David Kertzer spent seven years researching the history of Italy during the years prior to World War II. The professor of anthropology and Italian Studies at Brown University dug into Vatican archives, looking at documents that had just become accessible, in addition to poring over government and private papers from other countries. His conclusion was disturbing: Although it was believed the Roman Catholic Church vigorously opposed the Fascists, the opposite was true. The Vatican abetted the Fascist regime, kept it in power and supported harsh measures against the Jews. Kertzer’s new book is The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe. The conversation with Kertzer has been shortened for length.

Why did this period in Italian history, the Second World War, interest you so much?

I was very interested in the role the Vatican played in shaping the way modern Italy developed. When Pope John Paul II authorized the opening of the Vatican archives, which were not previously available, I became interested. It was a period that would see Nazi and Fascist dictatorships arise and the Vatican dealing with a radically changing and frightening world.

At the time Mussolini came to power in 1922, Italy was still going through tremendous growing pains as a new country. [It had been a patchwork of kingdoms.] Can you explain what was happening at the time?

The kingdom of Italy was created in 1861 but it was only completed with the acquisition of Rome in 1870, when the Italian army crashed through the gates of the city. Rome until then was politically controlled by the Vatican. It was the capital of the Papal state, which expanded beyond Umbria.

When Mussolini came to power, there had been a chaotic period after World War One. Half a million Italians were killed. Half a million more came back gravely injured. It was a period of social chaos and unemployment. The fear of Communism was huge because it was shortly after the Russian Revolution.

Mussolini founded his Fascist movement in 1919 and Catholics also organized a national party called the Popular Party to attract people away from the socialists and keep them in the Catholic fold. Mussolini understood the power of intimidation and began attacks on socialist groups and the Catholic political party.

This is the background in 1921, when 35 members of the Fascist party were elected to parliament.

Mussolini was irreligious. He had little respect for the Vatican and was the sort of man Pius XI, a scholarly and seemingly thoughtful person, would naturally find repugnant. But you write, “the Pope had seen something in Mussolini that he liked.”

The Pope was certainly no fool and realized Mussolini had not a religious bone in his body. But when Mussolini made an offer to restore a lot of the power the Catholic Church had lost, the Pope complimented Mussolini as someone who had real leadership qualities. Here was a man who could inspire confidence.

From the time Mussolini came to power he immediately tried to win the Pope’s support. One of the first things he did was mandate that primary and secondary schools had religious education. He gave money to repair churches that had been injured during the war.

Italy was still a Catholic country. Ninety-nine per cent of the people were baptized. There was a strong tradition of anti-clericalism. But the church was still extremely influential and most of the country was rural and illiterate so the priest had an important role in these communities.

The Catholic Popular Party founded in 1919 was one of the largest parties in Italy. It was the parish priests who organized the popular support for the party and Mussolini realized it was important to have the Pope’s support.

But his Blackshirt teams were going around beating up priests and Catholic devotees.

There was a constant refrain in the Catholic press complaining about the Fascist violence against priests. Mussolini blamed it on the anti-clerical wing of the Fascist movement, people Mussolini did not support. He told the Pope he was the only one who can “control these folks and protect you.” But the Blackshirts were rarely charged and when they were charged they were often not found guilty.

At one point, you note, when talking about the number of mistresses Mussolini had, that it is amazing “he found not only time to run the government but insisted on reviewing even the most trivial details.”

It’s unbelievable to me really. There was a time in the latter 1930s during the summers, when he would go off to the beach with his lover and return to work later in the evening. He was able to micromanage things . . .

He had children by God knows how many different women. He probably had hundreds of different sexual relationships. And he had children with half a dozen women with whom he had ongoing relationships. This macho reputation did him good, not bad.

He had two very important mistresses. He and Margherita Sarfatti were inseparable for many years. She was not simply a romantic companion, she was a political advisor who had an elite education. [And she was Jewish.]

The other important mistress was Clara Petacci but that relationship only began after the Ethiopian war. Mussolini was more than twice her age. Petacci kept an incredible diary and recorded every comment Mussolini made to her. The diary came to the state archives and it has been published over time.

He married a woman named Rachele Guidi who was practically illiterate. She felt totally out of place in Rome but she was also part of that anti-clerical heritage that included Mussolini. She was more committed to that heritage. Benito made her baptize their children against her will.

Pope Pius XI had the same problem with child abusers that still harms the church today. His response to it, in the early part of the 20th century, seems identical to how the church deals with it now.

It is interesting. I worried this information in my book would be sensationalized but it is part of the story so I did have to weave it in.

The Pope was definitely an anti-Semite. He didn’t mind if Jews converted to Catholicism but he generally loathed them, thought of them as fomenters of the Russian Revolution, socialists and communists. And he never spoke out against the efforts to eradicate them.

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They were persecuted and kicked out of schools and they lost their jobs and were considered a threat to good Catholic society. It was very bad for the Jews in Italy.

One of the things I documented for the first time in this book is how the Pope’s personal envoy to Mussolini, Tacchi Venturi, tried to urge him about the danger that Jews represented jointly to Fascism and Catholicism and the need to take action against them. But the Pope saw Protestants as more dangerous to the Church than Jews.

The Pope’s demands on Mussolini seem overwhelming. As you note, he “hectored the Duce on objectionable women’s dress, books, Protestant proselytizing, films and plays.”

It’s interesting that the two men only ever met once, even though their offices were two kilometres apart. That was largely because Mussolini never felt comfortable with priests and he also felt that in the Vatican he would seem insignificant compared to the grandness of the Pope. The Pope also never considered going to see Mussolini at his office.

The Pope despised Hitler but he decided to put up with him. Why?

There was a brief period where the Pope had a more positive image of Hitler because he thought Hitler would be an important bulwark against Communism. sBut the Pope began to have doubts about Hitler and began to detest him because he felt Hitler fashioned himself as the god of a pagan cult.

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who succeeded Pius XI as Pope Pius XII, was considered Hitler’s pope. The efforts today to canonize him have met with huge criticism.

Popes don’t leave much in the way of private thoughts but in this period Pacelli kept a kind of diary of his daily meetings with the Pope and the foreign ambassadors to the Holy See, and he had a good relationship with the papal nuncios from around the world.

But what I learned about Pacelli and his actions during the final days of Pope Pius XI will not help in his candidacy for sainthood.

Why did the Pope finally fall out with Mussolini?

The Pope was getting increasingly concerned by two things. One was the cult of the Duce — Mussolini was presenting himself as a god — and the Pope felt that was sacrilegious. The other thing was Mussolini’s progressing embrace of Hitler and the Nazis, whom the Pope detested because he thought they were pagan.

Also, two-thirds of Germany was Protestant which was a problem for the Pope.

What was your goal in writing this book?

The goal was to look at the Papacy during the rise of Fascism and to clarify what role the Vatican played by focusing on these two powerful men: Pope Pius XI and Mussolini.

This particular period of history is so controversial, so fraught, so misrepresented. Now we have this evidence about what really went on and it is time to get to the heart of it, about how the Fascist regimes rose to rule in Europe and what role of the Vatican was.

I hope my book will open up a conversation about the church coming to terms with this difficult history.