The Facts of Fascism

...It is indeed lamentable...

...And because a busy head of government chanced to congratulate the speaker by letter, he proceeds to treat the document as if it were a carefully weighed statement coming from Mussolini...

...Mussolini appeared like a second Cadorna, not to say Attila or Caligula...

...But Dr...

...It is therefore somewhat amazing when a Catholic scholar of the prominence of Dr...

...This seems to create a dilemma...

...True, the words "temporal ambitions" are capable of various interpretations, and a great deal that is encouraging has happened since 1921...

...John A. Ryan attempts to prove, as he does in The Commonweal for November 17, that the principles of Fascism in regard to the ends of government are as fundamentally opposed to Catholicism as they are to liberalism, Socialism, and Bolshevism...

...A Papal Legate thanking the Italian military authorities and their troops, certainly indicates a new entente cordiale...

...The addition expressed the extent of his own evolution, but it is not to be expected that Italians in general have quite kept up with him...

...Visibly protected by Almighty God, he has, with wisdom and prudence, raised the destiny of the nation...

...My thanks to the military authorities and their troops...

...Obviously in the direction of hearty co6peration with that vast program implied by the proclamation of Christ the King...

...It is to be doubted...

...What ensued was anything but peace for the Dictator...

...he has outlawed the atheistic Freemasonry emanating from the Grand Orient of France...

...And yet this was the first time that a head of the Italian state had ever officially in- voked the name of God...

...But after the third, the Pontiff said: "This is a new sign that Mussolini has the proteeDecember 2% I926 T H E C O M M O N W E A L 205 tion of God...

...Was it unscrupulous in Mussolini to save his country when its government had ceased to function, when it was controlled by irre- ligious influences and seemed upon the point of fling- ing itself into the waiting arms of Russia...

...Here is a perfect example of a preconceived opinion working in the unconscious depths of a subtile mind, and bringing forth its fruit very much out of season...

...And Dr...

...Turning to Signor Sindaco during his Assisi address, he said: My special thanks to you, and to all the civil authori- ties, who, with such courtesy and such magnificence have made this celebration the great thing it has been...

...Few American newspapers so much as reported it, their editors being too busy looking for things to bolster up the precon- ceived ideas they had already given out to the world for the truth...

...Paragraphs derogatory to the Duce con-iinue to appear in nearly all the Catholic magazines and newspapers published in the United States...

...All of us," said Mussolini, speaking in the Cham- ber on June 21, I9ZI, "who, from fifteen to twenty-five, drank deep at the fountain of Carduccian litera- ture, learned to hate 'una vecchia vaticana, lupa cru-denta.' We heard talk of a 'Pontificate dark with mystery' on the one hand, and on the other of sublime truth and the future...

...What if a politician did say, "May God help me to bring my hard task to a victorious end...

...The idea that he is plotting rather to restore the material monarchy of the Caesars is founded upon the absurd notion that he is mad...

...At least he was a man whom not even the Socialists could stomach: son of an anti-clerical father, probably an atheist, certainly with formidable facial angles, whose chosen emblem was the faggot-wrapped battle-ax of the Caesars...

...I note the editorial comment of The Commonweal for October 2o: The centenary of Saint Francis seems to have given an almost unprecedented momentum to the "forces of time" which are bringing on a settlement of the Roman ques-tion...

...But let it be noted that, outside of the country where it was uttered, this statement of the Duce's caused scarcely a tipple...

...The mere fact that both the Papacy and the Italian government officially participated side by side in the fes- rival . . . was enough to predict the rapidly approaching reconciliation of the two powers that have faced each other in silent battle during fifty years...

...he has abolished a rule that was agnostic, materialistic and positivist, and brought about a rule which is spiritually and sincerely Catholic...

...But the same ex-planation cannot apply to the subsequent sending of Cardinal Merry del Val as Papal Legate to Assisi...

...Ryan's contention is that Signor Rocco, in holding that the end of the state is something more than the "welfare and happiness of individuals," is in opposition to Pope Leo XIII, who said that "civil society should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of the individual members...

...I do not believe," says Crispolto Crispolti in a recent number of the Rassegna Italiana, "that we ex-aggerate or err in our interpretation of facts really to be defined as historical, if we affirm that the journey to Assisi of the Cardinal Legate during the festival of the seventh Franciscan centenary constitutes one of the salient facts in regard to the connection between Italy and the Holy See which has taken place between I87O and today...

...Ryan smashes one of its horns himself when, later on, he quotes Signor Rocco as saying that Fascism rejects any "bill of rights which tends to make the individual superior to the state, and to empower him to act in opposition to society...

...The Honorable Mussolini, now legalized Capo del Governo, rose in the Chamber of Deputies, and said: "Che Iddio mi assista nel condurre a termine vit- torioso la mia ardua fatica...

...It is not enough that the Princes of the Church go out of their way, as did Cardinal Vannutelli upon the occasion of the marriage of the Pope's niece to Secretary of State Finzi, to express approval of the present r6gime...

...but there remains a stumbling-block in the way of an actual settlement of the famous ques- tion...

...The so-called "compromesso del settalogo," "jest of the little magician, Giolitti," whose ideal was "a Church suffocated in the midst of hostile forces," still stood as the last word of the intent and purposes of the Italian government--and in Italy, seventeen, rather than thirteen, is considered the unlucky number...

...The mystic doctrine of the equality of human souls should not, I think, be used even indirectly to support a political argument...

...Signor Rocco objects to Italian liberalism, to Socialism and to Bolshevism because, in their boasted care for the supposed welfare of individuals, they do tend to permit certain individuals to act in opposition to the welfare of society in general...

...This might be passed by as a merely humanitarian utterance, though it is not customary for the enemies of the Church to be spoken of in that place as men enjoying the protection of God...

...I wonder if the conscientious opponents of Musso- lini ever stop to think of the alternative to Mussolini, of what would be likely to happen were he to be re-moved in the only way it would be possible now to remove him...

...he has asserted the Catholic principle of the rights of private property, and put his once-bankrupt country upon a sane and sound financial basis...

...In 1861, Cavour said that the Pope, once separated from the irritating question of temporal power, would be more popular in modern than he ever was in mediaeval Rome...

...One should not use the expression, "unscrupulous persons," even as a quotation from the supposed opin- ion of a shadowy entity termed "the majority of Americans," without undertaking either to disavow or to prove the implication...

...Is the feat of bringing order out of chaos adequately de- scribed as "a certain degree of efficiency...

...Yet the Catholics of America do not seem to be satisfied...

...So, they were not stutted shirts, after all l To Catholics, especially, it seemed as if the worst had happened...

...Since that time, Mussolini has restored the cross to the Colosseum, and the crucifix and religious instruction to the Italian public schools...

...My thanks also to him who holds in his hands the reins of the government of Italy, who, with his clear vision of the reality of things, has wished and wishes that religion be respected, honored, and practised...

...Some importance was indeed attached to this inci- dent outside of Italy...

...but to us Fascisti, who are eminently practical, it seems today more than a little out of date...

...Let us recall some of the words of the Cardinal, himself...

...And he received open thanks from the Holy See...

...But on the sixteenth of the following November, that wonder happened which should have enlightened all...

...Moreover, by the general air of condemnation which pervades his article, Dr...

...terests in favor of the higher demands of society and of history is a very rare gift and the privilege of the chosen few...

...Pious words had been heard before from even more unlikely throats without the devil being notice- ably inconvenienced...

...The Vatican is not so precipitate...

...The only universal idea at Rome today is that radiating from the Vatican...

...But the gist of Dr...

...For the first time since I87o, the dove of peace, though wearing the outward form of the eagle of Caesar, had flown westward across the Tiber...

...But the difficulty has been felt throughout the ages, and surely Italy is not morally bound to adopt the Constitution of the United States--which, even with us, has worked in a way short of perfection...

...Still, without authoritative warrant for a more definite hope, it would seem to be the part of wisdom to accept the growing cordiality between the Vatican and the government with thankfulness, and to refrain from attempts to keep antagonism alive among the people...

...He leads...

...and he has four times narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of an anti-Catholic cabal...

...But there is no evidence to show that a workable formula has at last been found...

...For Mussolini is not only a greater statesman, but probably a better Catholic, than any of his more influential followers (or any with but few exceptions) and the Fascisti themselves are a chosen band...

...The bitterness and blindness of Gari- baldian times, fostered for more than a generation, are not so easily expunged from the national mind...

...All that stood between many and despair was the rock of the Petrine texts...

...They are not entrusted with technical matters, but in the long run their will governs and must govern the broad policies of the state...

...And their subject is always that of a bet- ter understanding between Church and state...

...Naturally, the Vatican did not celebrate the March on Rome with the killing of a fatted calf and a public papal blessing...

...Mussolini, himself, has said in this connection, "A tyranny today is absolutely impossible...

...He himself has said, "I maintain that the imperial and Latin tradition of Rome is represented today by Catholicism...

...Does it not help them to continue misunder- standing the Church, and to prolong that "super-stizione laica," which in Italy today is as a barricade on the road to a perfect reconciliation...

...Not for nothing is the son of the blacksmith called il Duce...

...There remain the people outside of the organization...

...I wonder if they seriously consider the effect upon a people, struggling from beneath the in- herited philosophy of the French Revolution, of tell- ing them they are just as anti-Catholic as they ever were...

...And so began that series of attempted assassinations which we all hope is at an end...

...It would not be enough even if it were proved that Mussolini him- self were willing to meet all the claims of the Holy See...

...It is not enough that the Duce at-tends in person the services at Assisi, proclaims a national holiday and has a commemorative postage stamp struck in honor of Saint Francis...

...I recollect no word from the Vatican in regard to the first two...

...Ryan manages to give to all his facts, whether favorable to Fascism or not, the seeming character of evidence against the defend- ant...

...If a Fascist chances to speak approvingly of Niccolo Machiavelli, why insist that the name is "most notably associated" in political affairs with the idea that the end justifies the means...

...In his last significant reference to the subject (in his speech of June 21, 1921) the Duce seems to make a similar reservation in these words: "I advance the hypothesis that if the Vatican should definitely renounce its temporal ambitions--and I think it is already on that road--Italy ought to furnish it with the necessary material help...

...On the contrary, Pius XI, in his encyclical, Ubi Arcano, of December 23, I922, repeated in substance the tra- ditional protest of his predecessors, saying (I have only the Italian version before me) that the origin and nature of his authority made it impossible that he should ever submit that authority to any human laws, "even though such laws pretend to protect the liberty of the Roman Pontificate...

...I do not wish to go minutely into history, ancient or modem, but merely to analyze the present Italian situation and the effect which the attitude of America is having upon it...

...Thus he claims that the majority of Americans prob- ably look upon Fascism "as an organization and a movement through which certain powerful and rather unscrupulous persons have got control of the govern- ment of Italy by violence, and have ruled the coun-try with a certain degree of efficiency, but with con-siderable disregard of constitutional forms and of human rights and liberties...

...And it returned with an olive branch in its beak...

...This is the authoritative statement of the Roman question as it then existed--a statement directed against the Law of Guarantees, none of the seventeen clauses of which had then been altered in spirit or in fact...

...Then he added, "All this, confined to literature, may be most brilliant...

...Some are pathetic, voicing the home- sick longing of their authors to undo the political con- sequences of September 20, 187o...

...Nevertheless, a revolution had been accomplished, and the Fascist Dictator, awakening somewhat tardily to the political importance of the Holy Year, threw all his authority and influence into making it the stupendous success to which, from a somewhat disappointing beginning, it ultimately grew...

...Ryan digs up the English translation of a speech made by Italian Minister of Justice Alfredo Rocco, at Perugia, August 3o, t925...

...he has cleansed the annual celebration of the Breach of Porta Pia of its traditional discourses wherein the anti-clerical principles of the secular con- quest of Rome were wont to be reaffirmed...

...And in what direction...

...It cannot be denied that they were natural, the anxieties of those days of October, I922, when---figuratively speaking--the walls of Rome fell before the singing Black Shirts like the walls of Jericho before the seven trumpets of rams' horns of the armed men of Joshua...

...This pleasant note, however, is in sharp contrast with other and more recent editorial utterances of this paper (see, for example, the paragraph on "baffled ambitions" in the Week by Week department of the November 17 issue) and when it goes on to suggest that an actual partition of Rome is in present con-templation, I think it goes too far...

...Signor Rocco rejects the American theory that ultimate political sovereignty resides in the masses, claiming that "the capacity to ignore individual private in...

...Are the Italian people today ready to give to Peter that adequate pied-~-terre which has seemed to be the sine qua non of any true, bilateral settlement...

...Outdoor orators, who in America would be denouncing capitalism from the summits of soap-boxes, are to be heard on every holiday, especially in the Forum, holding large crowds for hours...

...Strange as the idea may seem, the people have to be considered and are considered under a dictator-ship as well as in a republic...

...Scarcely a week goes by in Italy without the appear- ance of some book or pamphlet dealing hopefully with the relations existing between the Vatican and the Palazzo Chigi...

...He still had plenty of enemies abroad and on the Aventine--that ancient stronghold of the Etruscans, the name of which is used metaphorically in Rome to denote the Opposition...

...Ryan laments that he has not given the formula by which this 61ite is to be identi- fied...

...But he should have more regard, should take more precautions, against human malevolence...

...and at the same time to lend the weight of his own high approval to anything he alleges to have been thought or said against the Italian government--yet without actually taking the responsibility of vouching for its reasonableness or truth...

...To begin with, instead of taking the public acts and utterances of MussolinL and the equally public acts and utterances of Plus X~I and the hierarchy in 206 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, 1926 relation thereto, which was the obvious and only fair method, Dr...

...he has turned back the tides of Marxian Socialism and Bolshevism which threatened to make of Italy another Russia...

...204 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, x926 THE FACTS OF FASCISM By HARVEY WICKI-/AM D OUBTLESS those who, four years ago, were frightened into an anti-Fascist stand by the famous March on Rome, have remained stead- fastly opposed to Benito Mussolini ever since...

...What an Italian patriot chiefly remem-bers about Machiavelli is that he was an eloquent advocate of Italian unity...