Part II PREPARATIONS FOR REVENGE
CHAPTER I PIUS XI INSTIGATES FASCISM

Plus XI succeeds Benedict XV. — The authoritarian character of the new Pope. His admiration for the Fascist chief:”Mussolini is a wonderful man!”His horror of Socialism. — Secret deals between the Vatican and Mussolini. A bargain is struck. The Church will ensure the triumph of Fascism. — Don Sturzo, Chief of the Catholic Party, has full rights voted to MussoUni, just as, ten years later, Mgr. Kaas, Chief of the Catholic Zentrum, will have full rights voted to Hitler. — The Duce settles his debt towards Pius XI: the clergy in places of honour at all Fascist ceremonies, Mussolini defends the Papacy, the Fascist militia takes its model from the Jesuits, the Liberals are either deported or assassinated, finally comes the Lateran Treaty with re-estabUshment of the Pope’s temporal sovereignty, concordat and rich endowment to the Holy See. — The conquest of Ethiopia seen with favour by the Vatican. Mgr. Schuster, Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, calls it “a Catholic crusade”. — Mussolini as agent between the Holy See and Hitler. The Nazi Party financed by Rome. — The influence in Spain: secret treaty with Primo de Rivera, then assistance to General Franco. The Fascist”mystique”and the aggression of Albania on Good Friday. — Iginio Giordani writes:”He who is near the Sword is near to God”. — Mussolini, prototype of the Vatican brand of dictator.

FIRST of all, who was Pius XI? Let us listen to Francois Charles-Roux, former French Ambassador to the Vatican, who knew the Holy Father personally and who, during his eight years in Rome, had many an opportunity to speak with him:

“His reputation as an authoritarian and self-willed pontiff, knowing what he wants and wanting it strongly, is indeed well established. . . . Governing must come fairly naturally to him. He governs a great deal unaided … the Church’s government is autocratic. . . . Pius XI was in no way the blessing type. . . . Pius XI was firmly convinced that none of the great men of this world could reach his level. …”

On this last point, the newly elected Pope was only asserting once more the constant pretensions of the Holy See, as they are expressed in the ritual formula of the coronation.

Megalomaniac by calling, one might say, he had, even before donning the tiara, smgled out a lay fellow-megalomaniac, who seemed fit to serve his ends.

Still only Cardinal Achille Ratti, this is what he said, in 1921,in front of the writer Luc Valti about the future Italian dictator:

“Mussolini is making rapid headway and, with elemental strength, will conquer all in his path. Mussolini is a wonderful man — Do you hear me? — a wonderful man! He is a new convert, since he comes from the ranks of the extreme left, he has the zeal of the novice to spur him on. Moreover, he recruits his adepts from the school benches, raising them all of a sudden to the dignity of manhood, of armed men. He seduces and fanatizes them, reigning over their imaginations. Do you realize what that means and what power it gives him? The future is his.”

Pius XI, Socialism’s bitter enemy

Charles Ledre points out that”In several of his most notable speeches, the Rerum novarum Pope has denounced the perils of ‘Socialism’ for society as well as for religion. He told the faithful that they should arm against it. He never gave up the fight and Pius XI will be able to write that Socialism was ‘the principal adversary’ aimed at in his encyclicals. … No one’, he says, ‘can be both a good Catholic and a real Socialist’.”

The Holy Father’s attitude is one of social and political reaction. In cold blood he planned a war to the death against everything Socialist, and in order to carry it out he supported that NaziFascism which was to cause so much bloodshed. Ledre adds:

‘Pius XII often reiterated that the Church’s condemnations of the ‘various systems of Socialism’ are still valid”. The political position of the Holy See was thus quite clear. That of Mussolini, on the other hand, could have appeared to be just the opposite:

According to F. Nitti, former President of the Italian Council of Ministers,”In 1914, Mussolini was running the Italian Socialist organ Avanti and was an intransigent Marxist. In March 1919, he founded a first Fascist group in Milan, while retaining the ideas and attitude of a Socialist and trade-unionist. He encouraged every strike as well as the occupation of the factories. . . . Mussolini called for a national Constituent. Its first task was to proclaim the Italian Republic, the people’s right to vote, the abolition of the standing army, a universal ban on the manufacture of arms, the suppression of all titles of chivalry-y and nobility, the dissolution of all joint-stock companies, the abolition of stock exchanges, the confiscation of unearned incomes, and the payment of the national debt by well-to-do classes only. . . . The land was to be given over to the peasants.”

What happened in the meantime, that could have reconciled two such opposed views as that of the Vatican and that of the chief Fascist?

Francois Charles-Roux will tell us:

“While the future Duce was still just an ordinary deputy. Cardinal Gasparri, Secretary of State, had had a secret interview with him at the Roman home of a Catholic senator, Count Santucci, at Am Coeli. The Fascist chief straightway showed his readiness to acknowledge the Pope’s temporal sovereignty over a small part of Rome— and if need be to dissolve the Chamber and modify the electoral law.

“‘From this conversation’, concluded Cardinal Gasparri when he reported it to me, ‘ understand that with this man, should he come into power, we could get what we wanted’.

“I am leaving aside what he reported on the negotiation between the secret agents of Pius XI and Mussolini. . . .”

Here will be found the crux of the question, that of the conversion of the revolutionary.

“Mussolini had been told of the remark made by General Badoglio, Chief of the General Staff: ‘Five minutes’ firing and no more will be heard of Fascism’.”

The head of this movement was well aware of his weakness without the support of the Church. Consequently, he hastened to give a warm welcome to its envoys. The temptation was great for this ambitious man: if he would discard his original doctrine, his power would be ensured. The bargain was struck.

The rise of Fascism

“We feel”, said Claudio Treves,”as if we were caught up in a sinister wind of counter-revolution, before the revolution itself.” The right wing does not hide its disdain of popular sovereignty and its hatred of democracy, whereas the centre wavers… . The presence of a compact group of a hundred Catholic deputies, which could have been a force for ministerial and political stabilization becomes a force for disruption, owing to this group’s subordination to the Vatican. . . . It is governed by a SiciUan ecclesiastic, don Sturzo.

“The party wings reach as far right as the black aristocracy. The vestries have been the font in which this party has been baptized.’^ About this Catholic party and its chief Geo London and Charles Pichon say:

“The role of Father don Sturzo was to bring to the party his rare qualities of organizer and chief. . . . Authoritarian, tenacious, ardent and punctilious, he constrained the party’s 109 deputies to assiduity, discipline, and the block vote, so that they from the outset formed a compact mass at Montecitorio … don Sturzo was imposing upon the new President of the Council his famous nine points, which ensured substantial benefits to religious interests . . . and it was he who kept the Government under his thumb.

“Parties such as those whose activity has just been outlined, have obviously obtained real advantages for the Holy See.”

“On 16 November 1922″, writes Pietro Nennilo,”the Chamber was to pass a vote of confidence to Mussolini, by 306 votes to 116, and at this session the Catholic group, supposedly Christian Democrat, voted unanimously for the first Fascist government. October 31 witnessed the apotheosis of the Blackshirts who had marched on Rome. … Go ahead, you heroes of the coldly premeditated massacres ofPerugia and Turin! This is the apotheosis of crime.. ..’ ‘Wolves are always wolves’. . . . The Monarchy and the Church have made the party what it is. . . .”

Ten years later the same manoeuvre had the same outcome in Germany. The massive vote of Mgr. Kaas’s CathoUc Zentrum made certain of the dictatorship of Nazism.

How Mussolini paid his debt to his masters

1 May 1923. Undoubtedly, Fascism, by adopting the attitude it has towards the Vatican, can be certain of the approval of Catholicism . . .”, remarks Domenico Russo”, “the reappearance of the crucifix in the schools, the reintroduction of religious teaching, the new protection of Italian religious congregations abroad, Mussolini’s defence, in Parliament, of the Papacy. …”

Likewise, L’Illustration points out that:”Even at the price of the most cruel experience, Fascism depends upon all the old forces of the past . . . the Pope and the clergy are hand in hand with the new regime. Moreover, there is never an important Fascist ceremony at which the clergy are not in the place of honour”.

As will be seen later, in Hitler’s Germany, the Fascist phalanx bears the unmistakable brand of its origins.

Here are a few extracts, quoted by Domenico Russo, from the Rule book of the Fascist miUtias, which strongly resemble the militia of von Ledochowski, General of the Jesuits:

“The Fascist Party is, by definition, a militia. The Fascist militia is in the service of God and the Italian nation. . . .

“The Fascist soldier knows only his duty. His sole right is to do it and to love it. Be he ofiBcer or soldier, he must obey with humility and command with strength. The obedience of this militia must be blind, absolute, even at the highest level of the hierarchy, the Supreme Chief and the Executive Committee of the Party”.

No doubt it is in virtue of this bli-ad and absolute obedience that the “Blackshirts”committed so many crimes on the orders of their Chief. Count Sforza, in his memoirs recalls the long list ofassassinations which marked the dictator’s career.

Mussolini the criminal

After having recalled the circumstances of the assassination of Matteotti at the orders of Mussolini, Count Carlo Sforza14 writes: “. . . The tale of the crimes would fill a book; it is enough to recall, among the most horrible, the attack on Amendola, who was beaten to death at Montecatini in July 1925, and shortly afterwards, at Florence, the treacherous assassination of several brave Florentine opponents, including Pilati, a war cripple, who, stabbed on the bed where he lay sick, murmured: ‘The Austrians spared my life: it is the Italians who kill me. . . .’ Later, men of the highest intellectual and moral order, such as Rossi, Fancello, Bauer, Vinciguerra and so many others, were condemned to long years of imprisonment; and with them thousands of Italian heroes. . . .”

But—of course—it was not peccadilloes of this sort on the part of this hired assassin that might do him disservice with the Vatican. The latter has seen far worse than this. Besides, talking of the horrors of the Holy Inquisition which some people are naive enough to condemn, Father Jean Vieujean, author of La Grande Apologetique, has explicitly said so:

“To accept the principle of the Inquisition, all that is needed is the Christian mentality and that is what many Christians lack. They are more or less free-thinkers and, under the guise of tolerance, they are shocked that an idea should be defended by force. The Church knows no such hesitation.”

She has indeed proved it well over the many years during which she dominated Europe by means of her”men of providence”. The Liberals, Orthodox Croatians and Jews—in short all those whose mere existence encumbered her—know something about it.

“Mussolini, then, that”wonderful man”(to quote Pius XI before he became Pope), continued to”make rapid headway”without tripping over the corpses, and one of his greatest steps forward—a most important one—was very soon to settle a debt he owed his protector by re-establishing his temporal sovereignty. All this was without prejudice to an endowment of 750 million lire in cash and 1,000 million 5% consolidated stock. The Holy See’s friendship is precious, but not free.

Theocracy

After the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty, Father Janvier, famous French preacher, declared:

“Here is a man, remarkable for his power and intelligence, who has shown us a surprising spectacle. He has signed a concordat which recognizes the supremacy of the Church over the State.”

The temporal sphere

“God could raise up men (Plus XI and Mussolini) capable of contemplating Him (the Lateran Treaty). That is just what He did. Indeed, one fine morning in February 1929, the entire world learned that a treaty—the Lateran Treaty—had just been signed between the Pope and Mussolini, acknowledging the Vicar of God’s sovereignty over the territory of the Vatican City and thus restoring his independence vis-^-vis other sovereigns, including the King of Italy. Moreover, a Concordat was annexed to the Treaty, which recognized the juridical personality of the Church. . . .

“Let us listen to what Plus XI has to say”, says S. Gillet,”General Master of the Dominicans,”We must say that we have been nobly supported. And perhaps it was necessary also for us to have a man (Mussolini) like this one that Providence has led us to meet, a man without the preoccupations of the Liberal School. … By the Grace of God, We have been able to conclude a Concordat which is certainly among the best ever made; it is with profound satisfaction that We believe We have thereby given God to Italy and Italy to God”.

In another connection, Mgr. Cristiani recalls the essential significance of these agreements:

“It is clear that the constitution of the City of the Vatican was of primary importance in establishing the Papacy’s position as a political power. . . .”

It is thus officially established, under the seal of the Imprimatur, that the Papacy considers itself a political power. It needed DO less than guarantors of this order to convince us of the reality of the fact, since for almost two thousand years now the Church has ceaselessly and loudly proclaimed that she intends to respect the words of Christ:”Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”.

To tell the truth, this was never evident in practice, but at least the principle was maintained. It will be seen that this will no longer be so, and that in the eyes of a pontiff enamoured of geopolitics, the divine precept is decidedly outdated.

The Pope takes sides with the dictators

On 30 May 1929, according to Paul Lesourd,i9 Pius XI wrote to Cardinal Gasparri:

“A Catholic state, it is said and repeated, but a Fascist state; We note this without any special difficulty, willingly in fact, for it undoubtedly means that, with regard to ideas and doctrines as well as to practice, the Fascist state will not agree to anything that is not in accordance with Catholic doctrine and practice.”

Thus is the collusion between the Church and Fascism established. Nor was it to be expected that the Holy See would place the slightest obstacle in the way of the ambitious aims of the dictator it had brought to power.

The Vatican and the Ethiopian war

Cianfarra tells us that “Pius XI had understood that his attitude of conciliation towards Fascism at the time of the conquest of Ethiopia by Italy had provoked deep resentment among American Catholics. Despite violent opposition on the part of the Anglo-Saxon world to the expansionist aims of Italy, the Sovereign Pontiff had abstained from condemning Mussolini’s policy and had left the Italian clergy the widest latitude to co-operate with the Fascist Government. . . . Ecclesiastics, ranging from humble parish priests to cardinals, began to speak in favour of the war.

“One of the most striking examples was offered by the CardinalArchbishop of Milan, Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, who went as far as to call the campaign in question ‘a Catholic crusade’. . . . Italy, explained Pius XI, considered that this war was justified by an urgent need for expansion. . . .

“Ten days later. Plus XI expressed the wish that the legitimate claims of a ‘great and noble nation’, from which, he recalled, he himself had come, should be satisfied. . . .

“This clearly signified that Ethiopia would have to give way to Fascist pressure, since the Pope had implicitly recognized ‘the need for Italy to expand in Eastern Africa. . . .’ Plus XI was severely criticized not only for not having deplored the defeat of Ethiopia, but also for having himself participated in the joy of a nation which almost the entire universe was blaming for its guilty aggression. . . .”

“Italian troops”, writes F. Charles-Roux “had not been a week in Addis-Ababa before Mussolini was asking the Pope to substitute Italians for the French missionaries of Abyssinia. This was acting quickly and precipitating events. Yet Plus XI agreed. . . .”

And F. Charles-Roux concludes,”The Italo-Abyssinian war exerted a direct and profound influence upon several important events in Europe: the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, the dismemberment and crushing of Czechoslovakia….”

Then, the Vatican did not pride itself on affecting an”anticolonialist”attitude, at least not to the detriment of its champion Mussolini. The latter could massacre as he wished the people of Ethiopia — Christians though they were — by the most up-to-date means, including poison gas. But, on the other hand, Overseas France was already undermined by the baneful activity of the missions, as we have shown in other works.

Mussolini — Hitler — Franco

Just as it is obvious that the Holy Father favours with his abetting benevolence the”conquests”of Mussolini, so it will be noticed that the foreign policies of the dictators were completely identical.

“At present, most of Italy”, writes Antonio Aniante,23″is against Paris and for Berlin. Hitler gets his inspiration from Mussolini; the Nazi ideal is nothing but an Italian ideal. . . . Since Mussolini came to power, everyone’s sympathy is for Berlin. . . . The entire peninsula is against France.

“The regime has given back to the Italians a primitive and neobarbarian outlook which can bring with it nothing but war — war against France. . . .

“In 1923, the Fascist regime amalgamated with National Socialism; and it befriended Hitler and supplied him with arms and money. . . .

“It is a fine thing, in the eyes of the world, for a dictator to walk with a King on his left side and a Pope on his right.. . .

“‘Duce’ means ‘condottiere’. … If the Church and the Crown have on the one hand given prestige to Fascism, they have, on the other, cost thousands of millions—millions paid at that, by the Italians, who are far from being among the richest peoples in the world.”

They were to cost this people much more yet.

Let us see how the fate of Hitler’s Germany was bound up with that of Vaticano-Fascist Italy:

“The anti-Nazis declare unequivocally”, reports Frederic Hirth “that Hitler is on Mussolini’s payroll. Enormous cases full of lire, dollars and pounds sterling are supposed to come via Switzerland. One of their chiefs, Voigt, declared at a meeting of racists, ‘If it is true that Mussolini does not wish to acknowledge us, why should he continually send us money? ‘ Here is a clear and categorical admission by someone who must know the real truth about the shady side of his party.'”

Mussolini was obvious cut out for this role of agent between the Vatican and Hitler. The Italian puppet, despite his bluster, could have no really effective influence upon Europe’s position. He had to have a dependable colleague. The Holy See was working actively to that end.

The same operation was then carried out in Spain. As Nitti25 points out:

“General Franco’s adventure, which began in mid-July 1936, was prepared in Italy in the spring of the preceding year, and it was Italy that furnished the rebellion with the money and the arms and who had landed in Spain four or five times as many men under the command of army generals as any other country.

It may be said that, in a few years. Fascism has ruined and destroyed the great work of the democratic governments. …”

The Vatican flatters Mussolini, who has reached the zenith of his power

On 26 February 1937, Cardinal Schuster, Archbishop of Milan, speaking at the Milan School of Fascist Mysticism, spoke of”This Benito Mussolini, to whom I say that Jesus Christ, Son of God the Saviour, has granted talents which place him among the great spiritual figures ranging from Augustus to Constantine”.

It would be difficult to admire too much the Fascist mysticism, worthy sister of the younger Nazi mysticism. They are both made from the same pattern. Moreover, the extravagant words of the Archbishop of Milan are echoed in those of Hans Kerll, Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Third Reich, as quoted by Andre Guerber:26″Just as Christ gathered together his twelve disciples in a single cohort faithful to the point of martyrdom, so we are witnesses of an identical spectacle. Adolf Hitler is in truth the Holy Spirit.”

The Good Friday attack

“On Good Friday (1939)”, Cianfarra tells us,”the first squadron of the Italian Navy disembarked thousands of soldiers in the Albanian ports of Santi Quaranta, Valona, Durazzo and San Giovanni di Medua. . . . The Albanians, alas, were entirely without modern weapons. A few heroes tried to oppose the landing at Durazzo, and were very rapidly put out of action. . . King Zog fled to Greece. . . . Mussolini set up a puppet-goverament which was entirely devoted to his interests. … A parliament composed of members carefully chosen by the Italians, slavishly rushed to offer the crown of Albania to King Victor Emmanuel, only a few days after the complete occupation of the country. . . . The Italian occupation of Albania had many advantages for the Church. Out of a population of one million Albanians who became Italian subjects, 68 % were Moslems, 20 % of the Greek Orthodox religion and only 12% Roman Catholics. . . . From a merely political point of view, therefore, the country’s annexation by a Catholic Power was certainly going to improve the Church’s position there and to please the Vatican. . . .”

Maybe there were a few of the faithful who saw a kind of sacrilege in this unusual way of celebrating the anniversary of the Crucifixion. But the fact remains that the Holy See showed no sign of being shocked by it.

Did the Fascist”mystique”deliberately choose this anniversary, according to some mysterious symbolism, to annex a country peopled mostly with Moslems and Orthodox Christians?

At that time many books were being published in Europe, over the signature of ecclesiastics or orthodox laymen, which were clearly intended to prepare public opinion for the merciless struggle that the Roman Catholic Church was about to start, with its champions’ weapons, against the liberal democracies of France and England and against Soviet—and more particularly Orthodox—Russia. Of this type of work we give in the chapter on France a particularly significant example which we owe to Canon Coube. But it goes without saying that this prophetic literature—there were good reasons why it was prophetic—was flourishing also under the Fascist eagles of Italy. The following extract from the French translation of a book, to which Mr. Daniel-Rops wrote a preface, conveys perfectly the tone of these calls to a new crusade.

“He who is near the Sword is near to God”, writes Iginio Giordani.” The Christian dialectic necessitates a constant fight. Those who are faithful to this principle of combat are easily accused of clerical insolence … it makes one feel like regretting the times of religious wars. . . . Today, you can do as you please. Discrimination is dead. . . . Nowadays, the real battle is between religion and atheism and it is a veritable war. . . . Catholic intolerance has acquired a supernatural character. . . . The Pope insists on this apotheosis of intolerance. . . . The day of the Crusades is over: we engraved its seal on our weapons, and carved it on our hearts before setting out to exterminate the infidel. But now we must engrave this symbol in the very core of our hearts, and the faithlessness we must destroy is inside us and in our institutions. . . . This modern paradox calls with a voice that is louder than ever the militant Church to arms. . . . This is the crucial hour … .To make ready for the great duel, of which the premonitory signs are all about us, we must go back to the faith in its entirety. This preparation is apparent in the social order, and it was in its name that Liberalism was fought down. . . . The battle never ceases; it is a giant struggle in which the Church is fighting one of the most historic and formidable battles ever—a battle which enables a comparison to be made between our times and those of the third, eleventh and sixteenth centuries. . . . We have the honour to bear arms in Thy Name, O Christ our King. For Thou art with us. God of War. . . .”

So the Papacy, the great criminal of the 1914-1918 war who went unpunished lost no time in preparing her revenge. In this Europe, impoverished, completely bewildered, and bled white by four years of war, the Papacy chose Italy as her field of activity and raised up the first of the dictators destined to play again and at further expense, the match she had just lost. Mussolini was the prototype, and there were to be more of the same kind. First of all came Hitler, then Franco, then the later editions, which were even worse—the Quislings, the Petains, these miserable products of defeat.

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