Fresco in the Church of the Madonna della Difesa
Mussolini on the Church
Perhaps the most insidious of the lies that have been brought against Mussolini propose that he and the ideology of Fascism were against the Catholic Faith. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A major component of the Fascist program of restoration was a genuine (and successful) attempt to reconcile the national government of Italy with the Catholic Church. The Pope had been unjustifiably robbed of the last of his temporal holdings in 1870 by the Piedmontese under the premise of Risorgimento, or Italian unification. In reality, this was a smokescreen to subject the Holy See to a politically Liberal nation backed by the forces of Freemasonry and the Rothschild banking clan. The unwillingness of Pope Bl. Pius IX and his successors to submit to the questionable “Law of Guarantees”, along with the continued occupation of Rome by the new government created a rift that continued until the Fascist rapprochement.
Mussolini, recalling his response to the death of Pope Benedict XV, makes his stance clear in this excerpt:
I had already on various occasions disclosed to the Fascisti, who I considered and consider always to be the moral aristocracy of Italy, that our religious ideal had in itself moral attributes of first importance. I had affirmed the necessity to condemn the unfruitful conception, absurd and artificial, of affected or vicious anti-clericalism.
(149)
Furthermore, he rightfully saw in this effort of rehabilitation between Church and State that a “war without quarter” (151) had to be waged against the originators of this anti-clerical spirit, the odious sect of Freemasonry. This excerpt is one of several in which he denounces the Lodge:
Let us not forget that the masons of Italy have always represented a distortion, not only in political life, but in spiritual concepts. All the strength of masonry was directed against the papal policies, but this struggle represented no real and profound ideal. The secret society from a practical point of view rested on an association of mutual adulation, of reciprocal aid, of pernicious nepotism and favouritism. To become powerful and to consummate its underhanded dealings, masonry made use of the Liberal Governments that succeeded each other in Italy after 1870 to extend its machinations in the bureaucracy, in the magistracy, in the field of education, and also in the Army, so that it could dominate the vital ganglions of the whole Nation. Its secret character throughout the 20th century, its mysterious meetings, abhorrent to our beautiful communities with their sunlight and their love of truth, gave to the sect the character of corruption, a crooked concept of life, without programme, without soul, without moral value.
(150)
The Fascist Party continued this war after achieving power and gave it legal force, as in the year 1925, Mussolini’s regime passed a law banning Freemasonry (219).
This is not to say, however, that Mussolini was entirely pro-clerical from the beginning of his journey as a Nationalist and a Fascist; one finds a little outburst earlier in the book in which he records at one time stating these words in the first Il Popolo d’Italia article of 1920, titled Let’s Navigate:
Two religions are to-day contending with each other for sway over the world; the black and the red. From two Vaticans depart to-day encyclical letters; from that of Rome and from that of Moscow. We declare ourselves the heretics of these two expressions.
(98)
But this statement must be measured against all the others one finds in this book to form a truly accurate assessment of what he believed. And based on such an objective assessment, one finds that he is evidently more pro-clerical than anti-clerical, and furthermore, that his dissatisfaction with Rome in those early years had more to do with the Church’s response to the War and in the immediate post-war years than anything else. Similarly, despite him writing against Freemasonry, he holds Giuseppe Garibaldi (a disciple of the Lodge) in high standing for his involvement in the Risorgimento. The most likely answer for this incongruity is that the information surrounding the involvement of the high-ranking Italian nationalists such as Garibaldi was not publicly known in Mussolini’s day. The myth of Garibaldi (as with Washington—another mason—in the United States) seems to have outgrown the reality of the man himself.
Additionally, one must take into account the scandalous behavior of the Popular Party, the official Catholic party that had been a part of the Italian political establishment for a considerable period by the time Mussolini appeared on the scene. According to him, they only “pretended to be Catholics” (207) because it had been “…destined to degenerate little by little until in 1925 it took a form of clerical bolshevism” (277).
To gain a better idea of what Mussolini wrote about them, here is a brief summary he gives of the actions of the Popular Party towards his government:
…[A]t first the so-called Catholic Party wanted to collaborate, by having some members in the Government, in the new Regime.This collaboration, however, began to lead us through a series of reticences and misunderstandings, and after six months I was forced to show the door to the ministers belonging to that Party.
(278)
Moreover, one gets a sense not only of the anti-clerical fanaticism of the Italian government pre-Mussolini, but also of the cowardice of the Popular Party when one reads his testimony of this incident:
When, in Parliament, I pronounced my first speech of November 16, 1922, after the Fascist revolution, I concluded by invoking the assistance of God in my incredible task. Well, this sentence of mine seemed to be out of place! In the Italian Parliament, a field of action of Italian Masonry, the name of God had been banned for a long time. Not even the Popular Party—the so-called Catholic Party, had ever thought of speaking of God. In Italy, a political man did not even think of turning his thought to the Divinity. And, even if he had ever thought of it, political opportunism and cowardice would have prevented him, particularly in a legislative assembly. It remained for me to make this bold innovation! And in an intense moment of revolution. What is the truth? It is that a faith outwardly professed is a sign of strength.
(278)
With the courage of Mussolini and the fragility of the Populars proved, Catholics should not allow themselves to be misled by those who would cry “persecutor” to the one and “defenders of the faith” to the other.
He admits that “…high circles of the Vatican have not always been known to appreciate my work…” (277). It seems quite likely that the “circles” he refers to here were the modernist ones, though this is uncertain. Among his many comments about the Church, one finds a brief but sympathetic mention of Pope St. Pius X by Mussolini, who called him “…the kind-hearted patriarch of Venice, who distinguished his pontificate by a strong battle against the fads of political and religious modernism” (147).
Clearly the Duce did many things to benefit the Church while in power. The most obvious of these was the landmark Lateran Treaty of 1929, the details surrounding which are covered in the Concord with the Vatican in the 1939 edition of the autobiography. But even before this, there were other actions taken by Il Duce to promote harmony between the Church and the State.
One of these was a provision in the Gentile Reform of the Italian education system that benefited Catholic schools. Specifically, students of both independent and state schools were placed “…under equal conditions when taking the state examinations, before committees appointed by the Government”. Mussolini notes that this treatment was “…advantageous for the Catholics, owners of many schools, but displeases the anti-clericals of old style” (261). Another provision of a financial nature was made for the Catholic clergy who had been struggling after the economic crisis of the post-war years, an act that Mussolini refers to as “…a question of a just and necessary disposition” and one that would have been “…inconceivable at the time of the Masonic demagogy and social democracy…” (267).
The reputation of Mussolini has also suffered considerably from opinions surrounding the encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno. In short, I will take the time here to address concerns brought against Mussolini and his regime by those who cite this document against him.
For one, the document itself does not condemn the Fascist movement as a whole. Rather, it seems targeted on calling out certain abuses within:
62. In everything that We have said up to the present, We have not said that We wished to condemn the [Fascist] party as such. Our aim has been to point out and to condemn all those things in the programme and in the activities of the party which have been found to be contrary to Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice, and therefore irreconcilable with the Catholic name and profession. And in doing this We have fulfilled a precise duty of Our episcopal ministry towards Our dear sons who are members of the party, so that their conscience may be at peace.
Non Abbiamo Bisogno 1 (1931)
As has been mentioned before, Mussolini mentions throughout My Autobiography the great restraint he practiced in controlling his party, and that he was swift to punish injustice committed by its members. One such example is the mention of these words his regime issued to the Fascists in December 1922, shortly after the triumph of the March on Rome:
Every Fascisti must be a guardian of order. Every disturber is an enemy even if he carries in his pocket the identification card of the Party.
(271)
Does it not follow that he must have overseen his Party accordingly in these matters concerning the Church?
Moreover, it must be shamefully recalled that Pope Pius XI was a pope who made some imprudent decisions, at the encouragement of modernists in the Vatican. The example most evident to all is his call to the heroic Cristeros to lay down their arms and accept a truce with the anticlerical government of Mexico, a government which swiftly betrayed the terms of the peace by slaughtering those soldiers of Christ. Is it truly out of the realm of possibility that at least some of the information given in this document was blown out of proportion by modernist authorities, who used sliver tongues into deceiving the Pontiff as to the truth of these “persecutions”?
The issue of the disbandment of the Catholic boy scouts organization had been raised before the encyclical, and it was one that is described in the chapter “Concord With The Vatican” as “not a serious one”, as is related in this excerpt:
The Vatican always fights to preserve Catholic children from contamination of by children of other creeds, but in Italy, where everybody is Catholic, there is no such danger. Delicate pourparlers concluded an agreement on the matter of weekly hours of religious instructions, on the number of chaplains per thousand Balillas, and the negotiations to end the “Roman Question” continued.
(307)
This was, then, a resolved problem by the time that Non Abbiamo Bisogno was issued.
History bears witness to the extent of the document’s alleged “attack” on Fascism. There was no withdrawal of the Concordat, or an excommunication of Mussolini and his party members. There was no Soviet-style persecution of the Church in Italy. There was a brief conflict, but it was soon resolved.
Mussolini on Race
Another area in which the positions of Mussolini have been gravely misrepresented is in regard to race. Some are fooled into thinking he was “race-blind”; a thorough reading of this book would be the best thing for them, though a short refutation drawn from the text shall prove sufficient. Within the first chapter, one finds these words:
Race and soil are strong influences upon us all.
(18)
Furthermore, he mentions that Archduke Franz Ferdinand “…always underestimated our race”. Following from this statement, he goes on to illustrate the problem he found in the Archduke’s way of thinking:
He was not able to sense the heart-throbs of the people of Italian blood still under his flag. He could not weigh the power of race consciousness. He was cherishing the dream of a monarchy melting three races together. Races I know are difficult to melt.
(41)
In fairness, the Archduke was not unique in this regard, as the House of Hapsburg had been moving in that very direction for some time by the outbreak of the war.
Mussolini held the family in high regard, and wisely balanced the challenge of industrializing Italy in order to make it more competitive with foreign nations while preserving the family unit in the process. Today it is said that the anti-natal atmosphere of industrial and post-industrial societies are inevitable consequences of a higher standard of living, with chief among these maledictions being a below replacement level birth rate. Yet, Mussolini showed the world almost a century ago that this was not the case:
The importance of birth-rate as a civilizing factor and historical necessity was empathized by Il Duce in many speeches.
…..
Mussolini considered Italy a part of Europe, perhaps a healthier part, and felt that, if the white race dwindled elsewhere, it was our duty to maintain those social traditions which made for big families.
(298)
Where there is a will, there is a way, and the Fascist regime of Italy certainly had both. The attempts made by modern nations such as Hungary, Russia, and even France to boost their birth rate among their native populations by means of offering some money to families with more than two children are half-hearted attempts to fix the demographic problem. If a nation does not uproot materialism and call out its ills, if it refuses to censor and reverse the elements of a demonically possessed culture, then the people will see these offers as mere bribes. A person raised in hedonism and materialism is a selfish person, and such a person will either desire to artificially control their family size through contraception or will refuse to have children at all. The people must first be convinced of the spiritual reality of their existence, that they must above all serve God, then family, and then nation. Mussolini certainly grasped this.
Conclusion
This book is an unnoticed gem, and I highly recommend it. In it lies a window to the past, and perhaps a door to the future.
While I was penning some editorials against representatives of the sceptics, I wrote: “Fascism is to-day in the first stage of its life: the one of Christ. Don’t be in a hurry: the one of St. Paul will come.”
(161)
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