The Pope and Mussolini (67 page)

31.
ASV, AESS, pos. 515, fasc. 523, ff. 8r–9r.

32.
Molony 1977, pp. 190–1; Falconi 1967, p. 187.

33.
The Santucci and Acerbo accounts are reproduced in Pirri 1960.

34.
Sale (2007, pp. 36, 54–55) points out that while a number of historians have identified the January secret meeting between Mussolini and Gasparri as the moment when the decision was made to have Tacchi Venturi become the secret intermediary, there is no clear documentary evidence for this. But by early February Tacchi Venturi was already acting in this role.

35.
Scaduto 1956, p. 47; Maryks 2012, pp. 302–5; Martina 2003, pp. 234–35; Tramontin 1982, p. 631. During the war, Tacchi Venturi regularly contacted police officials to get permission to travel to Switzerland, where Ledóchowski had set up his office. Immediately after the war, he repeatedly contacted Italian government authorities to get permission for Ledóchowski and other Jesuits in exile to return to Rome. Tacchi Venturi’s correspondence with the police officials during and after the war is found in ACS, MI, PS, 1919, b. 1, “Curia Generalizia della Compagnia di Gesù.”

36.
A later briefing by a Fascist police informant inside the Vatican described him as having always been a reactionary, but one whose main aim was to promote the Jesuits’ interests. ACS, MI, DAGR, b. 1320, informatore, Città del Vaticano, 23 aprile 1930.

37.
Amid the huge pile of materials in the papers that Tacchi Venturi left behind at his death is a small postcard. On one side is a picture of the Madonna and baby Jesus. On the other, written in pen, is the date, October 28, 1919, and a short note from Ratti, then in Warsaw, thanking him for the congratulations he had sent on his elevation to the rank of bishop. ARSI, TV, b. 29. On the 1899 meeting, see Maryks 2012, p. 305.

38.
Arnaldo’s wife, according to Mussolini, had gone to Tacchi Venturi for confession. De Begnac 1990, p. 591.

39.
Tisserant 1939, pp. 398–99; Martina 2003, p. 236.

40.
“Comunicazione del Vescovo di Vicenza sulle violenze al clero,” OR, 21 novembre 1922, p. 4. It does not appear that any Fascist was ever excommunicated in these years for violence against the Church.

41.
“Contro un sacerdote giornalista.” OR, 24 novembre 1922, p. 4.

42.
“Partiti e fazioni—Circolo cattolico devastato ad Aosta,” OR, 13 dicembre 1922, p. 4.

43.
“Violenze contro giovani cattolici,” OR, 15 dicembre 1922, p. 4.

44.
“Le violenze contro il clero nel Vicentino,” OR, 20 dicembre 1922, p. 4.

45.
Some examples: “Violenze fasciste a Fabriano,” OR, 10 aprile 1923, p. 4; “Festa missionaria di Piacentino turbata dai fascisti,” OR, 19 aprile 1923, p. 2; “Protesta della Giunta Diocesana di Piacenza,” OR, 20 aprile 1923, p. 2; “Minaccie fasciste contro un Congresso eucaristico,” OR, 16 maggio 1923, p. 4; “I fascisti di Secondigliano distruggono un Circolo cattolico,” OR, 26 maggio 1923, p. 4. In Perin’s (2011, p. 183) analysis of the weekly diocesan press in Veneto, she finds that the papers did not hold Mussolini responsible for the violence. Following the Vatican’s legitimization of Mussolini after his coming to power, this pattern would grow more pronounced.

46.
Sale 2007, pp. 92–94; Pollard 1985, p. 24.

47.
Poggi 1967, p. 21; Casella 1996, pp. 606–7, 620. The pope’s remarks were made in September 1922. The new national Catholic Action president, Luigi Colombo, was just as clear about his job: “I did not follow my personal view,” he recalled later, “but obeyed … the august directives of the Holy Father”; Zambarbieri 1982b, p. 114.

CHAPTER 4: BORN TO COMMAND

1.
OR, 17 marzo 1923, cited in Coppa 1999, p. 89; “Liberalismo in pena,” CC 1923 II pp. 209–18.

2.
“Liberalismo in pena,” CC 1923 II pp. 209–18. Evidence that
L’Osservatore romano
acted only following the pope’s wishes is indirect, but in the context of the dramatic change of Vatican position, any other explanation seems implausible.

3.
Although the Vatican publicly denied that the prelate in question, Monsignor Enrico Pucci, was speaking for anyone other than himself, a later secret briefing for the Fascist police reported that Pucci was at the time “following the precise instruction of the Secretary of State” in publishing the piece. ACS, MI, FP “Pucci,” f. 19, n.d. For a semiofficial denial that the Vatican had any hand in Pucci’s call for Sturzo to resign, see CC 1923 III, p. 184.

4.
The pope made his new request through Gasparri, whose July 5 letter to Tacchi Venturi began: “For reasons that it is unnecessary to enumerate, the Holy Father allowed Don Sturzo to delay his response.… Now, having thought long and hard before God, the Holy Father believes that in Italy’s current circumstances a priest cannot, without causing serious damage to the Church, remain at the direction of a party—indeed directing the opposition of all the parties against the government—to the delight of the masonry as is well known.” ASV, AESI, pos. 617, fasc. 50, f. 5, Gasparri a Tacchi Venturi, 5 luglio 1923. These documents have been discussed and quoted extensively in Sale 2007, pp. 80–84.

5.
Quoted in Sale 2007, p. 82.

6.
On receiving the pope’s orders, Sturzo had called an emergency meeting of the PPI directorate, scheduled for July 10, and he did not want word of his decision to get out before he could inform its members.

7.
Down to arranging the exact hour when news of Sturzo’s resignation would be made public. ASV, AESI, pos. 617, fasc. 50, ff. 14–15. Tacchi Venturi was also eager to get a promise from Mussolini that Don Sturzo would not be harmed.

8.
Sale 2007, pp. 69–70.

9.
Molony 1977, pp. 172–73; Bedeschi 1973.

10.
Sale 2007, pp. 74–75.

11.
Beyens 1934, pp. 167–69.

12.
Navarra 2004, p. 42.

13.
Baima Bollone 2007, pp. 24–26.

14.
E. Mussolini 1957, p. 121.

15.
R. Mussolini 1974, p. 96.

16.
Ibid.

17.
Milza 2000, pp. 354–55.

18.
Festorazzi 2010, pp. 74–77.

19.
Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, pp. 273–74; E. Mussolini 1957, p. 32; Navarra 2004, p. 48.

20.
Quoted in De Felice 1966, pp. 472–73.

21.
Monelli (1953, p. 102) describes the Cremona rally. Gentile (1993, pp. 160–72; 2001) is the most influential scholar examining the use of symbol, ritual, and myth by the Fascist regime. For more on how and why ritual is so important to political movements, see Kertzer 1988.

22.
Gentile 1993, pp. 281–82.

23.
Beyens 1934, p. 245.

24.
DDI, series 7, vol. 2, n. 155, Mussolini a Gentile, 1 agosto 1923; Talbot 2007, p. 27; Sale 2007, pp. 37, 96; Gentile 2010, p. 107; Milza 2000, p. 432.

25.
ASV, AESI, pos. 573, fasc. 22, 15, 25 settembre 1923, quoted in Sale 2007, pp. 320–22.

26.
CC 1924 I, p. 175, which also contains the excerpt from
Il Popolo d’Italia
.

27.
Sale 2007, p. 333; CC 1924 I, p. 80.

28.
Including raising the annual government payments to bishops from 6,000 to 12,000 lire per year and raising the payments to parish priests from 1,500 to 2,500 lire. CC 1924 II, p. 82.

29.
Ebner 2011, p. 38.

30.
Quoted in Sale 2007, p. 130.

31.
Ibid., pp. 134–37. The printed circular is found at ASV, AESI, pos. 617, fasc. 50, ff. 30r, 30v; the handwritten note not to send is at f. 47r.

32.
Chiron 2006, p. 152; Confalonieri 1957, p. 172.

33.
Lazzarini 1937, pp. 309–10. Lazzarini does not give the date of Carrère’s visit but says he came shortly after publication of
Le Pape
, which was published in 1924.

34.
Confalonieri 1957, p. 172; Charles-Roux 1947, p. 14.

35.
Chiron 2006, p. 151.

36.
Durand 2010. Merry del Val’s comment, made in 1927, was reported back to the pope, who summoned him for a humiliating dressing down. “The pope,” he wrote in his account of the meeting, “treated me as if I were a little schoolboy.” Durand 2010, pp. 48–49.

CHAPTER 5: RISING FROM THE TOMB

1.
Giacomo Matteotti, “Discorso alla Camera dei Deputati di denuncia di brogli elettorali” (1924),
http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Italia_-_30_maggio_1924,_Discorso_alla_Camera_dei_Deputati_di_denuncia_di_brogli_elettorali
.

2.
Milza 2000, pp. 365–7; De Felice 1966, p. 620. For a thorough consideration of the Matteotti murder and its aftermath, see Canali 2004b.

3.
Milza 2000, p. 370; CC 1924 III, pp. 80–89.

4.
De Felice 1966, p. 630.

5.
Milza 2000, p. 378.

6.
De Felice 1966, p. 644. Later, thinking back to those weeks after the killing, Mussolini recalled “I had the sense in those days, the sense of isolation, because the halls of Palazzo Chigi, normally so crowded, were deserted as if a blast, a storm had passed through it.”

7.
Navarra 2004, pp. 25–27.

8.
Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 295.

9.
CC 1924 III, pp. 85–87.

10.
ASMAE, Gab., b. 32, Tacchi-Venturi a Mussolini, 27 giugno 1924.

11.
Baima Bollone 2007, p. 96.

12.
Sale 2007, p. 162.

13.
Ibid., pp. 162–68.

14.
In late June, speaking on behalf of the opposition, a Popular Party deputy called on the king to name a new prime minister to restore democratic freedoms and put an end to private armed groups; CC 1924 III, pp. 179–80. In mid-July the party’s provincial leaders met in Rome, where they agreed on a plan. The alternative to the Fascists, they insisted, was not the traumatic government paralysis and chaos of 1922, as Mussolini’s supporters were arguing, but a solid coalition of
popolari
, disaffected liberals, and democratic socialists. See Ferrari 1957, p. 70; Sale 2007, pp. 169–71.

15.
ASMAE, Gab., b. 32, Tacchi Venturi a Mussolini, 20 luglio, 1924; ibid., Paulucci de’ Calboli a Tacchi Venturi, 22 luglio 1924. Mussolini’s handwritten note was scrawled atop Tacchi Venturi’s cover letter to his secretary, Baron Paulucci de’ Calboli. Ibid., Tacchi Venturi a Paulucci de’ Calboli, 20 luglio 1924.

16.
The detailed and unusual account of the close control that the pope exercised is found in a document in Felice Rinaldi, S.J., “Resoconto della stesura dell’articolo ‘La parte dei cattolici nelle presenti lotte dei partiti politici in Italia,’ ” 11 agosto 1924, in the
Civiltà cattolica
archives, published in Sale 2007, pp. 477–78. See also Sale’s discussion at pp. 172–82.

17.
“La parte dei cattolici nelle presenti lotte dei partiti politici in Italia,” CC 1924 III, pp. 297–306.