After the World War, Italy experienced a complete change in its system of government. Socialism grew so rapidly at first that it was estimated that one third of the population had gone "Red" by 1920. The organization of Don Sturzo's Catholic Peoples' Party failed to stem the "Red tide." But Italian landlords and property holders soon detected in the brief flare of socialism that their country must find a government strong enough to protect private property. University people, the professional classes, nationalists, and ex-soldiers clamored for a general government house cleaning. They were not willing that the result of their participation in the World War be an archaic Italy. It was at this juncture that Benito Mussolini appeared on the political horizon.
After repeated, futile efforts on the part of King Victor Emmanuel III to choose someone to form a strong government, the king finally called on Mussolini, leader of the Fascist party, to form a cabinet. On October 29, 1922, the king telephoned Mussolini, who at once left Milan for Rome, announcing, "Tomorrow Italy will have not a ministry, but a government." On October 30 the new cabinet took office. Only four of the fourteen portfolios were placed in fascist hands, and no socialists were appointed. Mussolini immediately secured a grant of virtually dictatorial powers from Parliament until the end of 1923. In the first elections held under the new system (April, 1924), the fascists, not without recourse to violence, were able to occupy two thirds of the seats in the new chamber. Someone has said,
"When the democratic state was overthrown in Italy, the revolution must have appeared to those who looked at it from the windows of the Vatican as a kind of providential warning."--Foreign Affairs, April, 1935, p. 446.
Mussolini soon proceeded in earnest to make himself supreme in Italy. By 1926 all opposition parties were abolished. The Fascist party remained as the only legal political organization. Thus was fulfilled a warning expressed by Mussolini some years earlier : "All parties must end, must fall. I want to see a panorama of ruin about me—the ruins of other political forces—so that fascism may stand alone, gigantic and dominant." At the apex of the hierarchal party organization is the Fascist Grand Council, headed by Ii Duce, "The Leader." The council includes most of the high party and government officials, and has a membership of about twenty. By virtue of his power to add to its membership at any time, Mussolini entirely dominates the council, thus carrying out his maxium : "A hierarchy must culminate in a pinpoint."
Mussolini and the Roman Question
For Mussolini the Roman question was a thorn in the flesh. In his first speech as leader of a little group of fascists, June 21, 1921, Ii Duce said: "I am convinced that the Latin tradition, the tradition of Imperial Rome, is alive today in Catholicism." (See Prezzolini, Giuseppe, "Fascism," p. 130. London, 1926.) In Papolo d' Italia, of June 27, 1922, he said : "It is not the intention of fascism to drive God from heaven and sweep religion off the face of the earth."
The Roman question presented a threefold problem. First, there was the question of the ecumenical position of the Papacy as head of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. One of the chief reasons for the voluntary confinement of the pope to the Vatican was to preserve the spiritual union and leadership of the whole Catholic Church. Any outward submission to the national dictates of the kingdom of Italy might have been considered as certain relinquishing of world leadership of the church. This question had to be worked out between Italy and the Vatican in such a way as to recognize the pope as the supreme head of the Catholic Church in all the world.
The second phase of the problem concerned the relations of the pope as temporal sovereign over a portion of Italy, a problem peculiar to Italy. A kingdom within a kingdom must have clearly defined limits territorially, administratively, and otherwise. The third phase of the question concerned the relations between church and state in Italy. The geographical proximity of the pope to the citizens of Italy called for a special solution of this problem. The type of solution worked out in Italy should be such as could be adapted to the relations of church and state in other countries. (See J. A. R. Marriott, "The Makers of Modern Italy," p. 210.)
In order to provide the necessary approach to the solution of the Roman question, it was necessary for both the Vatican and the Italian state to take certain preliminary steps. The pope, as the "holy father," and "peacemaker" among men, would naturally be expected to take the first step toward an understanding. This he did. During his pontificate (7903-14) Pius X relaxed the ban on Catholic political activity. Catholics were gradually permitted to take a part in political elections, and in 1913 the non-expedit was altogether withdrawn, and Catholics were allowed to take full part in Italian political life.
The Italian state, on the other hand, while it prescribed civil marriage, placed nothing in the way to prevent the performance of the religious ceremony in addition, where it was desired. And in regard to education, although the state did not require local authorities to provide religious instruction in elementary schools, if that instruction was demanded by the parents, it was generally given, and not infrequently by priests.
When Mussolini came into power, he was very anxious right from the first to bring about a settlement of the long-standing difficulties. Catholic religious processions were fully permitted. A service of army chaplains was reestablished. The crucifix was replaced on all elementary schools, the capitol, the colosseum, the courts of law, and certain public places. Religious instruction, hitherto voluntary, was made universal and compulsory. It seemed that Mussolini, like the pope, desired to leave a record of definite achievement
behind him. This is all the more evident since the basis of government in both cases is not contractual but authoritarian. "As the pope asserts divine right as the head of the Catholic Church, so Signor Mussolini asserts divine right of fascism." Strangely enough these philosophical affinities brought the two close together. They united in opposition to freemasonry, socialism, and liberalism. The pope dissolved the Catholic popular party, and Mussolini dissolved the lodges, in 1928.
Soon "unofficial" negotiations were taken up between Mussolini and the pope. Pius XI was prepared to end the quarrel. He merely wanted the initial move to come from Italy, and he insisted that the proceedings be secret.
In October, 1926, "unofficial negotiations" were under way. Various steps that had already been taken, such as the reintroduction of religious education, restoration of the crucifix, etc., were interpreted as "efforts at conciliation." Quoting Ascoli:
"Direct relations between fascist Italy and the Catholic Church should logically have brought about a clash. But the fascist regime needed an unction, and the Catholic Church needed, in the interests of Christian Italy, to establish legal relations with the new political system. There are laws in hell as well as in heaven, and it is always possible to establish norms of coordination between two legal systems." —Foreign Affairs, April, 1935, p. 447.
The time had come when the Catholic Church could afford to leave the field of politics, when all other political parties were being dissolved as well. "She can keep her hands clean from political contamination and enjoy the privilege of being the one solidly organized spiritual power that modern Caesarisms have to respect."
The (Catholic) Church knows how to make good out of evil. When her territorial power was crushed, her spiritual power was immensely increased all over the world. At the present moment her loss of direct political influence in certain European countries is perhaps giving her an even greater advantage. .The church is put out of politics in the countries where politics is banished for every group but one. She can keep her hands clean from political contamination and enjoy the privilege of being the one solidly organized spiritual power that modern Caesarisms have to respect. Someday the experiment of the sovereign national and nationalistic state, based on the distinction between religion and politics, will have an end ; and politics is now exhausting itself in the effort to become a monopoly by one group. Perhaps the sovereign national state born after the Reformation is going through the last of its phases. Meantime the church keeps intact her moral prestige and the hierarchic frame ; her legal rights are well guarded ; the doors of the spiritual world are wide open ; her most loyal and able sons can one by one go to the center of political power and exert some influence and acquire some knowledge."—Id., p. 450,
________ To be concluded in July
