Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Fascist State Map 2
- Section 4 Church-State Relations
- Q. To what extent had the Church become an ally of the Fascist State in the years 1922-38?
- Minor: Early policies aimed at winning over the church overtime - Move away from anti-clerical policies
- Major: The Lateran Pacts 1929 (The Concordat)
- 'Three Protocals'
- 1. Vatican City established
- 2. Financial agreement - Church would recieve 750 million lire and 1 billion lire in state bonds
- 3. Concordat was signed separated Church administrative and religios structures from Italian state
- Confirmed religious education was compulsory
- More administrative rights
- 4. Mussolini also gave the Church additional censorship powers
- The Signigificance
- Afterwards, many members became active facscist members
- Priests joined ONB
- The slogan 'For Pope and Duce' emphasised unity with the Church
- Pius II Supported intervention in Spanish Civil War to combat socialist threat
- Supported Abysinnia as this was seen as the spreading of the Catholic faith
- However not all members supported the Regime: in 1930 300 priests supported a protest letter which condemned the Archbishop of Milan for openly supporting the Regime
- The Church had longed to reclaim its independant territory ever since its Papal land was taken by the unifiers of Italy in 1870/ After Transformismo
- Tensions over Catholic Action
- L'Obsevatorre Romano: 'We have no need'
- Pope Pius XI continued to criticise Mussolini in the newspaper - Its circulation during WW2 was 350,000 implying it had high readership
- Although this crticism of Mussolini enraged him - He never actually shut it down the newspaper
- A comprise agreed the Church would retain influence over Italian youth - Catholic Action would be
limited to religious, educational and recreational activities -
- Pius II warned the state musn't interfere with Milan University or Federation of Catholic University
Students - Membership of Catholic Action grew from 250k to 388k between 1930-39
- Impact of the Anti-Semetic Policies in 1938
- Mussolini introduced a series of race laws from pressure from Nazi Germany
- Facsits press tried to convince Italians Jews were a separate race and it attacked oppisition from the Church
- Pius XI had prepared an encyclical letter which condemned anti-Semitism, aggressive German nationalism - But died before it was published
- Pius XII, his successor, published an encylical letter using many of the same arguments in his predessor's letter, shortly after the outbreak of WW2
- However Pius XII did not openly criticise the deportation of Italian Jews during WW2
- Pius XI publiaclly denounced these laws, declaring that Italy should not follow Germany's example of harsh and brutish racist laws
- Broad ideological reconciliation + Shared fear of socialism
- Most Italians eventually and generally felt fascism could be reconciled to catholicism
- Corporatism emphasised social harmony
- Desire for social stability and order
- Discipline and respect for heirarchy
- Hostility towards liberal attitudes
- Importance of family and female roles
- Conclusion: Church State Relations