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