The Pope and Mussolini (68 page)

18.
Gasparri did, later confiding to the Belgian ambassador that he had no idea what use the women made of them. Beyens 1934, pp. 235–36.

19.
Quoted in Sale 2007, p. 182–83. The pope’s remarks provoked outrage from anti-Fascists, both in Italy and abroad. Some argued that in opining on such political matters, he spoke not with the infallibility of a pontiff, but only as a man offering a personal opinion. A week later
L’Osservatore romano
struck back. The pope’s words, the Vatican daily informed the Catholic world, constituted a “categorical directive.” Those who claimed that Catholics were free to follow their conscience in the matter were gravely mistaken; quoted in Sale 2007, p. 184.

20.
As it happened, the lessons were conducted at a Calmodese abbey across the Tuscan border from the Mussolinis’ summer house in Romagna, where the elderly Cardinal Vannutelli was spending his summer vacation. Before long, Mussolini arrived for a family visit and sought out Vannutelli. He asked the cardinal if, immediately after the abbey’s Father Major administered first communion to the children, he would personally preside over their confirmation. And so it was that on September 8 the Mussolini children took first communion in the morning and the cardinal administered confirmation around noon. Vannutelli’s letter, from the Vatican Secret Archives, is reproduced in Sale 2007, pp. 345–46.

21.
Curiously, rather than communicate the decision to Sturzo directly, on September 16 Gasparri wrote to Sturzo’s brother, a bishop in Sicily, telling him what was “the desire, nay the command of the Holy Father,” and asking him to let Don Sturzo know the pope’s decision. This the indignant brother refused to do, leaving Gasparri to find another way to inform the former PPI head.

22.
The Vatican Secretary of State archives have a handwritten receipt dated October 17 from Sturzo’s lawyer, acknowledging the ten thousand lire that Monsignor Pizzardo had given him to cover the expenses of Sturzo’s trip abroad. While grateful for the funds, Sturzo thought it would be more useful to have the money in British pounds, and a second handwritten note, this from Sturzo himself, dated October 20, informed Pizzardo that he would send his same emissary back the next day to exchange the currency. ASV, AESI, pos. 617, fasc. 50, ff. 26r, 27r; Molony 1977, p. 192.

23.
Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 296; Monelli 1953, p. 109; De Felice 1966, p. 716.

24.
Here I build on De Felice’s (1966, p. 717; 1968, pp. 50–51) interpretation.

CHAPTER 6: THE DICTATORSHIP

1.
Exact numbers for membership in the Fascist militia, known as the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (Voluntary Militia for National Security, or MVSN), are not available, given the difference between those who were effectively organized in the militia and those enrolled on paper, but it would seem that there were well over one hundred thousand effective members and perhaps two or three times that number.

2.
Milza 2000, pp. 386–87.

3.
Fornari 1971, pp. 101–11.

4.
Tacchi Venturi’s draft letter to Mussolini, dated September 18, 1925, is found in an uninventoried series of documents in the CC archives and published in Sale 2007, pp. 364–65. I did not find the original or any copy of this letter in Mussolini’s own archives at the Central State Archives, so there is no proof I am aware of that it was sent. Franzinelli (1998, p. 45) reports the wedding date. Milza (2000, p. 401) reports on Rachele Mussolini’s lack of enthusiasm at being belatedly baptized. The account of the wedding is from R. Mussolini 1974, pp. 123–24.

5.
Typical was his June 21, 1925, speech to the national congress of the PNF: “Those who have the responsibility for leading a revolution are like the generals responsible for conducting a war”; Discorsi di Benito Mussolini, “Discorso del 21 giugno 1925,”
http://www.dittatori.it/discorso21giugno1925.htm
.

6.
Quoted in Baima Bollone 2007, p. 28.

7.
That the powerful Duce did not intimidate Farinacci is clear from the
ras
’s reply the next day. “This morning your messenger brought me one of your usual ‘epistolary tantrums,’ ” wrote Farinacci. “I have fulfilled the engagements made at Rome, and you amaze me by saying I did not keep my promises.… The trial has become political? But this was known long ago; otherwise I would not be at Chieti.”

8.
Fornari 1971, pp. 119–25, 135. The U.S. State Department files in the National Archives contain an intriguing series of documents from 1934 that offer a curious epilogue to the trial of Matteotti’s murderers. Amerigo Dumini, the ringleader of the murder, had sent a sealed package to a San Antonio lawyer, telling him that his life was in danger from certain enemies, naming Arturo Bocchini, national head of the Italian police, as principal among them. Dumini said that the ability to let it be known that the documents in the packet would be opened in case of his death could save him from assassination. The lawyer, not knowing who Dumini was, asked his friend, a Texas U.S. senator, to find out. In response to the senator’s request, the U.S. consul in Florence sent back a report to the State Department, informing it of Dumini’s role in the Matteotti murder. The State Department regarded the consul’s letter as too sensitive to send on to the Texas lawyer. Instead, it briefed the senator on the report and had him discreetly let the lawyer know what he was dealing with. NARA, M1423, reel 1, Arnold Cozey, San Antonio, to Joseph Haven, U.S. Consul in Florence, March 1, 1934; et seq.

9.
Urso (2003, pp. 160–65) discusses Sarfatti’s role in introducing the theme of
romanità
and in crafting the cult of the Duce. The book had been first published outside Italy the previous year with a different title.

10.
Duce is pronounced
DOO-chay
.

11.
Quoted in Falasca-Zamponi 1997, pp. 64–65.

12.
Quoted in Baima Bollone 2007, p. 78.

13.
O. Russell,
Annual Report 1925
, April 21, 1926, C 5004/5004/22, in Hachey 1972, pp. 74, 77–78, sections 3, 14–18; Chaline 1996, p. 162; Agostino 1991, pp. 44–45; Morgan 1939, p. 205.

14.
ACS, MI, DAGRA, b. 129, Vice Questore, Borgo, al Signor Questore, 21 gennaio 1925; Venini 2004, pp. 24–25.

15.
“You are not fully Christian,” the pope pronounced on April 21, the birthday of Rome, “unless you are Catholic, and you are not fully Catholic unless you are Roman.” See Baxa 2006, p. 116.

16.
In the middle of the Holy Year, Cardinal Merry del Val, fearful that Pius XI was being infected by the thousands of pilgrims who got the privilege of kissing his hand, reportedly proposed, and the pope agreed, that he wear gloves in the future. A. C. Jacobson, M.D., “To Guard the Hands that Pious Pilgrims Kiss,” WP, November 15, 1925, p. SM8.

17.
The Pontifical Gendarmes consisted of a hundred men, with five officers, who with the Swiss Guards policed the Vatican.

18.
Bosworth 2011, p. 180.

19.
Father Martina (1978, pp. 226–27), one of the Church’s foremost historians, characterizes the pope’s vision, as expressed in
Quas primas
, as anachronistic. See also Bouthillon 1996; Verucci 1988, pp. 35–37; Chiron 2006, pp. 233–34.

20.
Quas primas
, English translation at
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas_en.html
. The quote is from paragraph 33. (There are 34 paragraphs in all.)

21.
“Lutherans to Fight Papal Feast Edict,” NYT, March 21, 1926, p. 12.

22.
Seldes (1934, p. 128) reports this as fact, although it admittedly has the ring of the apocryphal.

23.
Beatrice Baskerville, “How the Pope Spends His 24 Hours,” BG, November 1, 1925, p. C5.

24.
This episode is reported by the “noted Vatican informer,” who added that the pope was an “insensitive egoist.” ACS, MCPG, b. 155, 20 marzo 1926. In an otherwise admiring profile in the
Boston Globe
, the author similarly reported that “Prelates who were attached to Benedict XV think Pius XI somewhat cold.” Baskerville, “How the Pope Spends,” p. C5.

25.
These reports, written by Mussolini’s informants, can now be found in the Central State Archives in Rome. The informants were not above peddling unconfirmed gossip or trying to besmirch the reputation of those they disliked. But as a result of the Fascist spy network that they constituted, we have a picture of the power struggles, backbiting, personality conflicts, and scandals in the Vatican that is richer than for any other period in history. Among the new police agencies that were added, the most feared was the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA), a kind of elite political spy force. Fiorentino 1999; Canali 2004a. For more on the repressive measures introduced in 1925–26, see among many other sources Milza 2000, pp. 394–96; Gentile 2002, p. 153–54; CC 1926 IV, pp. 459–65, 560.

26.
ACS, MCPG, b. 155, n.d. [1926]. The “noted Vatican informer” filled his reports with accounts of prelates’ complaints about the pope’s imperious personality and his rude treatment of them. Typical is one from October 28, 1927: “A Monsignor who often has occasion to talk with the Pope told me that, as time goes on, the Pope becomes increasingly frightful and authoritarian, and therefore one is afraid to speak with him.” ACS, MCPG, b. 156.

27.
Ambassador Eugène Beyens, 10 février 1925, quoted in Ruysschaert 1996, pp. 252–53; Beyens 1934, pp. 286–87.

28.
Cesare Pasini, “Il bibliotecario con la pistola,” OR, 19–20 novembre 2007, p. 5.

29.
De Felice 1968, pp. 200–1; Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, pp. 326–27. Gibson apparently intended to kill the pope after she had shot Mussolini.

30.
Baima Bollone 2007, p. 53.

31.
“Mussolini si è salvato per un vero miracolo!”
Il Regime fascista
, 9 aprile 1926, p. 1.

32.
Within hours of the attack, Tacchi Venturi was at Palazzo Chigi, carrying the pope’s personal expression of gratitude. ARSI, TV, b. 7, fasc. 431, Tacchi Venturi a Monsignor Pizzardo, 11 settembre 1926; De Felice 1968, p. 202.

33.
De Felice 1968, pp. 204–8.

34.
The message was delivered through Tacchi Venturi. DDI, series 1, vol. 4, n. 473, Grandi, Roma, a Mussolini, a Forlì, 1 novembre 1926.

35.
Censorship had begun before this, but was less repressive. A July 15, 1923, law gave police the authority to fire newspaper editors and sequester copies of their newspapers if they published anything deemed injurious to Italy’s reputation or offensive to the king, pope, or Catholic Church. See Talbot 2007, p. 27.

36.
La Civiltà cattolica
expressed its approval, while without comment, the Vatican daily reported the minister of justice’s speech to parliament, including his words affirming the support of the Catholic Church for the measure. CC 1926 IV, pp. 459–62; Rogari 1977, p. 174.

CHAPTER 7: ASSASSINS, PEDERASTS, AND SPIES

1.
One of the more notable of these requests came in July 1928. Alcide De Gasperi—who had replaced Don Sturzo as head of the PPI and would become Italy’s prime minister following the Second World War—was arrested in 1927 for attempting to leave the country without permission and was jailed. Released in an amnesty the following year, he was told not to leave Rome. Eager to join his wife and children in their family home in northeastern Italy, he prepared an appeal to Mussolini. As De Gasperi was a well-known anti-Fascist, his friends convinced him that Mussolini would reject his plea unless he could get Tacchi Venturi to deliver it personally. Reluctantly, De Gasperi asked for the Jesuit’s assistance, but the pope’s emissary refused to help him. As De Gasperi explained in a handwritten note scribbled in the margin of his typed appeal to the Duce: “Not accepted by Father Tacchi because it contains no thanks for the amnesty and lacks any words of homage!” See De Gasperi 2004, p. 94.