These young women, the Jesuit told Mussolini, were “dressed as their mother Eve was before the fall, save for a thin strip or sash across their private parts, more an incentive than an impediment to the impure yearnings of concupiscence.” He looked forward to the day when he could give the pope the happy news that the government had ordered a stop to the appalling spectacle.5

  Among the public displays of female flesh to which the pope objected was a particular bugaboo, the participation of girls in gymnastics competitions. In 1928, when he learned that the Fascist Party planned to hold such an event in Rome, both the Vatican daily and La Civiltà cattolica published his letter denouncing it. Not even in pagan Rome, he complained, had such a travesty of female delicacy been seen.6

  In early 1930, in response to such pressure, the president of the national Fascist youth organization released
new guidelines governing girls’ physical education. The groups were to aim not at developing girls’ athletic skills but rather at ensuring that “the future mothers learned the necessity of seeing to the physical education of their children.” La Civiltà cattolica praised the instruction as an example of how effectively the Fascist government was collaborating with the Vatican to improve the nation’s spiritual welfare.7

  But the pope remained vigilant, and the following year was disturbed to learn of plans for an international girls’ gymnastics competition in Venice. This time he sent Borgongini to persuade Mussolini to stop it.

  Mussolini was unsympathetic, explaining that international athletic groups, not the government, organized such events. In an attempt to show that he personally had little use for girls’ athletic competitions (or perhaps because he always enjoyed seeing the prim nuncio squirm), the dictator added: “Women are good for two things: to have children and to be beaten.” Egged on by Borgongini’s discomfort, he warmed to his subject. “Women are like fur coats,” he explained, “every once in a while you need to knock the dust off them.”8

  Similar pleas from local Catholic Action groups to local government officials often met an unsympathetic response as well. In such cases, frustrated bishops turned to the Vatican for help.

  A letter the pope received in August 1932 was unusual only in being accompanied by a number of blurry snapshots. The bishop wrote to denounce the flaunting of women’s flesh on the island of Capri. Many women could be seen there “with their backs practically entirely uncovered, often with their breasts poorly covered, and sometimes wearing a bathing top made of transparent fabric.” Most of the good people of the island, he added, were nauseated by the spectacle, which he blamed on outsiders. He urged the Vatican to get the police to act. The four photographs he enclosed, all taken from behind, showed the naked backs of women wearing stylish evening gowns.9