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Mussolini asked Pope to excommunicate Hitler By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 27/09/2003) The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini asked the Pope to excommunicate Adolf Hitler days before the German leader went to Rome to seal the Axis in 1938, according to a newly discovered Vatican document. The only other way of stopping Hitler was to wage war, an option that was "not wanted", Mussolini is reported as saying. The details of Mussolini's secret request were found in the minutes of a papal audience between Pius XI and a Jesuit priest who acted as a go-between with the Vatican and the Italian leader. The document was one of several found in the Vatican's recently opened secret archive which form the basis of a new book by Emma Fattorini, an Italian historian, about the last days of Pius XI's papacy. Writing in yesterday's Corriere della Sera, Prof Fattorini, who lectures in modern history at Rome's La Sapienza university, called the discovery "sensational" and "disconcerting". The historian suggests that the demand reflected Mussolini's anger over Hitler's annexation of Austria in March 1938. The Rome-Berlin Axis agreement had been signed two years before, but Mussolini feared that Hitler would turn his attentions to Italy's German-speaking Alto Adige (South Tyrol) region despite the German dictator's assurances that this would remain Italian. Eventually, the Nazis concentrated instead on the Sudeten German regions of Czechoslovakia. On April 10, 1938, Padre Pietro Tacchi Venturi - Mussolini's go-between with Pius XI - was received in audience by the pontiff. According to the minutes, the Jesuit, "admitted into the presence of the Holy Father, communicated the following . . . The head of government [Mussolini] had told P Tacchi Venturi in a private meeting [April 7, 1938] that with Hitler it would be advisable [for the Pope] to act more energetically, without mincing one's words". Immediate action was not required, rather "waiting for the most opportune time to adopt these more energetic procedures, for example, excommunication". Although Hitler described himself as a "complete pagan", he was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and he was well aware of the authority of the Pope and the Church. The minutes said that Mussolini had told Padre Tacchi Venturi: "It would be a good idea to forget any idea that the Hitler phenomenon was a passing one, since in Germany this man has obtained huge successes. There would be no other way to stop him except by war, which is not wanted." The Pope's meeting came less than a month after the Anschluss and six days before Britain and Italy signed an agreement on some of their competing interests around the world. Three weeks later, Hitler made a triumphant visit to Rome when he and Mussolini cemented their alliance. Prof Fattorini said that it was far from easy to interpret this "sensational document". The Pope was indignant at Mussolini's closeness to Hitler, relations between the Fascists and the Vatican were at a low ebb, and racial laws were about to be imposed in Italy. Prof Fattorini, one of the leading authorities on the Church and Fascism, said that Mussolini's actions may have been an attempt to set up the Church, in that if it did not act, he could accuse it of failing to heed his warnings. "What is certain," Prof Fattorini concludes, "is that the events of the period must have weighed heavily, especially Mussolini's great irritation and concern for the Alto Adige question." But seen in such a light, Mussolini's message to the Pope might have been a "gratuitous verbal outburst", to which the Italian leader was sometimes prone, she said. "Despite the many stop and go situations," Prof Fattorini said, "we are in fact in the middle of full Italian-German accord - and it is this that makes the request for an excommunication so sensational and at the same time, incredible." ----- "Christians, it is needless to say, utterly detest each other. They slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teachings. Each sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense, and makes perfect little pigs of those it wins over to its side." - Celsus (2nd century C.E.) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
