From National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer comes the
gripping story of Pope Pius XI's secret relations with Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven
years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives, including
reports from Mussolini's spies inside the highest levels of the
Church, will forever change our understanding of the Vatican's role
in the rise of Fascism in Europe.
"The Pope and Mussolini" tells the story of two men who came to
power in 1922, and together changed the course of twentieth-century
history. In most respects, they could not have been more different.
One was scholarly and devout, the other thuggish and profane. Yet
Pius XI and "Il Duce" had many things in common. They shared a
distrust of democracy and a visceral hatred of Communism. Both were
prone to sudden fits of temper and were fiercely protective of the
prerogatives of their office. ("We have many interests to protect,"
the Pope declared, soon after Mussolini seized control of the
government in 1922.) Each relied on the other to consolidate his
power and achieve his political goals.
In a challenge to the conventional history of this period, in
which a heroic Church does battle with the Fascist regime, Kertzer
shows how Pius XI played a crucial role in making Mussolini's
dictatorship possible and keeping him in power. In exchange for
Vatican support, Mussolini restored many of the privileges the
Church had lost and gave in to the pope's demands that the police
enforce Catholic morality. Yet in the last years of his life--as
the Italian dictator grew ever closer to Hitler--the pontiff's
faith in this treacherous bargain started to waver. With his health
failing, he began to lash out at the Duce and threatened to
denounce Mussolini's anti-Semitic racial laws before it was too
late. Horrified by the threat to the Church-Fascist alliance, the
Vatican's inner circle, including the future Pope Pius XII,
struggled to restrain the headstrong pope from destroying a
partnership that had served both the Church and the dictator for
many years.
"The Pope and Mussolini" brims with memorable portraits of the men
who helped enable the reign of Fascism in Italy: Father Pietro
Tacchi Venturi, Pius's personal emissary to the dictator, a wily
anti-Semite known as Mussolini's Rasputin; Victor Emmanuel III, the
king of Italy, an object of widespread derision who lacked the
stature--literally and figuratively--to stand up to the domineering
Duce; and Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, whose
political skills and ambition made him Mussolini's most powerful
ally inside the Vatican, and positioned him to succeed the pontiff
as the controversial Pius XII, whose actions during World War II
would be subject for debate for decades to come.
With the recent opening of the Vatican archives covering Pius XI's
papacy, the full story of the Pope's complex relationship with his
Fascist partner can finally be told. Vivid, dramatic, with
surprises at every turn, "The Pope and Mussolini "is history writ
large and with the lightning hand of truth.
Praise for "The Pope and Mussolini"
"David Kertzer has an eye for a story, an ear for the right word,
and an instinct for human tragedy. This is a sophisticated
blockbuster."--Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
"Revolutionary Summer"
" "
"A fascinating and tragic story.""--The New Yorker"
" "
"An impressive work of history . . . "The Pope and Mussolini"
matches rigorous scholarship with a fair yet forceful prose
voice."--"The Daily Beast"
"From the Hardcover edition."
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