Mussolini and the Pope, Fascist Italy

Today we will learn and reflect on Italy and the dance between the
dictator Mussolini and his fascist regime, and Pope Pious XI and Pope
Pius XII and the Catholic Church. Although Mussolini’s regime was a
brutal regime, guilty of murdering its political opponents in broad
daylight mafia-style, the Pope embraced Mussolini and his fascists as
friends of the church. For many years the Catholic Church prospered
under Mussolini, the Church signed a Concordat, the Lateran Treaty, in
1927, settling the disputes between the Catholic Church and Italy,
creating the Vatican City, and the Catholic Church was welcome in the
schools and public life of Italy. But the Concordat the Pope signed with
Hitler did not go so well, and in 1938, falling under the spell of Hitler,
Mussolini started persecuting the Jews of Italy.

So, the Pope and the Catholic Church learned the hard way that
you the Church might be friends with dictators in the short run,
but in the long run the Church is safer living under a democracy,
even sometimes when democracies do not pass laws that meet
the moral approval of the Church.
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the main source used for
this video, David Kertzer’s book on The Pope and Mussolini, and
my blogs that also cover this topic. Please, we welcome
interesting questions in the comments. Let us learn and reflect
together!

YouTube Video:
Christians Resisting in Fascist Vichy France
https://youtu.be/LvNynEdZFuM
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Although all fascist regimes were all far-right wing, conservative,
nationalistic, totalitarian regimes, fascism is expressed differently
depending on the country. In Fascist Italy, Vichy France, and Spain,
the fascist regime actively supported the Catholic Church, where the
more extreme Nazi Fascism in Germany actively persecuted both
Catholics and Protestants after a very brief honeymoon. If you want
to distinguish mainline Fascists from the more brutal Nazis, you can
say that Nazis were virulently anti-Semitic and racist first, and
totalitarian nationalists second, while Fascists were totalitarian
nationalists first, and racists when they were under Hitler’s thumb.
Franco discreetly offered refuge to the Jews who made it to Spain.

The Catholics of Italy were more fortunate than the Christians of Germany
during the dark days of Fascism and Nazism. Although Mussolini’s
totalitarian regime was brutal, and although Mussolini was not a practicing
Catholic himself, he did cooperate with the Pope and the Catholic
Church. Mussolini did not enact Nazi style anti-Semitic race laws until he
fell under the spell of Hitler after 1938. Until then, the Catholics in the
pews were not morally forced to choose between obeying the church and
the state.

Mussolini’s regime was the first to label itself as fascist,
borrowing from the symbolism of the ancient Roman Empire. In
Italian fascio means a bundle of sticks. Individual sticks are
easily breakable, but when you bind up a bundle in a regime,
together they cannot break, symbolizing the strength of a
totalitarian state. We mostly remember the Hitler who
conquered much of Europe, most people do not realize that
originally Hitler was inspired in his rise to power by Mussolini’s
example, and that Mussolini had been the Duce in Italy for over
a decade when, inspired by the Duce’s example, Hitler became
the Fuhrer in Germany. Although Italy, like all of Europe, had
antisemitism embedded into its culture, early fascists were not
virulently anti-Semites, and some early fascists were Jews.

Before we talk about how Mussolini rose to power, we first need to
review the backstory.
BEFORE MUSSOLINI, NAPOLEON AND ITALIAN REUNIFICATION
The French Revolution had earlier sowed the seeds of liberty, equality,
and fraternity, and unlike the American Revolution, the French
Revolution combined their revolutionary fervor with anti-clerical
sentiments, seizing all church properties and requiring priests to swear
allegiance to the revolutionary regime. Many priests refused, and they
were either executed or exiled, and this persecution helped fuel civil
wars, which combined with the general wars against the monarchies of
Europe.

Storming the Bastille,
1789, anonymous
painter
This event truly
sparked the start of
the French Revolution

The Battle of Valmy,
September 20th, 1792, by
Horace Vernet, painted 1826.
This was the first military
victory of the French
Revolutionary armies.

The French eventually won these wars, the French armies recruited
widely and fielded passionate citizen armies that overwhelmed the
mostly mercenary armies of the monarchs. Also, the French army
promoted from within talented generals based on merit rather than
birth. Their most talented general, Napoleon, in time staged a coup and
became Emperor of France, conquering all Europe, spreading
revolutionary ideas as they conquered.

The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of
Napoleon's many victories, where the French Empire defeated the Third Coalition.
The Battle of Austerlitz, François Gérard, painted 1810

Many doubted whether the papacy and Catholicism could survive these troubled
times. Napoleon was a revolutionary, Napoleon was no Catholic. But Napoleon
was far more interested in being Emperor of Europe, he saw the conflict with the
Church as a distraction, many conservative peasants would die rather than
renounce their Catholicism. So, Napoleon dictated the terms of the Concordat of
1801 with Pope Pius VII, which would presage the Concordat Mussolini would sign
with Pope Pius XI in the Lateran Treaty of 1927. In both Concordats the Catholic
Church negotiated from a position of weakness. Napoleon recognized that
Catholicism was the religion of most French but preserved the religious freedoms
of Protestants. As was the practice already, Napoleon could nominate bishops,
but the Pope could depose them. Most importantly, the church gave up all claims
to lands confiscated after 1790, and the state paid the salaries of the
clergymen. Napoleon restored Sunday as a day of rest and restored the church
calendar, but the state still kept the church on a short leash in many ways.

Allegory of the Concordat of 1801 with Napoleon
Pope Pius VII is arrested by Napoleon.

In the coronation of Charlemagne,
the pope crowned the emperor, in
the coronation of Napoleon,
Napoleon seized the crown from
the pope and crowned himself.
Coronation of Napoleon, Jacques-Louis David and Georges Rouget, painted 1807

Like Hitler later, Napoleon was undone by his invasion of Russia, failing to
appreciate neither the sheer vastness of the Russian steppes nor the
brutal cold of the Russian Winter. Both lost the bulk of their vast armies in
Russia, both sacrificed the momentum of war to their enemies until they
were utterly defeated.

The retreat of Napoleon from Russia, November 1812, Victor Adam, painted 1800'

After Napoleon was defeated, the conservative diplomat Metternich tried
to put the revolutionary genies back in their bottles, restoring monarchies
across Europe, but the revolutionary ideas kept percolating, resulting in
several insurrections in Italy. The Italian revolutionaries dreamed of a
united independent Italy, the Revolutions that spread across all of Europe
and Italy in 1848. There were a series of three Italian wars of independence
that eventually coalesced around the armies of King Emmanuel II of
Sardinia, battling the Austrian armies, the papal armies, and the armies of
other city-states of Italy, and France and Prussia also influenced
events. Rome was the last papal state to fall, but the Popes did not readily
acquiesce in the loss of their Papal States that had helped protect
(somewhat) and provide a tax base for the papacy for over a
millennium. The Pope refused to cooperate with the new unified Italian
government, forbid Italian Catholics from serving in the government, and
Popes would pose as prisoners of the Vatican for the next fifty years,
complaining continuously.

First meeting
between
Garibaldi and
Mazzini, who
led Italian
Unification
effort
Five Days in
Milan,
Revolutoins
of 1848,
Baldassare
Verazzi

Proclamation
of the
Kingdom of
Italy and the
first Italian
Parliament,
Induno,
painted 1861

The army of the Papal States, headed by the Pope, prevented the capture
of Rome by the Italian unification forces led by Garibaldi. But in 1870,
during the Franco-Prussian War, France had to withdraw its troops, and
Rome was captured, one of the last steps in the unification of Italy.
Mussolini came to power about fifty years later, and in many ways the
Italian Fascist movement can be considered historically as a continuation of
the Italian Unification struggle, as Mussolini sought to boost the pride of
the new Italian nation, seeing himself at the head of a new Roman Empire.
Alas, the peasant Italian armies of Mussolini’s day would prove that they
were not equal to the fearsome Roman armies of antiquity.

Capture of Rome, Battaglia Museum
Detail of fresco depicting Major Pagliari, shot by the Papal
army, on September 20, 1870, while leading assault on Rome

MUSSOLINI RISES TO POWER
Like Napoleon, Mussolini was no Catholic. Although his mother was a devout
Catholic, his father was a socialist revolutionary. Taking after his father, Mussolini
was a dedicated atheist, and was quite the bully and womanizer. His mother sent
him to a Catholic boarding school, he was expelled when he stabbed a
classmate. But he calmed down somewhat, graduating from secondary school. He
was fired from his first job as a teacher when he had an affair with a married
woman.

This would be the first of countless and often simultaneous affairs. Later
when he ascended to power Mussolini would have many mistresses, and
a main mistress who would recruit other mistresses. Many wondered
how he had time to govern while he was dallying with so many
mistresses. It is doubtful that Mussolini ever confessed his sins to a priest
in the Catholic sacrament of Confession.
Mussolini had a steely glare that look straight through you, as a speaker
he was mesmerizing. Early in his twenties he became the editor of an
influential Socialist newspaper. He initially supported his party’s
opposition to World War I, but he became convinced that Italy should
enter the war on the side of the Allies. He served in the trenches like
Hitler, and like Hitler, he found himself recovering in a hospital when the
war ended.

After the war Mussolini was disenchanted with socialism. He started his own fascist
newspaper with funding from industrialists who hoped to eventually profit from this
connection. His attacks on war profiteers, defeatists, incompetent generals, and
corrupt politicians helped fire up his base. In these early days Mussolini attacked
the church, calling for the seizure of church property and ending state subsidies of
the church.
Politics were violent in these interwar years. Fascism appealed to the nationalism of
disenchanted young veterans who would band together into marauding fascist
gangs that terrorized their opponents. Mussolini’s fascist bully gangs ran amuck
attacking socialists all across the country. In the violence of the 1921 election
hundreds were killed, hundreds were injured, priests were also beaten, but after the
votes were counted the new Fascist party and the conservatives together won a
majority, defeating the Socialists, Communists, and the Catholic Popular Party.

Factories
manned
by the
Red
Guards in
1920

Fascists were the enemy of the godless communists. All Europe were
fearful that Lenin’s Communist Party would succeed in igniting violent
revolutions in Europe. Many Europeans thought that since the fascists
were the avowed enemies of godless communism that they might shield
the Churches from communism, so fascist were seen at least as the least
worst choice. Although the Italian Fascists did form a close alliance with
the Catholic Church, the German fascists harassed and persecuted both
the Catholic and Lutheran Churches.
Later the Spanish Civil War, fought from 1936 to 1939, degenerated into a
brutal and bloody war between the Republican Communists and the
Nationalist Fascists under General Franco. This was also a proxy war
between Russian on one side and Fascist Germany and Italy on the other
side, the Allies were more neutral in the conflict. Although both sides were
guilty of massacres, the communists brutally murdered thousands of
priests, monks, and nuns.

Lenin speaking, Bolshevik Revolution, 1930

MUSSOLINI EMBRACES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WHILE GRASPING FOR
POWER
Mussolini surprised everyone in his first speech in Parliament, he did not
consult with anyone in the Vatican before his speech. Fascism, Mussolini
proclaimed, would restore a Christian society in Italy. Fascism would build
a Catholic state befitting a Catholic nation. Mussolini wanted the Vatican to
see his Fascist Party as their true protectors, the Catholic Popular Party
needed to be swept away to isolate the Socialists. The Pope decided to
slowly swing his support to Mussolini, who appeared to be on the winning
side in Italian politics.

The Fascist gangs stepped up their attacks on Catholic priests, Catholic
Popular Party members, and socialists. The socialists called a national strike
demanding that the government put an end to the violence. The Fascists
struck harder, burning down union halls, bullying strikers back to
work. Mussolini gathered together the heads of the fascist militia, they
planned insurrections across the country. A band of 26,000 fascist thugs
descended on Rome with old army rifles and bludgeons. The prime
minister declared a state of emergency to order the army to face down the
fascists, but the king surprised him by refusing to sign the order.
Italy was a constitutional monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III,
grandson to King Victor Emmanuel II. Like the Pope, the King was tiring of
the instability the Fascist gangs were causing, and he likely felt that it would
be easier to co-opt them than to defeat them. Humiliated, the Prime
Minister resigned, and the King invited Mussolini to form a government as
the new Prime Minister.

Blackshirts
with Benito
Mussolini
during the
March on
Rome, 28
October
1922.

Mussolini surprised everyone by promising to bolster Catholicism in Italy. Mussolini
was eager to show his new ally the Pope how he could make the Catholic Church
great again. Unlike Hitler, Mussolini was a more faithful ally to the church, only
starting to turn on the church when he fell deeper under Hitler’s spell when the
storm-troopers started marching across Europe. In Italy, crucifixes were hung
everywhere, the Church privileges would be restored, clerical salaries were raised,
the state paid for more church repairs, Catholic chaplains would serve the military, it
was now against the law to insult a priest or Catholicism. To the delight of the
Vatican, Catholicism would be taught in all elementary schools. He even remarried
his wife in the Catholic Church and baptized their children!
But occasionally his Fascist thugs would bully and beat up the occasional
priest. Although Mussolini would never totally suppress his thugs, he would never
stage an Italian version of Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives where Nazi thugs
murdered many in opposition. Better to have the occasional thuggery so Mussolini
could continually demonstrate to the Pope that he was the only leader who could
control them.

Roman
Catholic
procession
in Corso
Vittorio
Emanuele II,
Rome, 1931

Mussolini with his wife Rachele, and his children
Edda, Bruno and Vittorio
Mussolini with his daughter Edda

Why did the Pope betray the Catholic Popular Party to swing his support to
Mussolini? Like all popes of his era, Pope Pius XI distrusted democracy,
equating it with socialism, atheism, and communism. Lenin had declared
war on the capitalist west and his minions had murdered hundreds of
priests, and this would soon be repeated in the upcoming Spanish Civil
War. Mussolini and the Pope were natural allies against the socialists and
communists. Neither believed in freedom of speech or freedom of
association. When Mussolini declared himself the head of the secular
totalitarian state, the Pope would respond that was the head of the clerical
totalitarian state.

Mussolini was featured on the cover of Time magazine several times in the 1920’s.

In Germany an obscure former army corporal named Adolph Hitler,
inspired by this march on Rome by Mussolini, adopting the fascist straight-
armed salute, tried his own Beer Hall Putsch, but this rebellion was
suppressed. Hitler was successfully prosecuted, though he was allowed
the publicity of a fiery courtroom speech. In jail Hitler would write Mein
Kampf, the Nazi bible.

Munich Marienplatz during
the failed Beer Hall Putsch
by Hitler’s Nazi Party

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS
Mussolini would soon face the first serious challenge as Prime Minister of
Italy. A very brave socialist delegate named Giacomo Matteotti strode to
the podium on the third day of Parliament while being threatened by the
Fascist thugs also elected to Parliament. There he bravely announced that
the recent election, marred by violence, should be annulled.

Benito Mussolini in
the new session of
Parliament, 1928

Benito Mussolini in
the new session of
Parliament, 1928
Mussolini was
furious. He turned to
Cesare Rossi, his press
secretary and head of
a secret squad of
thugs, and muttered,
“That man shouldn’t
be allowed to remain
in circulation.”

There was no direct order, but we know how mafia gangs work, the boss
complains and everyone knows what to do. The next day three thugs, one
with brass knuckles, abducted Matteotti in broad daylight in downtown
Rome, drove with the horn constantly blaring, drowning out the screams of
Matteotti while they brutally beat him to death. After his wife calls the
police they find the corpse in a shallow grave.
Italy was not yet a totalitarian police state. Many witnesses stepped
forward to tell their story of this brazen murder. Everyone knew the trail led
directly to Mussolini. Conservative newspapers turned against him,
demanding justice. Many tore up their Fascist party cards. Fascists were
afraid to march in public. Mussolini hesitated.

Giacomo Matteotti, assassinated
by Mussolini’s thugs in the back
seat of a car in broad daylight on
the streets of Rome.

Not Pope Pius XI. The Pope did not hesitate, we went all in defending
Mussolini. He directed the Vatican newspaper to write an editorial urging
all good Catholics to obey civil authorities, refuse to cooperate with
Socialists, and abstain from violent protest or any sort of
protest. Mussolini was praised for all he had done for the Church,
implying that he did not have anything to do with this murder.
Mussolini was so grateful he enrolled his children in religious lessons,
they would soon celebrate their confirmation and first communion. But
now there were rumors of a possible military coup overthrowing
Mussolini, with the king’s blessing.

Seven months after the murder of Matteotti,
Mussolini spoke to Parliament. “I declare here, in
front of the Assembly and all the Italian people,
that I alone assume full political, moral, and
historical responsibility for everything that has
happened.”
“We are all with you,” shouted the Fascist
deputies.
“If Fascism has been a criminal organization, I am
the head of this criminal association!”
“We are all with you!” The applause kept building.
Mussolini shouted, “You believed Fascism was
finished, but you will see, Italy wants peace, want
tranquility, wants calm. We will give Italy her
tranquility, this calm through love if possible, and
with force, if necessary.”

Were these seen at the time as the rants of a good Catholic? Did
the Pope regret his show of support? Now that Mussolini knew
he could get away with murder, he would turn Italy into a
dictatorship subject only to a compliant king. Fascist thugs threw
the opposition leaders in jail and closed down their
newspapers. New laws were passed banning opposition parties,
only fascists unions were allowed, strikes were banned. Mayors
would be appointed by the central government, the press was
censored, and capital punishment was reinstated. For good
measure, he tricked his wife into being baptized to please the
Pope.

Mussolini tries the "passo romano", a military
step introduced from the nazi goose step.
This picture was censored by Mussolini.

THE LATERAN ACCORDS, THE POPE IS REWARDED
Negotiations for a new Concordat were proceeding while the
consequences of the murder of Matteotti were unraveling. These
negotiations were tough, lasting over four years. The biggest roadblock
was the Pope’s devotion and protection of the national youth group,
Catholic Action. The totalitarian fascist government was uncomfortable
allowing any national group that might compete with the newly organized
Fascist youth association. The Pope was reluctant to restrict the Catholic
Action groups to prayer and religious instruction, their recreational
activities were what appealed to their youth. Mussolini eventually
compromised, except for the occasional Fascist gang bullying a Catholic
Action group here and there.

The Lateran accords were signed in early 1929. The papacy would receive
a generous indemnity for the loss of the Papal States, but the Pope was
recognized as the sovereign ruler over the small 109-acre Vatican territory
contained St Peter’s basilica. In addition, the Holy See would have special
rights to all of Rome’s basilicas and papal summer palace.
Rome would guard the Vatican’s character as the center of Catholicism and
would recognize many Catholic feast days as public holidays. Catholic
education would also be extended to secondary schools, and all Catholic
Action youth groups could operate freely. Later Mussolini forced the Pope
to restrict their activities to the religious sphere.

Mussolini, Cardinal Gaspari,
and Vatican delegation prior
to signing the Lateran Treaty

Unlike the later Concordat with Hitler, Mussolini would largely respect the terms of
the Lateran Accords, and they remain in effect to this day. The Pope was no longer
the prisoner of the Vatican. Fascist militia units with their flags and banners
celebrated with the faithful in St Peter’s Square. The American charge d’affairs in
Rome reported that this was a “triumph for Mussolini in ending the controversy and
in winning over the clergy to Fascism.”
Mussolini and Pope Pius XI were now partners, Mussolini was the secular
authoritarian, the Pope was the clerical authoritarian. Catholics were active in
Fascist organizations and public schools while the government supported the
Church. The government enforced morality laws against racy plays and films and
immodestly dressed women. Local Catholic Action Groups collaborated with the
Fascist police. But occasionally a fascist bully would still beat up a Catholic
priest. Bullies will be bullies.

In the heady days following, Mussolini now required that newspapers refer to him
as El Duce, with DUCE in capital letters. Images of El DUCE appeared everywhere in
public buildings, offices, and shops. There had to be adoring crowds in all his public
appearances, even if that meant dressing police in civilian clothes.

POPE PIUS XI AND HITLER, I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS
When we look back to the history of World War II we can never avert the
gaze of the bulging eyes of the skeletal survivors of the Nazi concentration
camps, so we naturally ask the question, how could the Pope be so gullible
to believe Hitler when he guaranteed the Catholic Church a role in German
culture? We forget that the Catholic experience in negotiating with the
secular and potentially hostile regimes of Napoleon and Mussolini enabled
the Catholic Church to survive and thrive in an increasingly secular
world. We can say that when Pope Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli, later to
succeed him as Pope Pius XII, negotiated the terms of the German
Concordat with Hitler, they did not fully realize that Hitler always lied, he
always negotiated in bad faith, he never lived up to the terms of the
treaties he signed.

Hitler and
Cardinal
Pacelli, papal
nuncio to
Germany,
the future
Pope Pius
XII.

The compromises the Pope in agreeing to the German Concordat were
similar to the compromises made in the Lateran Treaty, but with much more
dire consequences. Just as the Pope had betrayed the Catholic Popular
Party in favor of Mussolini’s Fascist Party in Italy, the Pope also betrayed the
Catholic Center Party, which had the support of the German Bishops. Many
former Center Party leaders would later be brutally murdered by the Nazis,
some in the Night of Long Knives. Later the Nazis would slanderously
accuse hundreds of monks and nuns of sexual perversion and accuse
Jesuits of financial frauds.
The increasing brutality of the Nazi regime worried the Pope, but many of
his advisors, including Cardinal Pacelli, urged caution, reminding him that
the Fascists were enemies of the real enemy of the Church, communism
and Bolshevik Russia. These fears of communism were reinforced by the
Spanish Civil War, where Hitler and Mussolini supported the brutal Fascist
General Franco against the socialists and communists, who murdered
hundreds of priests, monks and nuns.

Hitler greets the
Protestant
Archbishop of
Nuremberg,
Ludwig Müller,
and Benedictine
Abbott Albanus
Schachleitner at
the Reich Party
Rally of 1934.

Signing of the Reichskonkordat on 20 July 1933. From left to right:
German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen,
representing Germany, Monsignor Giuseppe Pizzardo, Cardinal Pacelli,
Monsignor Alfredo Ottaviani, German ambassador Rudolf Buttmann.
Cardinal Pacelli is the future Pope Pius XII.

Every week revealed new brutalities. The Nuremberg laws were passed,
denying Jews citizenship and forbidding them from marrying Aryan
Germans. Jews were dismissed from civil service. Catholic parochial
schools were harassed.
Chancellor Dollfus of Austria was negotiating an Austrian Concordat which
was never signed. His wife and children were visiting Mussolini at his
summer home but Chancellor Dollfus was unable to join them. Germany
and Austria were to be united in the Anschluss, Mussolini had to tell his
wife and children their father would not be joining them, as he had just
been shot by the Nazis.
Mussolini urged Hitler to observe the terms of the Concordat, to
discontinue his persecutions of the Jews, but Hitler did not listen.

MUSSOLINI, WANNABE CAESAR, DESCENDS INTO DARKNESS OF
MORDOR
Mussolini wanted to be a modern conquering Caesar rebuilding a new
Roman Empire, and he decided to start with Ethiopia. Initially the Pope was
reluctant to support the effort that would cause so much suffering among
black Ethiopians and Catholic missionaries, but Mussolini pressed on.
Initially the Italians met embarrassing battlefield reverses against stiff
Ethiopian resistance, but eventually triumphed with the use of chemical
weapons and bombers and fighter planes. Underwhelming sanctions were
applied by the League of Nations, strengthening ties between Italy and
Germany, who both quit the League. Catholic Church bells rung across
Italy celebrating the victory of the Italian forces. But the Pope became
increasingly concerned about the growing ties between Italy and Germany.

Abyssinian warriors going to the northern
front during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War

Group picture of
highly educated
and influential
members of the
Ethiopian Nobility
imprisoned at the
Asinara Island
prison by the
orders of
Mussolini.

Ethiopians
greeting the
depiction of
Mussolini at
Mekelle.

Pope Pius XI was generally supporter of the milder anti-Semitism early in
Mussolini’s rule, which was a carryover of the historical anti-Semitism the
Catholic Church had long endorsed. But the increasing brutality of the
Nazi policies were too much for Pope Pius XI, his years were advancing, his
health was declining, and he was now worried about the status of his
everlasting soul, he felt compelled to speak up against this evil regime. He
consulted with Mussolini, who told him he had very little influence over the
Fuhrer on matters of religion.
The German bishops asked the Pope to prepare an encyclical to urge Nazi
officials to respect the terms of the 1933 German Concordat. Copies of
this encyclical were smuggled into Germany and was read from the pulpits
on Palm Sunday 1937 to surprised congregations totally unused to hearing
criticisms of their government.

We quote directly from David Kertze’s book the
Pope’s encyclical Met Brennender Sorge (With Deep
Anxiety):
While the Catholic Church had entered into the
Concordat in good faith, said the Pope, “anyone must
acknowledge, not without surprise and reprobation,
how the other contracting party (Nazis) emasculated
the terms of the treaty, distorted its meaning, and
eventually considered these violations as normal
policy.” The Pope lamented the destruction of
Catholic parochial schools, breaking the terms of the
Concordat. The Pope castigated those who idolized
race and nation, deeming them guilty of distorting
and perverting “an order of the world planned and
created by God.”

The Pope warned against
blending Christianity and
race worship: “None but
superficial minds could
stumble into concepts of a
national God, a national
religion; or attempt to lock
with the frontiers of a single
people, within the narrow
limits of a single race, God,
the Creator of the universe.”

Though he never mentioned
Nazism by name, the Pope
thanked those priests and
laypeople “who have persisted in
their Christian duty and in the
defense of God’s rights in the
teeth of an aggressive paganism.”

Hitler was furious, first by the unexpected criticism of the Encyclical, second
by how this message was delivered to all those churches without his
knowledge. He ordered police to shut down Catholic publishing houses
across the country. Mussolini urged moderation towards the
Church. Some speculated the Pope might excommunicate Hitler.

Hitler and Mussolini were still friends. Mussolini would enjoy a state visit to Berlin
where millions of Germans cheered the two dictators. Soon after Hitler visited a
Rome festooned with swastikas where hundreds of thousands Italians cheered the
two dictators, Mussolini enacted the first of the Italian race laws against the
Jews. The Pope quickly raised the issue that those Catholics who converted from
Judaism should not be considered Jews. Now negotiating with Mussolini was more
like negotiating with Hitler, the Church agreed not to criticize the regime’s new anti-
Semitic policies if Mussolini would leave the Catholic Action groups alone.
When you deal with the dark Lords of Mordor you will always darken your
soul. Catholicism never appealed to Mussolini, he was never a practicing Catholic,
he was increasingly drawn into the dark abyss of Nazi ideology. On the eve of World
War II racial laws were passed in Italy revoking Jewish citizenship, exiling Jews, firing
Jewish teachers, expelling Jewish students, expelling Jews from the Fascist
Party. Jews could not own large businesses or work in professional
occupations. Jews were Jews by blood, not religion.

.
Adolf Hitler and Mussolini walking in front of saluting
military during Hitler's visit to Venice, June 1934

David Kertzer writes: “After sixteen years of
nurturing his partnership with the Vatican,
Mussolini was allowing his megalomania, his
infatuation with Hitler’s Third Reich, and his
sense of invincibility to get in the way of his
political judgement. The pope felt poorly
used. Increasingly frail, he knew his own
death could not be far off.” Pope Pius XI’s
dream on an Italian confessional state under
the terms of the Concordat was instead
descending into a nightmare of increasing
Fascist and Nazi brutality.
Aeroritratto di Mussolini aviatore,
Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi, 1930

The tenth anniversary of the Lateran Accords were approaching. The Pope
had made known his displeasure of recent brutalities, Mussolini was
reluctant to attend a celebration where the Pope could criticize the
regime. This was a valid fear. The Pope had asked that a papal encyclical
be drafted condemning racism and the persecution of the Jews. His
anticipation of giving a last speech to the many bishops expected to attend
the celebrations helped keep him alive.
The day before he planned to give his final speech condemning fascism,
Pope Pius XI died.

THE CORONATION OF THE DIPLOMAT POPE, POPE PIUS XII
On March 12, 1939, Cardinal Pacelli was crowned Pope Pius XII. In one of
his first acts as Pope, Pius XII seized the encyclical and all copies of the
troublesome speech, they would be buried unseen in the Vatican archives
for over fifty years. He shared the concerns of his predecessor regarding
the racist brutalities and the coming war, but he was ever the diplomat,
always mindful that Axis troops could march into the Vatican without
opposition at any time.
Dr Wikipedia speculates that perhaps one reason Pacelli suppressed the
draft encyclical on his predecessor’s desk was that, although it condemned
both Nazi anti-Semitism and American racial segregation, it nevertheless
had numerous anti-Semitic language inserted by the Jesuit editors blaming
Jews for the regicide of Christ, crass materialism, and other anti-Semitic
tropes. In October the new Pope Pius XII issued a more diplomatic version
as his first encyclical celebrating the unity of mankind and cultural diversity,
rejecting totalitarianism.

Pope Pius XII reigned as Pope long after the war ended, passing away
in 1958.
We also included a slide of the next Pope, Pope John XXIII, because
he was the pope who called the Second Vatican Council into session.
The Catholic experience in World War II and in Italy in particular
under Nazism and fascism profoundly changed Catholic thinking and
attitudes, and the decrees of Vatican II were profoundly influenced by
the Church’s newfound appreciation of democracy and its new
wariness of totalitarianism.

September 1939 Hitler
invades Poland.
The long bloody war that
all Europe expected finally
commenced. In September
1939 the Nazis invaded
Poland, imprisoning and
murdering many Polish
Catholic priests.
Hitler invades Poland

May to June, 1940
Hitler invades France.
In the spring of 1940 Mussolini
gleefully joined with Hitler in their
invasions of France and all of
Europe.
After a month of invading France
in World War I, the Germans get
bogged down in trench warfare
about forty miles from Paris.
In World War II, the Nazis
blitzkrieg to Paris in two weeks.
Hitler invades France

The Italians were peasants, they were not born soldiers. Poorly
equipped, poorly led, poorly trained, the German army had to
rescue the Italians when they got bogged down when they
invade Greece.

November 1942: The
Allies invade French
North Africa in
Operation Torch.
There were multiple
landings in French
Morocco and Algeria,
and the better
equipped Allies
defeated the German
and Italian armies.
Operation Torch, Invasion of North Africa

Invasion of Sicily,
July 1943, then
the boot of Italy.
As the Allies
bombed Rome,
the Grand
Council of
Fascism
deposed
Mussolini and
the king had
him arrested.
Allied Invasion of Sicily, then Italy

King Emmanuel III of Italy may have been happy with the modest military
success of Mussolini before this terribly destructive war started, and before
Mussolini’s more modest fascism morphed into the more cruel ideology of
Nazism after Mussolini fell under the spell of Hitler. But being emperor of
Ethiopia and Albania was not worth the suffering caused when the Allied
armies were posed to invade the boot of Italy.
The king signed an armistice with the Allies, two days later Nazi troops
invaded and occupied Rome. While the Nazis started deporting the Italian
Jews to the death camps, thousands of Italian Jews fled, many hiding in the
monasteries and convents of the Vatican.

Disarmed Italian
soldiers marching to
captivity in Bolzano.

Nazi troops under the
famed Otto Skorzeny
rescued Mussolini from
a mountain-top chalet
and flew him to
Germany.
Hitler then named
Mussolini as the leader
of a short-lived rump
puppet state in
Northern Italy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5ml2jy5H8

Mussolini did not have much to do as the puppet ruler of the rump
fascist Italian state, since the Nazis were making all the decisions.
Near the end of the war Mussolini attempted to flee, but was captured
and murdered by partisans, and the corpses of Mussolini, his mistress,
and his other companions were hung by his heels outside the same gas
station where the fascists had murdered and hung the corpses of
partisans some time before. (Notation on picture): A peasant woman
pinned the skirt of Mussolini’s mistress to protect the modesty of her corpse.
At war’s end, King Emmanuel III abdicated to his son Umberto, but the
new Italian republic abolished the monarchy.

The dead body of Benito
Mussolini next to his mistress
Claretta Petacci and those of
other executed fascists, on
display in Milan on 29 April
1945, in Piazzale Loreto, the
same place that the fascists
had displayed the bodies of
fifteen Milanese civilians a
year earlier after executing
them in retaliation for
resistance activity. The
photograph is by Vincenzo
Carrese.
A peasant woman pinned the
skirt of Mussolini’s mistress
to protect the modesty of
her corpse.

Pope Pius XII survived the war with his reputation intact. There are many
who today argue he could have done far more to protest the Holocaust,
but if had been more vocal, perhaps Fascist and Nazi troops would have
marched in and murdered everyone in the Vatican. Hitler and been
planning to murder the pope once he won the war in Europe.
His successor, Pope John XXIII, opened the windows of the Catholic
Church to the modern world by calling the Second Vatican Council. The
experiences of the Catholic Church in Italy, Germany, and France
influenced the decrees of the Council, Vatican II in its Decree on Religious
Freedom extolled the virtues of democracy. After her experiences under
the Fascist Mussolini and the Nazi Hitler, the Catholic Church no longer
trusted totalitarian regimes, even when they seemed to be the friend of the
church. We have a blog on this topic, soon in late 2021 we will be
recording a video on this decree.

SOURCES:
David Kertzer’s book, the Pope and Mussolini, is a joy to read, and he is a
balanced observer, acting neither as an apologist or as a critic of the
Catholic Church. The Popes during the war years were walking a tightrope,
they needed to push back against the evil of Hitler, but if they pushed back
too hard, then the Catholics would be persecuted that much more
vigorously.
His book was written after the Vatican opened the archives for Pope Pius XI.
Some years ago, the Vatican released as many documents as it could find
regarding the official acts of Pope Pius XII regarding the Holocaust and
relations with Germany, and David Kertzer used these sources, and the
documents found in the German archives. Pope Francis opened the
remaining archives of Pope Pius XII in March 2020, but then a week later
closed them because of Covid, and the papal library was not reopened
until June 2020.

So far, we have not heard any bombshell revelations in the media, so we
can reaffirm that the relationship between Mussolini and the two Popes,
were, as you can say, COMPLICATED, as relationships sometimes tend to
be.
David Kertzer did report on an interesting story that likely affected how the drafting
of the decrees of Vatican II regarding the Jewish religion. This was known as the
Finaly affair. The parents of two Jewish French Finaly boys were sent to the death
camps, and a devout Catholic woman agreed to raise them, and she did what all
devout Catholics would do, she baptized them! And, after the war, their aunt
thanked them for their kindness, and asked that they be turned over to her, their
nearest living relative. But it was canon law at the time that once a child was
baptized, they should stay Catholic, and the Church stated that the boys would only
be released to their relatives if they guaranteed that their Catholic religious
education would be continued.

.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/the-popes-jews/615736/
.
Mosaic depicting Pope Paul VI and Patriarch
Athenagoras I. The sacristy of the chapel Dominus
Flevit in Jerusalem.

The French courts ordered that the children be returned to their parents,
and the Catholic lady refused, and some monks and nuns arranged to
move the boys to a monastery near the Spanish border, and they were
smuggled across the border to Spain.
What the opening of the Vatican archives revealed was that Pope Pius XII
was aware of the situation. Like the Dreyfus Affair, this got in the
newspapers, and caused a ruckus. After appeal, and appeal, after some
years, the French courts actually threw our devout Catholic lady and some
monks and nuns in the conspiracy in prison, for kidnapping., and the
Vatican ordered the Spanish clerics to return the boys to their relatives, but
they dilly-dallied. Much of the correspondence regarding this case
contains numerous anti-Semitic slurs. The Vatican, tiring of the bad press,
worried that the French government would pass unfriendly legislation,
insisted that the boys be returned to Israel with no qualifications, and they
resumed their life as Jews.

The Vatican official handling this case was the future Pope Paul VI, who
wrapped up the Second Vatican Council after Pope John XXIII had died.
David Kertzer believes that his experience with handling the case of the
Finaly boys influenced his attitudes and helped ensure that the council
would enact the decree declaring that the Jewish religion should be
respected, that Jews can be saved without being baptized. Under current
canon law, the Finaly boys would likely have been returned to their
relatives.
So, we may see a new edition of this book released some years in the
future, since the author is rummaging through the archives.
One disturbing topic not discussed in the book was the story of how high
officials in the Vatican, likely not including the Pope, were involved in the
ratlines smuggling Nazis out of Europe into friendly Latin American pro-
German governments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo3vzQ9NGL0
This is the first of several
interesting videos on the
ratlines that helped
former Nazis flee to
Argentina and other
countries in Latin
America after the end of
World War II.
The disturbing part of
this story is priests and
cardinals in the Vatican
were part of the ratlines.

We have other videos recorded and planned for late 2021 in the World
War II period and after.
Viktor Frankl’s message in his book, In Man’s Search For Meaning, is
that no matter what challenges life throws at you, even the challenges
of the Nazi concentration work camps, you can find the strength to
persevere if your life has meaning.
The stoicism of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, who went from prison
to the Presidency, who was imprisoned for challenging apartheid,
shows how we can persevere and defeat racial hatred in our lives and
society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YtC9qGWPI&list=PLJVlY2bjK8ljmWA9WwFz3IeRonyUNxRKO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDnJ6sBoJc&list=PLJVlY2bjK8lgJZvnhM6Mte9kyUnmaW_ip

Many people are unaware that the Nazis used the Jim Crow
race laws as precedents when drafting their anti-Semitic Race
Laws that started the persecution of the Jews by the state
bureaucracy.
And finally, the spiritual danger of white evangelical Christian
Nationalism is that it can too easily morph into white
supremacy.
Some of these videos will be released in late 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YtC9qGWPI&list=PLJVlY2bjK8ljmWA9WwFz3IeRonyUNxRKO

We challenge our white Christian listeners to sample our videos on Civil Rights so you can be
more compassionate towards the plight of our black brothers in Christ.
Frederick Douglass belongs to the first generation of black leaders. He escapes from slavery and
became a leading abolitionist orator before the Civil, and a leading Civil Rights leader during the
Reconstruction years after the Civil War.
Booker T Washington was a teenage when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
freeing the slaves in the Deep South, and he was both an orator and a second-generation black
leader who focused educating the freed slaves so they could improve themselves.
WEB Dubois was born during Reconstruction, and was an orator, writer, and was a third-
generation activist black leader who helped found the NAACP.
Father Tolton, like Booker T Washington, was emancipated during the Civil War. He was invited
to study in Rome for the priesthood; and was the first former slave who was ordained as a
priest.

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And please click on the links for interesting videos on other topics
that will broaden your knowledge and improve your soul.

YouTube Video:
Christians Resisting in Fascist Vichy France
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