Church in the World

Pius XII accused on fascism

Rome

A new book out this week in Italy says recently opened archive material offers "clear proof" that, as Vatican Secretary of State, the future Pope Pius XII blocked his predecessor from rupturing all ties with Nazi fascism and condemning its ideology.

Emma Fattorini - author of Pius XI, Hitler and Mussolini: the solitude of a Pope - depicts the former-Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli as being soft on Nazi fascism even before becoming Pope Pius XII in March 1939. She stakes her claim on a memo written a few weeks before his papal election showing that Pacelli had ordered the destruction of all traces of a speech his predecessor Pope Pius XI had prepared to give just before he died. That papal address, which contained a scathing criticism of Benito Mussolini and fascism, was scheduled to be given to Italian bishops on 11 February 1939 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy. However, the Pope died the day before and the text was never made public.

Fattorini points to a recently uncovered note written on 15 February 1939 by the Secretariat of State's Mgr Domenico Tardini, stating that Cardinal Pacelli ordered the Vatican's printing house to "destroy all the material" connected to the speech, including "drafts" and lead type settings. The author says this was "a very clear sign of [Pacelli's] disagreement with [Pius XI's] policy of rupture or full opposition" to Mussolini.