The Pope and Mussolini (44 page)

Told of Mussolini’s new threats, Pius XI sent his nuncio to appeal to the Duce’s son-in-law. Ciano was brusque with him. If Mussolini was unhappy with the Vatican, he said, the pope had only himself to blame. He knew that his constant criticisms of Germany were upsetting the Duce, yet still he kept up his attacks.
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FEW IN ITALY WERE
aware of these tensions. The vast majority of Catholic clergymen still considered Mussolini to be the man God had sent to save the nation, a message priests regularly shared with their parishioners.

Eager to highlight this support, Mussolini decided to organize a huge gathering of bishops and priests at Palazzo Venezia. The occasion was billed as a celebration honoring the clergy who had distinguished themselves in the “battle for grain,” the campaign for agricultural self-sufficiency that he had been pushing for over a decade. Invitations, signed by a Catholic Fascist journal editor, went out in mid-December. By attending the January 9 event, these priests and bishops would offer “the most solemn honor to the Duce, Founder of the Empire, thus increasing
its Christian significance.” The archbishop of Udine, Monsignor Giuseppe Nogara, would address the Duce on their behalf.
¹⁹

Bishops flooded the Vatican secretary of state office with letters asking what to do. “It seems to me,” wrote one Tuscan bishop, “that it takes a lot of nerve for a journal editor to mobilize bishops and priests to give solemn homage to the Duce Founder of the Empire.” But “I wouldn’t want to be the only one absent.”
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Cardinal Raffaele Rossi, secretary of the Curia office responsible for issues affecting the clergy, sought advice from the secretary of state. Pacelli informed him he saw no objection to having the clergymen take part in the event. But before he received Pacelli’s reply, Cardinal Rossi forwarded yet another bishop’s question about the Fascist fête—and offered his opinion that the invitations should not be accepted.

The cardinal had put Pacelli in an awkward position, for allowing a journalist to convene Italy’s bishops was undeniably unseemly. Pacelli consulted the pope, who agreed that such an invitation “did not merit being accepted.” Yet neither the pope nor Pacelli was eager to offend the Duce.
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Confusion reigned in the secretary of state office over the next two weeks.
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Monsignor Tardini, who had replaced the newly elevated Pizzardo as undersecretary of state for extraordinary ecclesiastical affairs, engaged in a curious dance with the Italian ambassador. On December 30 he told Pignatti that he felt uncomfortable with such a massive political demonstration by the clergy, especially by the bishops. Pignatti responded that if he wanted him to take the matter up with Mussolini, he would need to set down the Vatican’s objections in writing. A few days later, meeting with Pignatti, Tardini repeated his plea. Pignatti responded the same way. But no formal request ever came. Tardini drafted the letter, but in the end the pope decided not to send it.
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On Sunday morning, January 9, 1938, two thousand priests and sixty bishops marched in solemn procession through Rome’s streets as the curious and the Fascist diehards lined their route to applaud. Preceding them were carabinieri in dress uniform, a military band, and a color guard of black-cassocked priests holding Italian flags aloft, Awaiting them at the Victor Emmanuel monument in Piazza Venezia was Achille Starace, head of the national Fascist Party. He stood alongside Rome’s party chief. Both men accompanied the bishops up the marble stairs, where they deposited their laurel wreaths at the tombs of the Unknown Soldier and the heroes of the Fascist Revolution.

Clergy at Mussolini’s celebration of the Battle for Grain, January 1938

(
photograph credit 20.4
)

The procession then re-formed for the short march into Palazzo Venezia, passing by the balcony outside Mussolini’s office, where a beaming Duce responded to their Fascist salutes. At noon, they overflowed the Royal Hall. After the enormous group recited another prayer, they cheered as the Duce made his entrance. Archbishop Nogara rose to ask God’s blessing on the man who had done so much for Christianity. A parish priest then strode to the front to recite the motion that the two thousand priests had unanimously approved: “The priests of Italy invoke and continue to invoke the Lord’s blessing on Your person, on Your work of restorer of Italy and founder of the Empire, on the Fascist Government.” He ended, “Viva il Duce!” The room shook as the assembled priests and bishops roared “Duce! Duce!”
²⁴

Italian newspapers gave prominent coverage to the event. Turin’s
La Stampa
trumpeted the clergy’s demonstration of enthusiasm for the Fascist regime: “The enemies of Fascism are also the Church’s enemies. The ideals for which Fascism fights are the ideals that Catholic civilization has exalted for centuries.” The German press contrasted the patriotic support that Italy’s priests and bishops were giving to their Fascist regime with “the bitter experience that we in Germany have had with the German clergy.”
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EVER EAGER TO DEMONSTRATE
Italy’s greatness, and having lost all sense of proportion, Mussolini had been putting in place a series of measures aimed at showing the world the nation’s Fascist zeal. These ranged from the goose-step march to the prohibition on shaking hands in greeting. The primary architect of these much-ridiculed changes was Achille Starace, head of the Fascist Party since 1931. A master of bad taste,
²⁶
with the mentality of an army drill sergeant, and devoid of either common sense or political sophistication, Starace offered Mussolini
complete devotion. For years the dutiful, uniformed Starace, gobs of brilliantine plastering his black hair to his head, walked one step behind Mussolini in practically all the Duce’s public appearances. At one point, in explaining why he put up with him, Mussolini said with a smile, “Starace is truly my pit bull.” When Starace heard this remark, he beamed.
²⁷

Mussolini speaks, with Achille Starace, PNF head (on far right)

(
photograph credit 20.5
)

Through it all, the pope continued to press Mussolini to help him with Hitler. The Duce’s interest in dampening tensions between the pope and the German dictator was clear: were the pope to denounce the Nazis and excommunicate Hitler, it would be impossible to persuade Italians to tie their fate to the Third Reich.

In March 1938 Mussolini reported to the pope on his latest efforts, taking credit for the Nazis’ recent suspension of the embarrassing show trials of the Catholic clergy. Over the previous two years, hundreds of priests and monks had been jailed, many charged with committing sex crimes against young boys. These “immorality trials” generated huge press coverage. Goebbels, in a nationwide radio speech, charged that the “sacristy has become a bordello, while the monasteries are breeding places of vile homosexuality.”
²⁸
The pope thanked Mussolini for this help but added that if normal relations were to be restored between the Vatican and the Third Reich, he would have to persuade Hitler to allow Catholic schools and Catholic Action groups to function freely again.
²⁹

Italy’s clergy had no more love for Hitler than the pope did, but their attitude toward Mussolini was very different. Their greatest worry was that, in an increasingly uncertain world, something might happen to threaten Mussolini’s rule. While strolling through St. Peter’s Square one day, Marchetti Selvaggiani, the cardinal vicar of Rome, shared this thought with Cardinal Pizzardo. “If Mussolini were to go,” he said, pointing to a nearby streetlight, “you would see me hanging from that lamppost.”
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C
HAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

HITLER IN ROME

E
ARLY IN THE MORNING OF MARCH 12, 1938, THE GERMAN ARMY
crossed into Austria. The next day a triumphant Hitler declared the country a province of the German Reich. On March 14 he arrived in Vienna to widespread rejoicing and the ringing of church bells.
¹
“Jews Humiliated by Vienna Crowds: Families Compelled to Scrub Streets,” read a
New York Times
headline. “A small State which has fought a battle against fate,” its editorial observed, “ceased yesterday to exist.” The headline in the London
Times
was more graphic: “The Rape of Austria.”
²

The next day Hitler met with Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna and leader of the Catholic Church in Austria. “Those who are entrusted with souls and the faithful,” proclaimed the cardinal, “will unconditionally support the great German State and the Führer, because the historical struggle against the criminal illusion of Bolshevism and for the security of German life, for work and bread, for the power and honor of the Reich and for the unity of the German nation, is obviously accompanied by the blessing of Providence.” Innitzer ordered his priests to read his statement in every church. A facsimile of his declaration—complete with his handwritten final words: “And Heil
Hitler!”—was plastered on the walls of Vienna and throughout Austria.
³

The Nazis scheduled a plebiscite for the following month to legitimate their rule, and Austria’s bishops joined the cardinal in issuing a statement to be read from all Austrian pulpits. “We are pleased to recognize,” they told Austria’s Catholics, “that the National Socialist movement has done and is doing excellent things in the area of national and economic reconstruction, as in the area of social policy.” They went on: “We are also convinced that, through the action of the Nazi movement, the danger of atheistic, destructive bolshevism was averted.” They urged the faithful to vote yes, joining Austria to the Third Reich.
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Hitler’s takeover of Austria struck a blow to Mussolini’s prestige, for the Duce had long championed an independent Austria under Italian influence. Nor was he, like many Italians, happy about the sudden appearance of a powerful and aggressive Germany on their northern border.
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When he had visited Germany a few months earlier, the Nazi leaders had promised him that they would not move into Austria without consulting him first.
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But the consultation had consisted of a letter from Hitler, two days before the invasion, informing him of the imminent action.
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