David I. Kertzer is the author of the new book The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe. His many other books include The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, Amalia's Tale, Prisoner of the Vatican, and The Popes Against the Jews. He is the Paul Dupee Jr. University Professor of Social Science and professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Q: Why did you decide to focus your new book on the dynamic
between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini?
A: I decided to write The Pope and Mussolini in 2002 when
Pope John Paul II authorized the opening of the Vatican archives for the papacy
of Pius XI.
These years—1922-39—were incredibly dramatic and important
ones in the course of modern history, and they are cloaked in controversy. The
role played by the Church in enabling the world’s first Fascist regime to come
to power has been fiercely debated. And then, of course, the role played by the
pope and the Vatican as Hitler came to power in Germany and Mussolini and
Hitler formed their fateful alliance could hardly be more controversial.
Now, with the opening of the Church archives, we were finally
in a position to know what had happened.
Q: You write, "The relationship of the two
larger-than-life figures at the center of this book turned out to be even more
intriguing than I suspected." Why was that?
A: Although the two men lived scarcely a mile apart from
each other in Rome, in many ways they could hardly have been more different. Mussolini
was not only a violent bully, but he had long been a vicious anticleric. Pius
XI, a deeply religious man who had spent most of his adult life as a Church
librarian, would seem to be Mussolini’s polar opposite. Yet they came to have a
deep mutual dependence.
What is most fascinating though is how the men negotiated
the tension that came from the belief each had of his supremacy. The pope once
commented that there was only one “totalitarian” organization in Italy and that
was the Roman Catholic Church, not the Fascist regime. Clearly this was not a
perspective Mussolini appreciated…
Q: What are some of the greatest misperceptions about the
relationship between Mussolini and the Vatican?
A: Following the disaster of the Second World War and the
Holocaust, the Vatican has tried to rewrite this now embarrassing part of its
history. (In this, by the way, it is not
alone, as Italians too now cast themselves as having been partisans of the
allied cause and not in league with Hitler.)
Denying the crucial enabling role the Vatican played in the
demise of Italy’s democracy and the rise of the Fascist dictatorship, the Holy
See has tried to sell the story of a pope and a Church that constantly fought
against Mussolini.
A related misperception concerns the role played by the
Church in Mussolini’s imposition of the anti-Semitic “racial laws” in 1938.
These laws threw all Jewish children out of school, fired all Jewish teachers,
government workers, members of the military, and many others. Jews were
suddenly treated as a noxious foreign race.
According to the official Vatican account, the pope and the
Church valiantly opposed these laws. What actually happened was very different.
Q: How did you research this book, and what surprised you
the most in the course of your research?
A: The book is based on many years of archival research. This
involved not only the newly opened Vatican archives and other Church archives,
such as the central Jesuit archives in Rome, but also a variety of Fascist
archives—the Central Italian State Archives and the archives of the Italian Foreign
Ministry, among others. I also worked in the French and U.S diplomatic
archives.
I ended up with about 25,000 pages of archival documents
digitized in my computer, plus thousands of pages of published diplomatic
correspondence and other primary materials. Weaving together many different
sources for the same historic events was fascinating and allowed me to gain an
understanding that would not have been possible otherwise.
There were many surprises in the research, which I report in
the book. Perhaps the greatest surprise
was the secret deal worked out between the pope’s personal emissary to
Mussolini and the dictator, in advance of the racial laws, pledging that the
Church would not oppose them. What an incredible document….
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on a new book, sticking with popes and
politics, but going back to the nineteenth century.
In 1848, in the face of a popular revolt, Pope Pius IX fled
Rome and took refuge in a fortress in the Kingdom of Naples. From there he
called on Europe’s Catholic powers to send their armies to restore him to power
and to resurrect the Papal States. Meanwhile, in Rome, Mazzini, Garibaldi and
others proclaimed a Roman Republic and the end of the pope’s temporal power. It
is a dramatic story I am eager to tell.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Recently news has leaked out that an earlier book of
mine, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, is being made into a movie by Steven
Spielberg, with the screenplay being written by Tony Kushner. I am very
excited.--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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