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The Secrets of a Vatican Cardinal, edited by Bruno Fabio Pighin and translated by Laurence Mussio, offers an extraordinary and detailed first-hand account of the Eternal City in wartime Italy from within the Vatican’s inner circle. The following excerpt is Celso Costantini’s diary entry from February 1940, four months before Mussolini declared war on Britain and France.
The dread overwhelming Italy as a result of the war weighs on minds here like a nightmare. The horizon is dark and menacing, as when a thunderstorm approaches. Our spirits are troubled and depressed. The organization of the party mobilizes around Mussolini and in a certain sense keeps him prisoner. The public is tired. They see certain merits in Mussolini, but they sense the lack of a feeling of confidence and serenity; they sense a lack of proper respect for human dignity. That dignity demands an honest use of liberty. It was to be hoped that the Fascist dictatorship would evolve into a regular form of governance in which the nation could freely express its own thoughts. Instead, this dictatorship has hardened and is becoming a tyranny. Who can succeed the dictator?
There is widespread malaise and discontent. The power of the Masons has been overthrown, but the favouritism of the party has replaced it, and a frightening corruption is spreading. The Empire has been created, but the financial structure of the nation has been shattered. The veins of taxpayers are sucked … Taxes drain the veins of taxpayers, and then millions are squandered on unnecessary things: for example, many millions for German uniforms for clerical workers, fabulous salaries for certain party officials – some have an annual salary of over a million lire!
What is more, one has the contradiction and the doubly serious useless expense of the prefects and the Federali. Aren’t prefects enough?
There is discipline, but it is a discipline on the outside only, insincere and not actually felt. All of the newspapers are the same and all of them take an eternally panegyric attitude toward Il Duce and toward Fascism. It’s natural and human to make an occasional error in judgment, but the result is always the same: praise, praise, praise.
If a little reasonable freedom were permitted, it would be of the greatest service to the government and to Mussolini. He himself, when he was on trial before assuming power, said that an opposition was a necessary and precious thing for the government … Now, if you talk, you are sent to prison. One can understand this in a time of war, in a time of revolution; but it cannot be a regular measure of a government. The unfortunate Pinetti, the administrator of Pro Familia, citizen, father, and otherwise harmless worker, was condemned to five years in prison for giving his opinion on union with Germany. And the Hon. Martire was sent to prison for having made, in the halls of Parliament, a remark about Ciano that showed little respect. These methods invite a revolt, one that could favour communism. Rather than being a social or political theory, communism is often an explosion of the people’s discontent and the desire to possess the riches of others and to avenge themselves against those currently privileged.
Days ago Mussolini, speaking with reference to the promulgation of the new code, said that justice is the foundation of civil life. Very true. The law is the instrument with which justice is exercised; this is defined as cuique suum [to each his own]. But today, what use is the law? In the Statute it says that everybody is equal before the law, but the Jews, born and raised under the aegis of the state have been abandoned and stripped of all the rights that the law conferred upon them. One cannot even say that the Senate voted for this racial law; it was passed under intimidation, which among other things does not reflect honourably on the Senate. Worse, with money you can obtain discriminatory decrees. I could name names, but I am afraid to write them down because if this diary falls into the hands of others, I would not want harm to come to these poor, discriminated Jews. Worse still, a racial tribunal has been established. A wife only has to declare to have had a son as a result of an adulterous affair to have that son declared Aryan. It is the height of immorality. Nobody believes these disgraceful declarations; they are made as a juridical subterfuge that dishonours Fascist society. The Honourable Jung, a convert from Judaism, told me, almost in tears, how this tragedy of disgraceful declarations anguished his conscience. He could have had recourse to this ignoble trick to save his two nephews, but he refused.
Is this civilization? All this is due to Hitler, who wants to replace religion with the myth of bloodline. Mussolini is Hitler’s prisoner and is enveloped in the clouds of a poisonous flattery that isolate him from external reality. “We cannot take it anymore,” a prelate told me. This is the feeling of the great majority of Italians.
To learn more about The Secrets of a Vatican Cardinal, click here.
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