The Cross and the Eagle

...But many of them wanted to be assured that they had made something by it...

...It furthers a wholesome national pride...

...No dictator sleeps upon a bed of roses...

...He knew how the long-continued, anticlerical propaganda had left certain spirits with the habit of depreciating the Church, even while maintaining at least a nominal connection with it...

...Though several things have happened since Mr...

...Nevertheless, the average Roman, the average Italian, probably the average Catholic everywhere, looked for something at least like a return of the good old times...

...NOW that an exchange of official courtesies has taken place between the Pope and the king of Italy, the time seems propitious for a brief review of the more obvious social and political effects already to be observed or soon to be expected as a result of the new treaty and its immediate and inferential engagements...

...This should be remembered before one criticizes unthinkingly the present head of the Italian government...

...He undertook to show them that they had made a very good bargain indeed-"put one over," as we would say...

...For it is thus that a bishop would naturally visit his see...

...Back of the archaeological movement, of course, is the Fascist determination to disinter Caesar in all his glory and to weld the present to that distant grandeur, ignoring the intervening interval as much as possible...

...Often they will abandon a most profitable transaction if denied the beloved "mancia...

...For the rest, the digging up of ancient Rome and the exposing of its buried bones to the air, goes steadily on...

...I wonder if that Catholic Publicity Bureau which Mr...

...A certain air of good-will was gone...

...And now that the visible Church is protected in its seat by international agreements, to one of which Italy is a party, and so rid of any suggestion of existing merely through Italian tolerance-which after all seems to be the most noteworthy immediate outcome of the new arrangement-the Italian state may perhaps learn much from Caesar as to the way to treat the things which are Caesar's...

...And if it be temporal power which is meant, the Pope neither claims nor wishes to wield it outside of those few acres which now form a sort of Garden of Eden about Saint Peter's...

...Advancement of the general good of all concerned was not enough...

...If the result in certain sections suggests San Francisco after the earthquake, this is because raw earth, new cement and brick work are not lovely in themselves, even when studded with beautiful bits of carven treasure and marking outlines of great archaeological interest...

...Thus he assured them that there was still in Italy no power that was against the state, or above the state, or that was not in the state...

...Thus it may be stated as a fact that not even the sending of a papal representative to the Quirinale marks a new departure, since His Holiness was represented upon Italian territory during the Franciscan Centenary, when Cardinal Merry del Val was sent in that capacity to Assisi...

...There had been no misunderstanding between the high contracting parties-not as to the essential terms of the settlement...

...So their Duce saved their faces for them, in perhaps somewhat too grand a style...

...That was the talk one heard in the streets...

...But why describe what has already been described in the daily papers...

...In another it would be suggested-and this seemed to be a favorite note-that the Pope had been "restored to temporal power...

...It was the old, old theme, the Pope as bogy-man...

...If this leads to excessive nationalism, it is an evil from which Italy could hardly hope to escape, considering present conditions in Europe and throughout the world...

...For another thing, the Pope returned the call by proxy...

...On paper, the millennium seemed to have come...

...Once within this ancient domain, there was plenty of color observable...

...Italians are very human...

...It is all very fine-though the familiar ruins were best...

...when he refrains as much as possible from speculation...

...The treaty is merely between governments...

...But the entente may now be expected to be as cordiale as could have been reasonably hoped for...

...For one thing, he was accompanied only by his queen...

...and when he confines himself to a description of what publicly takes place...

...But the royal party passed almost immediately to the private apartments, and while their suite waited in the anterooms, knelt to the Pope in what is known as the little throne room...

...It is to be regretted, however, that the American press, and particularly some of the more serious of the American magazines, did so little to spread the good news, or even the bad news, with any understanding-let alone any attempt to help their readers to understand...

...For the days when the eagle, too, may become international, are certainly not now...

...The ceremony was so totally without ceremony, taking all Rome utterly by surprise, leaving the historical importance of the occasion alone to mark it off from any other drive through the city...

...Too much was expected of it...

...At the same time it once more put the spiritual above the temporal without need of emphasis...

...The king alone represents the latter without reference to any particular administration or party...

...It is not the Holy Father, but il Papa Re who is concerned...

...I doubt if anybody was the worse for the little outburst of pent-up emotions for which this incident afforded the opportunity...

...They do love that extra soldo which can sometimes be wrung out of a deal...

...No worldly power today could be expected to echo his "beneath...

...This probably has no significance save as a reminder that il Duce is legally only the Italian chief minister of state-a legal fiction one is so apt to forget...

...Dante also longed for the Roman eagle to fly beneath the cross-his matchless way of expressing his belief in good government...

...The king's call at the Vatican was itself not lacking in interesting features...

...The ceremony of reconciliation itself was of supreme simplicity, and showed Rome nothing but seven closed automobiles, setting out from the Quirinale (now that the breach is closed, one may remark without raising hard feelings that this was once a papal palace) on the morning of December 5, arriving at la Citta Vaticana, and being welcomed at the new frontier by Commandatore Sera-fini, "governatore" of the pontificial territory...

...At the same time it is impossible to omit all reference to that singularly human touch, not lacking perhaps in sly humor-the Pope's giving to the king, in addition to the ceremonial presents, four stamp albums (politely to be referred to as "quattro volumi sulle Monete Bolli Pontificie del Medagliere Vaticano"-but essentially stamp albums none the less...

...Remembering all that he has done, it would be senseless to blame him too much for this...

...Wickham's manuscript was written, we offer his comment without substantial changes...

...In politics and diplomacy, saving face is a first principle...

...He is an opportunist, or he would not be a dictator...

...No settlement between nations can be expected to settle all things and keep them settled...

...Nobody should have looked for such a bridge," said one to whom I talked at the time...

...Mussolini has been, in his conciliatory attitude toward the Church, unquestionably ahead of his party...

...And if this comes as the reward of smart practice-well, as I say, they are human...

...In one issue the Pope would be shown as being dragged at the tail of Caesar's chariot...

...II Duce's followers were fairly willing to enter into a bargain with the Vatican...

...La Citta Vaticana is no longer in Italy, politically speaking...

...There would be more of it...

...These were pleased to think that the Pope had not demanded any more land...

...This is what Mussolini did...

...Time, indeed, seemed to have rolled back rather than moved forward...

...Williams was advocating in a recent Commonweal could not begin its work by explaining the meaning of the expression "temporal power" to the denizens of Zenith and points west, so that it may in time come to be distinguished not only from spiritual sovereignty, but from the social power which comes as an inevitable by-product of spiritual and moral elevation...

...But they did not wish to be convicted of an about-face in regard to less material things...

...In other words, the long course in atheism and materialism to which the Italian people has been subjected, almost officially, since the days of Pio Nono and continuing up to the Fascists' famous march, has to be paid for...

...Also it may not be too much to suggest that the arrangements which led to the king and queen paying their respects alone were not only strictly in conformity with the etiquette of the occasion, but served to emphasize the nature of the recent treaty, which was between the temporal government of the Church and the temporal government of Italy...

...It brought everybody back to a sense of fact, and made them realize that as Rome was not built in a day, neither is a wound like that of 1870 and the immediately following decades to be healed in a fortnight...

...Nor does any sane citizen of Italy think that that eagle will be merely Julian...

...The circumstance was just one of those little details, one of those little allegories which lend that sense of supreme fitness to all things done on the sacred side of the Tiber, making them so fascinating, symbolical, and worthy of study-especially in this hurly-burly of a modern world where the significance of so many acts is hidden by the bungling way in which they are carried out...

...But in Rome little is heard of American magazines, and I think the satisfaction with which present amenities between the Papal and Italian States are viewed, is general...

...Then came the visit of the Pontiff on the early morning of December 20, to celebrate Mass at the Lateran...

...Sacred pageantry was again to be seen in the streets...

...But the circumstances under which the Head of the Church has now finally entered Italian territory only tend to confirm the idea of species of symbolism (or should one say merely good taste raised to an exquisite degree of perfection ?) to be noted in all acts emanating from this source...

...And instead there came those public addresses wherein il Duce appeared to announce that the position of the Church in Italy was now hardly to be distinguished from the position of the Church of England in England-addresses followed by such sharp reprimands in the Osservatore Romano that neither an entente nor anything in the least deserving the term cordiale was left to be noted by a careless eye...

...But as he is also the Vicar of Christ, his view-point can never be either entirely accepted nor understood outside of his spiritual dominion...

...That the Pope had in reality renounced his claim to temporal power, which never extended, speaking generally, beyond a section of Italy, retaining it only over an area comparable to a small farm, was a fact which seemed to find difficulty in getting itself in print...

...The Osservatore promptly restated the case, "ad majorem Dei gratiam...

...But the way il Duce put it was open to misconstruction, and the impression was broadcast that Pius XI had made not only territorial sacrifices, but political and even spiritual sacrifices as well...

...One thought of the breach of Porta Pia, not of a treaty of peace...

...That he should, therefore, represent it alone save for his consort casts no reflection whatever upon Mussolini, whose signal services in bringing the settlement about are recognized everywhere...

...They were in token of personal regard, and in recognition of the well-known hobby of "il re numismatico...

...At the same time, the recorder of current events usually shows the better side of his valor when he characterizes nothing which is connected with the Vatican as altogether insignificant...

...This not only avoided the tumult which the first appearance of a Pope in the streets after so many years of reclusion might have caused if preceded by a public announcement, it emphasized the return to "normalcy" as no personal visit to the palace of a king could have done...

...There is no use in denying that the first effects of the signing of the Lateran Accord were disappointing to a great many people, more specially in Rome...

...Un-politically far ahead, perhaps...

...And oh, how Mussolini understands his people...

...It is not a movement which should be too much condemned off-hand...

...THE CROSS AND THE EAGLE By HARVEY WICKHAM Events in Rome have been so universally significant and interesting that we have thought it well to supplement the paper by Umberto Guggieri, published recently, with the following article by an American whose long residence in the Eternal City has rightly earned for him the title of competent observer...

...And upon this popular sentiment of relief, verging ever more toward enthusiasm, the exchange of words between Mussolini and the Vatican's semi-official organ was like a dash of cold water...

...The Black Shirts were in no mood for an act of contrition en masse...

...To listen to what some of the more reckless, or bewildered, or merely ignorant whispered, a stranger from Mars might have thought that there had been an abdication of the spiritual throne of the world empire of Christ the King...

...They were even anxious to...

...Time will doubtless cicatrize these wounds as well as others, giving them that healed appearance which for the moment they so sadly lack...

...The Palazzo Venezia, Italy's political nerve-centre since Mussolini has moved his office there from the Palazzo Chigi, was not represented...

...And in a sense this was very true...

...That spiritual bridge which was to have been thrown across the Tiber had broken down before it was open to traffic...

...I think," he says, "the satisfaction with which present amenities between the Papal and the Italian states are viewed is general...

...The Editors...

...One may now look at what is left of the forum in the Argentina district, at the old markets about Trajan's Forum, as well as the mud at the bottom of Lake Nemi, and many another wonder as land and water continue to give up their dead...

...It served a good purpose, however...

...Is it not always good to wake from a foolish dream...

...And a Forum Mussolini, for the future to excavate in due time, is in course of construction...