4. Quoted in Starr 1939, p. 118. On May 27 Turin’s La Stampa quoted the same lines from Belloc’s book, in a prominent anti-Semitic article warning of the Jewish danger. “Il numero e il denaro,” La Stampa, 27 maggio 1937, p. 1. It was clipped and saved by the Vatican secretary of state office. ASV, AESI, b. 1031, fasc. 717, f. 88r.
5. The Jesuit journal then discussed a significant recent book, Israel, son passé, son avenir, by a distinguished Dutch Catholic, Herrmann De Vries. After their exile, De Vries wrote, the Jews had historically passed through five periods that were continually repeated as they were thrown out of one country and fled to another. First the Jews were welcomed; then they were tolerated. In the third period they got richer, causing others to grow envious. This resulted in a popular reaction against them, which led to the fifth stage, an attempt to exterminate them or drive them out.
6. “La questione giudaica e il sionismo,” CC 1937 II, pp. 418–31.
7. CC 1938 I, p. 460. The next month La Civiltà cattolica renewed its warning of the Jewish drive for world domination. It contrasted good early Judaism, which had given rise to Christianity, with current Judaism, “in reality a profoundly corrupt religion.” It informed its readers that “the fatal mania for financial and political world domination … is the true and deep cause that makes Judaism a fount of disorder and a permanent danger to the world.” Defensive action was necessary. The best path would be to follow the popes’ traditional blend of charity with “prudence and opportune measures, that is, a form of segregation appropriate to our times.” The next month the journal reminded its readers that “the Jews have brought on themselves in every time, and still today, people’s just aversion with their all too frequent abuses of power and with their hatred toward Christ himself, his religion, and his Catholic Church.” “La ‘teoria moderna delle razze’ impugnata da un acattolico,” CC 1938 III, pp. 62–71, quote on p. 68.
8. Monsignor Orlandi’s article, “L’invasione ebraica anche in Italia” (L’Amico del Clero, vol. 20, no. 3, 1938), is quoted extensively in Miccoli 1988, p. 866.
9. Mario Barbera, “La questione dei giudei in Ungheria,” CC 1938 III, pp. 146–53. On April 12, 1938, the papal nuncio in Budapest sent Pacelli a report on the new laws, which set quotas for Jewish participation in the professions, in finance, and in business. Concerned, he noted that the new law treated as Jews all those Jewish converts to Catholicism who had been baptized after 1919, along with their children who had been baptized at birth. The University Student Association, to which most Catholic university students in Hungary belonged, had added a clause to its bylaws stating that it “does not view as unconditionally Hungarian the baptized Jew and his descendants.” In early May, Cardinal Pacelli replied to the nuncio, sharing his concern: “The overly general judgment that they would like to give to the insincerity of the conversions from Judaism to Christianity that have taken place since 1919 seems strange and arbitrary and in contrast with the spirit of generosity of the Hungarian people.” Pacelli concluded, “In particular, it is to be hoped that, while protecting the just interests of the Magyar nation, this Government does not stoop to measures of excessive severity against the Jews and that the Hungarian Catholics in these circumstances show reasonable moderation in this work.” ASV, AESU, b. 77, fasc. 57, ff. 6r–9v, Angelo Rotta, nunzio, a Pacelli, Budapest, 12 aprile 1938; ibid., ff. 10r–10v, Pacelli a Rotta, 8 maggio 1938.
10. Maiocchi 2003; Bottai 2001, p. 125; Gillette 2001, 2002a, 2002b.
11. At a diplomatic dinner on July 18, Bottai (2001, p. 125) raised the subject of the manifesto with Mussolini, who explained with great emotion, “I’ve had enough of hearing people saying that a race that has given the world Dante, Machiavelli, Raffaello, Michelangelo is of African origin.”
12. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, pp. 218–19. Mussolini’s foremost French biographer portrayed Sarfatti as the single most important influence in his postwar conversion to the idea of championing a nationalist revolution led by young war veterans. When he first became prime minister, she helped convince him he could be Italy’s new Caesar. Milza 2000, pp. 257, 354. On Sarfatti’s influence on Mussolini, see also Urso 2003.
13. Festorazzi 2010, p. 96; Navarra 2004, p. 68.
14. Ludwig 1933, pp. 69–70. But following Mussolini’s September 1937 visit to Germany and his tightening alliance with the Führer, Italian Jews began to worry that he might try to imitate Hitler’s anti-Semitic campaign. Ciano, receiving agitated requests from Italian Jews, noted that the Germans had never raised the issue with him. “Nor do I believe that it would be in our interest to unleash an anti-Semitic campaign in Italy. The problem does not exist here. They are few and, apart from some exceptions, good.” Ciano 2002, p. 32. As late as February 1938, Mussolini wrote a note for the Italian foreign ministry denying that the government was planning an anti-Semitic campaign. DDI, series 8, vol. 8, n. 162, “Nota n. 14 dell’informazione diplomatica,” 16 febbraio 1938.
15. Grandi 1985, pp. 443–44. But Rauscher (2004, p. 225) asserts that during Mussolini’s 1937 visit to Germany, he let Hitler know he would soon be introducing anti-Semitic measures in Italy.
16. Many works discuss the question of how Mussolini’s 1938 anti-Semitic campaign came about. Fabre (2005) argues that Mussolini was always anti-Semitic. But De Felice (1981, pp. 312–13) maintains that he never really was an anti-Semite; only with the Ethiopian war did he become convinced that an international Jewish conspiracy was organizing against him, whereupon he began down the path of a “political” anti-Semitism. For other perspectives, see Israel 2010, pp. 159–70; Matard Bonucci 2008; and Vivarelli 2009, p. 748.
17. CC 1938 III, pp. 275–78.
18. The Civiltà Cattolica writer was Father Angelo Brucculeri. Among the other Catholic publications republishing Bruccleri’s praise of the new racial policy was La Settimana religiosa, the diocesan weekly of Venice. Perin 2011, pp. 200–1.
19. “Il fascismo e i problemi della razza,” OR, 16 luglio 1938, p. 2. On the Brucculeri article, see Miccoli 1988, p. 871. Manzini was the editor of L’Osservatore romano from 1960 to 1978; De Cesaris 2010, p. 139. The Roman Catholic Church’s embrace of anti-Semitism is heatedly debated. Many seek to draw a sharp line between the Church’s religiously based “anti-Judaism” and the racially based “anti-Semitism” that led to the Holocaust; I deal with this debate in Kertzer 2001. La Civiltà cattolica and the rest of the Italian Catholic press in these years commonly referred to Jews as a “race.” Typically, in a pastoral letter for Easter 1938, the patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Adeodato Piazza, branded the Jews as a “race” collectively responsible for having murdered Jesus. Condemned to wander the earth, he claimed, they were “implicated in the shadiest sects, from masonry to Bolshevism.” Quoted in Perin 2011, pp. 216–17.
20. A government wiretap picked up the call. ACS, MCPG, b. 166, wiretap n. 5102, Roma, 14 luglio 1938. The conversation was in German.
21. Examples of German press enthusiasm for the new Italian racial campaign, reported to the Italian Holy See desk, can found at ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, “Servizio speciale,” Monaco, 15 luglio 1938.
22. ACS, MCPG, b. 151, ministro di cultura popolare a Mussolini, 19 luglio 1938.
23. Curiously, in 1933 the interviewer Emil Ludwig, upon seeing Mussolini close up, thought of the resemblance he bore to Borgia: “Now he sat facing me across a table. The condottiere Cesare Borgia, whom I had once portrayed in a Roman palace, the hero of the Romagna, seems to have been resurrected, though he wore a dark lounge suit and a black necktie.” Ludwig 1933, p. 23.
24. The pope’s instructions were conveyed to Borgongini through Pacelli. The Borgia pope had previously been the subject of vigorous Vatican attempts at censorship. In 1934 the pope learned that the play Caterina Sforza, which portrayed Alexander VI in all his corruption, was to open in Rome in April. He dispatched Tacchi Venturi to stop it. The government had the playwright entirely cut the first scene and radically cut another that was deemed offensive to the Church
. ASV, AESI, pos. 855, fasc. 549, ff. 4r–24r.
25. ASV, ANI, pos. 47, fasc. 2, ff. 124r–129r.
26. Ibid., ff. 132r–134r, Tacchi Venturi a Tardini, 15 giugno 1938.
27. Pacelli’s letter, sent to Borgongini, expressed his pleasure at receipt of such good news.
ASV, ANI, pos. 47, fasc. 2, ff. 135r–136r, Pacelli a Borgongini, 22 giugno 1938. Catholic Action continued to play a major role in alerting police to books, magazines, plays, and films that the Church deemed objectionable. The national organization sent the diocesan morality secretariats detailed instructions on how to operate a network of informants, to ensure that no offensive work escaped police attention. ASV, AESI, pos. 773, fasc. 356, ff. 104r–115r. As for the publisher Rizzoli, he would survive and go on to create a publishing and bookstore empire—and in the postwar years would again run afoul of the Vatican. In 1960 he produced a film, La Dolce Vita, directed by Federico Fellini, that would be condemned by L’Osservatore romano and initially censored in Italy.
28. NARA, M1423, reel 1, n. 991, William Phillips to U.S. secretary of state, Washington, “Physical Fitness Tests for High Fascist Party Officials,” July 7, 1938.
29. Petacci 2010, pp. 131, 370.
30. In particular, Pacelli told Pignatti, nothing should be done to prevent a marriage between a Catholic convert from Judaism and another Catholic. Pacelli had reason to worry, because the 1935 Nuremberg Laws had instituted just such a measure in Germany. Pacelli quoted the language of the concordat, which specified that Church marriages were to be regarded as civilly valid, and he reminded Ciano that “Canon Law recognizes as valid marriage between baptized individuals (Canon 1012) regardless of any other consideration.” ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, Pignatti al ministro degli affari esteri, 20 luglio 1938.
31. ASMAE, APSS, b. 40, Pignatti, “Notizie sulla salute del Pontefice,” telespresso n. 1818/678, 11 luglio 1938. Pucci based his description of the pope’s health on his conversation with Father Gemelli, who had recently visited the pope.
32. DDI, series 8, vol. 9, n. 336, Pignatti a Ciano, 26 luglio 1938.
33. Ibid., n. 337, Pignatti a Ciano, 26 luglio 1938.
34. “La parola del Sommo Pontefice Pio XI agli alunni del Collegio di Propaganda Fide,” OR, 20 luglio 1938, p. 1, republished in CC 1938 III, pp. 371–76.
35. ASV, AESI, pos. 1054, fasc. 732, f. 19r.
36. Ciano 2002, p. 113 (July 30, 1938). Borgongini told Italy’s ambassador to the Holy See that the Church had always discouraged interracial marriages, recognizing that the “crossbreeds” who resulted “combine the defects of both races.” As for the anti-Semitic campaign, what upset the pope was not the prospect of government action against the Jews but that Italy might follow Germany in treating Catholic converts as if they were Jews. Pignatti made no direct response, simply reassuring the nuncio that the Italian racial campaign would be different from the Nazis’. ASV, AESI, pos. 1054, fasc. 728, ff. 46r–48r, Borgongini a Pacelli, 2 agosto 1938. The next day Borgongini recounted the conversation directly to the pope.
37. ASMAE, AISS, b. 115, Pignatti a Ciano, 31 luglio 1938.
38. Quoted in Papin 1977, p. 62.
39. “In recent memory,” Ledóchowski noted, “there was no case of a pope who had lost his reason.” ASMAE, Gab. b. 1186, Pignatti a Ciano, 5 agosto 1938.
40. Ibid.
CHAPTER 23: THE SECRET DEAL
1. CC 1938 III, pp. 377–78.
2. ASV, AESI, pos. 1007c, fasc. 695, ff. 70r–75r, “Progetto di una lettera del S. Padre a Mussolini circa Ebrei e Azione Cattolica,” agosto 1938.
3. Eager to placate Pignatti, Pacelli told him that the pope had just sent Tacchi Venturi with a message for Mussolini. While it lamented the recent violence against Catholic Action, it did so respectfully, with “expressions of great admiration and deference for the Duce.” ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, Pignatti a Ciano, 6 agosto 1938.
4. From Pignatti’s August 8, 1938 report, quoted by Casella 2010, pp. 268–69.
5. The piece quotes Mussolini justifying the anti-Semitic campaign at length, including his remarks that “to say that Fascism has imitated someone or something else is simply absurd.… No one can doubt that the time is ripe for Italian racism.” The journal offered no comment on the Duce’s remarks. CC 1938 III, pp. 376–78.
6. The Jesuits worked best, advised Pignatti, when they were able “to exercise that secret action of which they are masters.” ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, Pignatti a Ciano, 7 agosto 1938.
7. But Ciano was more optimistic, believing that those around the pope were beginning to get through to him. “As for the matter of race, the pope, who now knows the real terms of the problem,” he wrote that day in his diary, “is beginning to yield.” Ciano 2002, p. 113.
8. Farinacci charged that it was Cardinal Pizzardo who had persuaded the pope to criticize the racial campaign. On August 3, Farinacci repeated the accusation in a letter to Mussolini. He concluded by asking Mussolini: “Dear President, is it true that the pope’s mother is a Jew?” He added, “If it is true, what a laugh!” ACS, CR, b. 44, Roberto Farinacci, direttore, Il Regime fascista, Cremona, a Mussolini, 3 agosto 1938. Farinacci had likely picked up the allegation that the pope was Jewish from the German press, which was circulating such stories at the time.
9. ASV, AESI, pos. 1060, fasc. 749, ff. 14r–21r, Monsignor Giovanni Cazzani, vescovo di Cremona, a Farinacci, 17 agosto 1938.
10. ASV, AESI, pos. 1060, fasc. 749, ff. 22r–26r, Farinacci a Cazzani, 18 agosto 1938.
11. Fabre (2012, pp. 109–10) has recently published and analyzed this text, found in Tacchi Venturi’s papers. ARSI, TV, f. 2143.
12. ASV, AESI, pos. 1007c, fasc. 695, ff. 37r–39r, “Nota da me presentato al Duce la sera di venerdì 12 Agosto,” Tacchi Venturi, 12 agosto 1938.
13. Sarfatti 2006, pp. 19–41; Sarfatti 2005, pp. 67–68. By 1938 roughly 21 percent of the Jews living in Italy were refugees from other countries, seeking to escape persecution.
14. ASV, AESI, pos. 1054, fasc. 730, ff. 40r–41r. Years before the Vatican archives for the papacy of Pius XI were opened, Father Angelo Martini, S.J., was given access and reported the existence of this document. Although he quoted its text (Martini 1963), he gave little background and judged it “unfortunately so generic as not to inspire confidence.” Miccoli (1988, pp. 847–48), in reporting Martini’s finding and his comment, and not at the time having access to the archive, noted its significance and disagreed with Martini’s attempt to minimize it. Only with the 2006 opening of the Vatican archives did the document, and those surrounding it, become available and its full import visible. De Cesaris (2010, pp. 160–61) argues that the document must have been drafted by Mussolini or someone close to him in the government and not by Tacchi Venturi or anyone from the Vatican. I find his attempt to distance the pope and the Vatican from the proposal to be unconvincing. The document closely reflects proposals the pope had been making to Mussolini in the days preceding it.
15. “Gli Ebrei ed il Concilio Vaticano,” OR, 14 agosto 1938, p. 2. I use the English translation provided by the American ambassador, who lamented the fact that the Vatican seemed to have decided not to object to the racial campaign in Italy. NARA, M1423, reel 12, Ambassador William Phillips to U.S. secretary of state, “Progress of Racial Movement in Italy,” August 19, 1938. For an examination of the correspondence between the U.S. secretary of state and the Italian ambassador regarding the pope’s reaction to the Italian anti-Semitic campaign, see Kertzer and Visani 2012.
16. Fabre (2012, p. 119), who has provided the most comprehensive study of the August 16 agreement, comes to the same conclusion about the reason for the pope’s outburst.
17. ASV, AESI, pos. 1007c, fasc. 695, ff. 41r–42r, handwritten unsigned three-page memo, 18 agosto 2011. Later in the month, discussing the conflict with the government over Catholic Action in a conversation with members of the French embassy, Tardini held Mussolini blameless. The fault, he argued, lay with the “left wing” of the Fascist Party, especial
ly Party head Achille Starace. MAEI, vol. 267, 126, Charles-Roux à Bonnet, 29 août 1938.
18. MAEI, vol. 267, 94, Charles-Roux, 17 août 1938; and ibid., 95–96, 18 août 1938.
19. MAEI, vol. 267, 97, Charles-Roux, 18 août 1938. The minister added that they should not worry about the pope’s Propaganda Fide remarks, as they did not reflect the Vatican position on the racial campaign; they were simply the product of a moment when the elderly pope had happened to be in a bad mood. Tranfaglia 2005, p. 151.
20. MAEI, vol. 267, 102–3, Charles-Roux, 20 août 1938.
21. “Pope and Fascists Reach New Accord on Catholic Action,” NYT, August 21, 1938, p. 1. A similar story in the Los Angeles Times that day began, “Through the good offices of a 77-year-old Jesuit priest, Pietro Tacchi Venturi, Premier Mussolini and Pope Pius XI have again smoothed over the differences between the Catholic Church and the Fascist party.” “Pope and Duce Renew Peace,” LAT, August 21, 1938, p. 2.
22. “Circa le relazioni tra l’Azione Cattolica Italiana e il Partito Nazionale Fascista,” OR, 25 agosto 1938, p. 1. The Messaggero clipping is found at AESI, pos. 1007c, fasc. 695, f. 64r. The last-minute flurry of negotiations involving the pope and the Italian government is chronicled in the report by Cossato. ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, Cossato, 23 agosto 1938; and ibid., 24 agosto 1938.
23. ASV, AESS, pos. 430, fasc. 355, f. 70, 27 agosto 1938.
24. ASMAE, AISS, b. 102, Cossato, 22 agosto 1938.
25. He summoned Tacchi Venturi to tell the pope how angry he was. Mussolini’s meeting with the Jesuit was on his calendar for seven-thirty P.M. on August 22. ACS, CO, b. 3136.
The Pope and Mussolini Page 56
