The Pope and Mussolini (71 page)

3.
Parliament had approved the new electoral system in 1928; Milza 2000, p. 415. The procedure included a first step in which the Grand Council received one thousand nominations from “a list of people of unquestioned fascist faith” provided by various government-controlled groups; the final decision on candidates was to be made by the Grand Council, which also had the ability to add candidates not found among the nominees. De Felice (1995, p. 437) discusses the “plebiscite” terminology used by the regime.

4.
The appeal published in the Vatican daily was signed by the national executive board of Catholic Action and is quoted in Scoppola 1976, pp. 195–96. See also De Felice 1995, p. 445.

5.
On February 17 Mussolini got a surprising ultimatum in a letter from Cardinal Gasparri, sent via Francesco Pacelli: “The Holy See, while admiring and praising with great satisfaction the work accomplished by the Honorable Mussolini to the immense advantage to religion, keenly feels the desire for the upcoming political elections to have a great value, as it is said, of a plebiscite, a value of praise and support for the Duce and the Regime that he created and which is embodied in him.” The Holy See was eager for the elections to furnish “truly eloquent and solemn proof of the full consensus of Italian Catholics with the Government of the Honorable Mussolini.” Pacelli sent the letter in with a cover note, representing it as a letter from Gasparri, although offered in Pacelli’s own “faithful” transcription. ACS, CR, b. 68, Roma, 17 febbraio 1929.

6.
The Pope gave his instructions to Cardinal Gasparri, who then dictated the letter to Francesco Pacelli. It was Pacelli who conveyed it to Mussolini. ACS, CR, b. 68.

7.
The quote is from Tacchi Venturi’s account. ASV, AESI, pos. 630a, fasc. 63, ff. 88r–89v, Tacchi Venturi a Gasparri, Roma, 21 febbraio 1929. Apparently word had gotten out that the pope’s Jesuit emissary had the power to get loyal Catholics added to Mussolini’s list of candidates. His files contain letters from various people vaunting their credential of being a “good Catholic” and asking to be put on the list. Gasparri sent Tacchi Venturi other names for the list. ARSI, TV, fasc. 1037.

8.
In February 1923 the Fascist Grand Council identified Freemasonry as a threat to Fascism and declared membership incompatible with membership in the Fascist Party.
Squadristi
sacked and burned Masonic lodges throughout the country.
La Civiltà cattolica
praised the Fascist Grand Council for its action, while warning that the Jewish-Masonic plot that it had long railed against was now aimed not only at the Church but at Mussolini as well. The government should also act against Italy’s Jews, it added, charging them with exercising influence greater than their minuscule numbers justified. CC 1923 I p. 464, quoted in Sale 2007, pp. 42–43. See also Molony 1977, p. 152.

9.
Some flavor of the mobilization by the Italian Church hierarchy is offered by a circular that one central Italian bishop sent to all his parish priests. It was the “sacred duty for all Catholics, without exception,” he instructed, to cast their vote for “the providential Man,” who had worked so closely with the pope, “to give God back to Italy and Italy back to God.” The priests were to do all they could, wrote the bishop, to persuade their parishioners to go to the polls and vote. Monsignor Alberto Romita, bishop of Campobasso, quoted in Piccardi 1995, p. 50. Luigi Colombo, national president of Catholic Action, similarly issued a public call for all members of the organization to vote yes. “Un discorso del Comm. Colombo,” OR, 13 marzo 1929, p. 4.

10.
Binchy 1970, p. 199.

11.
CC 1929 II, pp. 184–85.

12.
This appears to be based on the
Confessions
of St. Augustine, chap. 11.

13.
Jacini’s account of his visit with the pope is reproduced in Fonzi 1979, pp. 676–78. For more on Jacini, see Ignesti 2004.

14.
In its brief comment on the speech,
La Civiltà cattolica
(1929 II, p. 473) quoted this passage disapprovingly.

15.
The texts of Mussolini’s addresses to both houses of parliament were printed as a book (Mussolini 1929).

16.
Following the signing, Gasparri read the text of a telegram from the pope, addressed to Victor Emmanuel III: “The first telegram that we send from the Vatican City is to tell You that the exchange of ratifications of the Lateran Accords has just been, thanks to God, completed.… It is also to offer a heartfelt, deep paternal apostolic blessing to Your Majesty, to your August Consort, to all the Royal Family, to Italy, to the World. Pius XI.” History had been made. Pius IX had excommunicated King Victor Emmanuel II; in the years since, no pope had sent a blessing—or even a letter—to an Italian king. Pacelli 1959, pp. 144–54; “Gli accordi lateranensi tra la S. Sede e l’Italia,” CC 1929 II, pp. 544–45.

17.
ACS, CR, b. 4, Roma, 1 maggio 1923, Mussolini a De Vecchi. In Mussolini’s private secretary files are copies of De Vecchi’s military records. Throughout the war, his superiors gave him their highest praise for his military spirit and skills as an artillery officer. ACS, CR, b. 4.

18.
Grandi 1985, p. 175 (25 ottobre 1922).

19.
“It isn’t true that De Vecchi is a fool,” began one such joke. “On the contrary, he was a precocious child. At age five he thought just as he did at fifty.” A decade after De Vecchi’s appointment to the Vatican post, General Enrico Caviglia, holder of Italy’s highest military rank, Marshal of Italy, and a longtime member of the Senate, put it pithily. De Vecchi, he observed, was a “conceited weirdo.” De Begnac 1990, pp. 232, 469; Bosworth 2002, pp. 182–83; Innocenti 1992, p. 154; Caviglia 2009, p. 301; Romersa 1983, p. 5.

20.
NARA, M530, reel 2, n. 2362, Rome, June 27, 1929, Henry P. Fletcher, U.S. Embassy, to secretary of state, Washington; CC 1929 III, pp. 170–72; De Vecchi 1983, pp. 136–37.

21.
De Vecchi 1998, p. 141.

22.
Quoted in Casella 2009, pp. 74–75.

23.
De Vecchi 1998, pp. 23–25.

24.
The actual Italian expression was more colorful: the pope
aveva un diavolo per capello
, literally, the pope “had a devil in his hair”; Casella 2009, p. 82.

25.
The audience was held on November 15, 1929. ASMAE, APNSS, b. 7, De Vecchi a Dino Grandi, Minstro per gli Affari Esteri, 22 novembre 1929. See also the account in De Vecchi 1983, pp. 162–64.

26.
De Vecchi 1983, p. 141. The pope had informed the cardinals of the Curia of the talks around the time they were initiated but then not again until they were virtually concluded. Showing more nerve—and less prudence—than his other colleagues, Monsignor Giuseppe Bruno, secretary of the Pontifical Commission in charge of interpreting canon law, decided to take his complaints to Pius XI himself. At a private audience, he told the pope that if he had only asked his advice in negotiating the concordat, he would have been sure to include a number of important guarantees that had gone unmentioned. The pope responded curtly, saying it had been necessary to pass over many things in order to settle the Roman question. Still upset, Bruno went to see Cardinal Sbarretti, one of the Curia’s most influential members, hoping to enlist his support. But Sbarretti knew better than to get on the wrong side of the pope and advised Bruno to let the matter go. There was nothing anyone could do. As the informant who reported all this to the police put it, “No one dares to mount any real opposition for fear of falling out of the good graces of Pope Ratti.” ASMAE, AISS, b. 2, fasc. 6, Roma, 14 luglio 1929.

27.
Police informant report cited by Coco (2009, p. 168). The term Cardinal Cerretti used is not easily translated: “il
papa si è fatto mangare da Mussolini la pappa in testa
.”

28.
ASMAE, AISS, b. 2, fasc. 6, Roma, 14 luglio 1929. On Pompili and this dispute, see Fiorentino 1999, pp. 131–33.

29.
De Vecchi 1983, p. 141.

30.
ASMAE, AISS, b. 2, fasc. 6, Roma, 10 agosto 1929. A copy is found at ACS, MI, FP “Pompili.” It identifies the informant as n. 39 and bears the note “Copy for His Excellency Grandi for the Ambassador.” ASMAE, AISS, b. 2, f. 6, Roma, 12 novembre 1929.

31.
ACS, MI, FP “Pompili,” Città del Vaticano, 19 novembre 1929. The source for this account, according to the police informant, is Monsignor Pascucci, personal secretary of Pompili.

32.
ACS, MI, FP “Pompili,” informatore n. 35, Città del Vaticano, 30 marzo 1930.

33.
Just before Pompili’s death, while the Roman clergy, who had long served under the irascible cardinal, worried about his health, the pope, according to an informant, expressed gratitude that he would soon be freed from a bad nightmare. ACS, MI, FP “Pompili,” informatore n. 40 (=Virginio Troiani di Merfa), Città del Vaticano, 25 aprile 1931. See also Fiorentino 1999, pp. 131–38.

34.
ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo,” informatore n. 40, Città del Vaticano, 9 luglio 1931.

35.
Four years later another informant reported that Pizzardo was widely known in the Vatican by the nickname “Rasputin.” ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo,” informatore n. 35, Roma, 13 agosto 1929; ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo,” informatore n. 390, Milano, 6 giugno 1933. As I’ve previously noted, these police informants’ reports need to be treated with care.

36.
ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo,” informatore n. 52 (=Filippo Tagliavacche), Roma, 21 luglio 1933; Casella 2000, pp. 176–77.

37.
O. Russell,
Annual Report 1924
, February 28, 1925, C 3342/3342/22, in Hachey 1972, p. 71, section 60. Britain at the time had only two cardinals. Pollard (2012) details the importance of U.S. funding of the Vatican in these years. For the reasons for and significance of Mundelein’s appointment as cardinal, the first in the United States outside the east coast, see Kantowicz 1983, pp. 165–66.

38.
Fogarty 1996, p. 556.

39.
ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo,” informatore n. 40, Roma 14 novembre 1929. Over the next several years, constant rumors would swirl around the Vatican that Pizzardo was about to be appointed to a nunciature abroad. Germany, the United States, and Poland were all mentioned as destinations at one time or another. See ACS, MI, FP “Pizzardo.” But each time Pizzardo pesuaded the pope to let him stay in the Vatican.

40.
Borgongini’s own description of his new job is telling: “Here one writes everything by dictation. The Holy Father dictates to the Cardinal [secretary of state]; the Cardinal to me and I dictate to my assistant.” Quoted in Guasco 2012. Father Martina (2003, p. 237) similarly describes Borgongini’s abilities as “modest” and points out that when the pope needed a more “authoritative” intermediary with Mussolini, he turned to Tacchi Venturi.

41.
FCRSE, part XIV, p. 72, Perth to Halifax, April 26, 1938, R 4359/280/22.

42.
ACS, MI, PP, b. 154, informatore n. 40, Città del Vaticano, 20 ottobre 1930. In a meeting with Monsignor Pizzardo in June 1930, De Vecchi complained that he had been in office practically a whole year, but the pope had not yet seen fit to give him any papal honorific. He recorded in his diary that he would take up the question the next day with Borgongini; see De Vecchi 1998, pp. 216–17.

43.
But Borgongini would not be put off, mentioning the pope’s further unhappiness about the recent government seizure of a number of Catholic newspapers. The argument he adopted with Mussolini was one that Tacchi Venturi had long been using with him. Indeed, it was an argument that, as the nuncio told the Duce, he had “heard many times from the Holy Father, that is, that the Church’s enemies are Fascism’s enemies, and that those who fight the Church cannot be friends of Fascism.” ASV, ANI, pos. 23, fasc. 1, ff. 8r–18r. Soon after the announcement of the Lateran Accords, senior figures in the Church warned all who would listen that various nefarious “sects” were devoted to destroying both the Roman Catholic Church and the Fascist regime. Within two weeks of the February 11 signing, for example, the bishop of Padua, Elia Dalla Costa (who two years later would be made a cardinal by Pius XI), thanked God for giving Mussolini “great intelligence and great courage.” In his sermon at Padua’s cathedral on February 24, he told his flock that Mussolini had needed all his strength “to confront the fury of the conspiracy of all the sects that are both enemies of God and enemies of Italy.” Quoted in Perin 2010, p. 152.