Mussolini dedicates the new town of Guidonia, as the local bishop joins in the Fascist salute, November 1937
(photograph credit 20.2)
Convinced he had little time to live, Pius XI believed God was keeping him alive for a reason. “His fragile state of health,” observed the French ambassador, “is unfortunately weakening, not his intellectual capacities, but his physical strength.” Cardinal Jean Verdier, archbishop of Paris, saw the pope twice around Christmas. At their first meeting, the cardinal was delighted to find him lively and attentive, but the next time the pontiff was feeble, barely able to speak, and unable to read the papers he had in front of him. Sometimes the pope was alert and articulate. Other times he was frail and frustrated. Yet, during his sleepless nights, he felt God’s presence, imparting a divine message it was his duty to pass on before he died.14
Cardinal Baudrillart noted the change in his diary. “The pope remains very lucid, but his willpower is becoming more hesitant.” Nor did the French cardinal think the secretary of state offered an adequate substitute. “Despite all of his eminent qualities,” he observed, “Cardinal Pacelli does not seem to have a very firm mind, nor a very strong will.”15 Later in the month, Baudrillart observed, telegraphically: “Now atmosphere of the end of regime: secret intrigues.”
Mussolini was irritated. Whipping up Italian enthusiasm for Germany was a challenge, even with his massive propaganda machine. Only two decades earlier, the Italians had fought a war against the Germans, and all the Nazi talk of the superiority of the Nordic race was not making his task any easier. The last thing Mussolini needed was for the pope to convince Italians that Hitler was an enemy of the Church.
Mussolini, from Palazzo Venezia, announces Italy’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, December 1937
(photograph credit 20.3)
It was time, thought Mussolini, to apply some pressure. He delivered his message through Guido Buffarini. Elected mayor of Pisa in 1923 at age twenty-eight, Buffarini became Mussolini’s undersecretary for internal affairs ten years later. Ruddy complexioned, sad-eyed, and fat, intelligent and shrewd, devoid of any moral principles, Buffarini was a blowhard with a talent for intimidation and a penchant for feathering his own nest.16
On December 30, Buffarini summoned the papal nuncio. He had evidence, he said, that Catholic Action groups were again mixing in politics. If this continued, he warned, a violent popular reaction was sure to follow. The dumbstruck nuncio denied the charge, but to no avail.17
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.18
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.”20
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.21
Confusion reigned in the secretary of state office over the next two weeks.22 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.23
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.”25
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 app
earances. 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.”30
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
HITLER IN ROME
EARLY 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.4
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.5 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.6 But the consultation had consisted of a letter from Hitler, two days before the invasion, informing him of the imminent action.7
Pius XI was surprised, appalled, and embarrassed by Mussolini’s meek acceptance of the Nazi takeover of Austria. “I am saddened as Pope,” he said, “but I am even more saddened as an Italian.” As for Vienna’s archbishop, the pope was furious at him. “He signed everything they put in front of him, everything they wanted.… And then he added, without any prompting, ‘Heil Hitler!’ ” The archbishops of Salzburg and of Graz had quickly followed Innitzer’s lead. The pontiff offered some choice words about the character defects of the Austrian people, which, he lamented, were unfortunately shared by the clergy there as well.8
On the evening of April 1, a Vatican radio broadcast skewered the Austrian bishops for supporting the Nazi conquest. The following day the Vatican daily added to the criticism, noting that the bishops had prepared their statement without the Vatican’s approval. Pacelli, meeting with the Italian ambassador, called Cardinal Innitzer’s behavior an embarrassment for the Church. The normally unflappable if high-strung Pacelli was visibly angry. Unfortunately, he said, in his job he sometimes had to deal with “people lacking character.”9
But later, when Pacelli spoke with Germany’s ambassador, he was much more circumspect. Bergen complained about Vatican radio’s “inopportune utterances.” Pacelli tried to persuade him that the radio story was “neither official, nor semiofficial, nor inspired by the Vatican, and that the Pope also had nothing to do with it.” Pacelli here was stretching the cherished principle of deniability to its extreme limits, and the German ambassador had good reason to realize he was lying. The radio station was a project of the pope, who had enlisted the Nobel Prize–winning Guglielmo Marconi to help design it. With Marconi at his side, the pope had inaugurated it in 1931, his half-hour address—in Latin—reaching both sides of the Atlantic.10
In Pacelli, the German ambassador thought, he had an ally. “The Cardinal added in confidence,” Bergen reported back to Berlin, “that after this unpleasant surprise he would try to institute some control over the Vatican station. The Cardinal repeatedly protested his fervent wish for peace with Germany.”11
The pope summoned Innitzer to the Vatican. Vienna’s archbishop said he would arrive on the afternoon of April 5 but would need to leave the next morning as he had an appointment with Hitler that he did not want to miss.12 Indignant, the pope sent word that he was not in the habit of having a cardinal dictate his schedule. Innitzer would return to Austria only when he chose to let him.13
At their meeting, Pius told Innitzer that his behavior was disgraceful and instructed him to sign a retraction of his statement praising the new regime. “The solemn declaration of the Austrian bishops of March 18,” the statement began, “was clearly not intended to express approval of that which was not and is not in keeping with God’s law, with the freedom and rights of the Catholic Church.” It stressed that Austria’s concordat with the Vatican had to be respected, and that Austria’s children should be free to receive a Catholic education. The text, the German ambassador reported, was “wrested from Cardinal Innitzer with pressure that can only be termed extortion.” Innitzer, wrote Bergen, “resisted to the utmost, but was able to effect only a few concessions.” The next day the archbishop’s statement was published in the pages of L’Osservatore romano.14
Pius was also upset with Mussolini, who had promised to protect Austria’s independence but then did nothing to stop the Nazi takeover. “The Duce,” remarked the pope to his old friend Eugène Tisserant, “lost his head some time ago.”
“Most Holy Father,” responded the French cardinal, “he lost it, I believe, during his trip to Berlin.”
“He lost it a long time before that,” replied the pontiff.15
Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna, casts his ballot in the Nazi plebiscite, April 10, 1938
(photograph credit 21.1
)
The French increasingly viewed Mussolini and Hitler as kindred spirits, part of the same totalitarian threat to world peace. As French anger mounted at the pope’s support for the Italian dictator, Pius XI became the object of withering criticism. “On one side,” wrote Cardinal Baudrillart in his diary, “in the extremist newspapers, they accuse him of not fulfilling his moral mission and capitulating. On the other, some have mused that he should be offered a temporal state elsewhere (not Avignon) so that he is no longer at the mercy of (or an accomplice of) Italy.” He concluded, “How embarrassed Cardinal Pacelli must be! What an end for Pius XI’s reign!”16
IN THE WAKE OF the Nazi takeover of Austria, Mussolini was feeling ill used. Humiliated by the invasion that he had long vowed to prevent, he summoned Tacchi Venturi and told him it was time to put an end to Hitler’s dreams of world domination. Half measures would be of no use, he warned, and hopes that Nazism would somehow simply peaceably fade away were naïve. Something dramatic was required, and it would have to come soon.
Who was in a position to take such action? The one man who could stop Hitler, the Duce told the flabbergasted Jesuit, was the pope. By excommunicating Hitler, he could isolate the Führer and cripple the Nazis.17
What he proposed was so explosive that Tacchi Venturi would not put it in writing. He requested an urgent meeting with the pope, where he told Pius what Mussolini had said.18 Knowing how temperamental Mussolini could be, and in any case not inclined to take such draconian action, the pope never seriously considered following the suggestion.
Curiously, Hitler’s excommunication may once have been officially considered at the Vatican, although there is no evidence that the pope knew anything about it. It was in January 1932, a year before Hitler came to power. The ground for excommunication was neither Hitler’s pagan ideology nor his campaign of race hatred but the fact that he had acted as a witness in a wedding of which the Church disapproved. That month a high German Church official told Italy’s ambassador to Germany that Hitler was in serious trouble with the Vatican. Joseph Goebbels, his acolyte, had gotten married, with Hitler serving as a witness. Goebbels, like Hitler, was Catholic, but the woman he married was not only a divorcée but a Protestant, and the ceremony had been performed by a Protestant pastor. For such a sin, excommunication, reported the high German prelate, was being discussed. If excommunication was in fact considered, the Vatican finally decided against it.19
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