The pope who helped Mussolini's rise to power

The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is not about the pope and the Holocaust; that's the next pope, Pius XII.

For the unfamiliar, Pius XI is the pope who signed the concordat with Mussolini which gave Vatican City official recognition by Italy and the RC state church status in Italy. In exchange, the Pope agreed to officially support the disbanding of Italy's Catholic-oriented political party and to agree for restraints on the broad social involvement of Catholic Action, a rough equivalent to a souped-up Knights of Columbus. He also agreed to give tacit support, via Italian bishops, to most specific actions of Il Duce.

The two are bound together by coming to their respective seats of power within a matter of months of one another in 1922. They're also bound together by both of them recognizing the advantages of a deal with each other.

After an early test or two, the agreement seemed strong ... until Mussolini got cozy with Hitler. Especially when he got anti-Jewish laws passed in Italy, and quoted the RC's own past history of anti-Semitism as part of support for this, they started fraying. At least from the Pope. Most Italian bishops continued to support the Duce.

Shortly before he died, Pius XI had drafted an official statement he wanted to give to bishops at a conclave. Recognizing  he might not live, he had copies prepared for distribution. The statement apparently would have sharply questioned the Vatican's relationship with Mussolini.

But, he died that night. And, the Duce got the man who became his successor, Pius XII, then the Vatican Secy of State and chamberlain to Pius XI, to round up all copies of the statement. It was never sent.

It probably would have made little difference, though Kertzer doesn't get into alternative history. The support of Catholic bishops for the Duce, plus Pius XII's rabid anti-Communism, assuming he would have been the successor if Pius XI died a month or a year later, would have seen to that.

This is part of a series of excellent books Kertzer has written about the relationship of individual popes and the papacy to Jews in Italy. Anything he writes is worth a good read.

I also learned enough new about Mussolini to reject the idea that, at least in the first decade or so of his rule, he was just a two-dimensional crude cartoon character. And, I learned enough about Victor Emanuel III to understand why Italians killed the monarchy in a 1946 plebicite.



View all my reviews

Francis the talking pope?

Pope Francis/via Wikipedia

And, yes, I'm punning off an old, old movie serial set. Do teh Google for yourself.

Anyway, Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who apparently has a dark history in covering up for thuggery of the 1970s-80s Argentinian military junta, has been elected as Pope Francis.

Great. Divert the eyes of the public from sex abuse scandals to human rights abuse scandals.

That said, defenders of him on this and other issues say this is overblown, per a "fact list" about Francis. On the other hand, the Guardian's reporter, on the first link, has been reporting on Latin American issues for decades.

The AP has more. Any things Francis did on the plus side in helping people vis-a-vis the junta seem to fall short on the claims of how he kowtowed.

I'm venturing liberation theology Catholics in Latin America are especially unhappy, if the more recent smoke is white smoke, not black smoke, about his problems. That's despite his sympathy for the poor otherwise.

And, yes, he wants kids to be baptized even if born out of marriage, but doesn't want gays to adopt kids like that (per the second link):

In 2010, he said allowing gay couples to adopt is a form of discrimination against children, earning a rebuke from the country's president. 

Yes, that's why he's "conservative and orthodox." You were expecting something different, after all the Cardinals John Paul II and Benedict XVI named?

Charles Pierce has more on his conservative Catholic network connections.

So, at first glance, we have a deft clerical politician with a long track record of managing to straddle controversial issues while leaning always toward the powers in Rome. We also have someone who may not be pope for very long. We also have the perfect product of the Church produced by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Their papacies continue unabated.

Sounds about right.

Trivia/history: First non-European pope in more than a century. First "Francis" ever. No word yet on why he chose that "style." And, first Jesuit pope ever.

Add the "Jesuit" part on top of all the other stuff above ... and ... don't expect the Vatican to become any more "open," whether to change, whether for transparency, or in general.

Have fun bitching about him, Garry Wills and all other Catholics who still refuse to up and leave.

Of course, with his age, he's arguably somewhat a "caretaker" pope. So Wills can bitch for 7-10 years, unless at his own age of 78, he dies before the pope does.

As for people who point out his condemnations of neoliberal capitalism as practiced by the World Bank et al? Big deal. John Paul II was already doing that, and conservative Catholics in the First World (that's you, Rick Santorum) ignored this and other calls for social justice then.

Beyond that, if Francis really does care more about the poor, freeing up money from the Vatican Bank would be a starter. Partnering with secular NGOs on microloans in the developing world would be another.

And, in general, trying to help the poor, as long as they're heterosexual and inside God's plan, doesn't erase anti-gay bigotry.

(Of course, since there's no god and no plan, from where I stand, it doesn't matter. Just saying that Catholic defenders of Francis shouldn't claim too much for him.)

And, a bit of "funny," per a G+ acquaintance:

VATICAN CITY - College of Cardinals says white smoke was false alarm: "We were just burning documents and evidence."

Sounds about right.

And, maybe his style should have been Pope Evito? As in, "Don't cry for him, Argentina."

Religious hypocrisy on birth control

So, it’s against God’s will to interfere with life by aborting a fetus when you have seven because of fertility drugs, but it’s NOT against God’s will to “accept facts,” but instead take fertility drugs in the first place?

Or, to carry this a step further.

If you’re the Pope, it’s against God’s will to interfere with the reproductive process b y using condoms or birth control pills, but it’s NOT against God’s will to interfere with the reproductive process by taking fertility drugs.

Hypocrisy alert – Pope Benedict and Vatican

You can’t have a highly-publicized Easter weekend baptism and then expect you can magically distance yourself from your convert’s comments. If you were worried about that, you should have let Islamic convert Magdi Allam be baptized in Milan.

Allam, after the baptism, came out with this tidbit of in-your-face on Islam:

Explaining his decision to become a Christian, Allam wrote in Sunday's edition of daily Corriere della Sera, where he is deputy editor: “The root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual.”

The Vatican then said, in essence, he’s our superstar, but pay no attention to him anyway:

“(Allam) has the right to express his own ideas,” chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

“They remain his personal opinions without in any way becoming the official expression of the positions of the Pope or the Holy See.”

Uhh, sure.

For more posts like this, see my Hyporcrisy alert tag.

Norway poster child for carbon-neutral sleight of hand

Norway – followed by Vatican City and many other countries – with an official assist from the United Nations, is practicing environmental double-dealing on the Holy Grail of carbon neutrality. The reality?

Their claims — like Norway’s — all require asterisks, like home-run records buoyed by steroids. And as the Norwegian plan shows, achieving a carbon-neutral state, for now, often depends as much on how you make the calculation and how much money you spend, as it does on hard work, sacrifice or even innovation.

Norway looks like it is going to be carbon-neutral in part because U.N. standards allow it to count things like planting trees in other countries as reducing its own CO2 footprint.

At the same time, Norwegian companies, like American ones, opening industrial plants in countries with lax environmental standards is another way of cheating. A Norwegian company is opening an aluminum smelter in Dubai, for example. And, the U.N. doesn’t require that this pollution outsourcing be counted againstNorway’s CO2 footprint.

As for Norway, here’s the actual lowdown on its greenness:

In its recently released Climate Change Performance Index 2008, the nonprofit group Germanwatch, which is active on environmental issues, ranked Norway 16th out of 56 countries, tied with Indonesia, and well behind Sweden, Britain and Germany.

The problem can’t solved by cutting the use of coal, or getting gas-guzzlers off the road. That’s done and done. The problem is this:

The main polluter in Norway is heavy industry — oil, gas, metal refining. They are, of course, the industries that have made Norway rich. …

“We are very positive about dialogue with the government and very positive about reducing greenhouse gases, but we want to be very careful that industry doesn’t end up a loser,” said Finn Bergesen, director general of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. “It’s a good thing to set goals, but goals have to be realistic.”

The revenues also pay for anti-deforestation work in Africa that the U.N. allows Norway to count in its greenness quotient.

But, Norwegian environmentalists don’t buy it, calling it greenwash.

“We’re a nice little selfish country of petroholics, and that has made us lazy,” said Frederic Hauge, president of Bellona, Norway’s largest nongovernmental environmental organization.

This is why I don’t get why Bush doesn’t sign on to Kyoto. Hell, we’re continuing to outsource factories to China. All we need to do now is plant some trees somewhere and we’ll be lean, clean and green.

Right.


Environmental advocates say Norway should take the next step, issuing fewer permits for oil exploration, for example, and even raising gas taxes. Instead of exporting energy, Mr. Hauge suggests, Norway should use some of it domestically to create things like low-priced solar panels for use in the developing world.

Meanwhile, it’s not just U.S. creationists that can be religiously-based hypocrites:

The Vatican “offsets” its emissions by planting forests in Hungary, but it did not enter into the calculation the polluting travel of its priests and officials — nor the emissions caused at properties outside Vatican City.

In other words, there’s a LOT of cheating, ethical cheating, even if the letter of U.N. agreements allow it, about what various countries of the world are really doing to stop global warming.