Holy See

The Holy See appears in the book as both a religious authority and a participant in the political contest over Catholic influence in Italy. Its confidential negotiations with Benito Mussolini coincided with government concessions to the Church and the forced departure of Don Luigi Sturzo, founder of the Italian Popular Party, revealing how reconciliation with the Church could serve Mussolini’s effort to marginalize an independent Catholic party.

Confidential negotiations

In Rome, Mussolini and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, the Holy See’s secretary of state, met privately at Palazzo Guglielmi. They arrived and left separately; the Catholic senator hosting the meeting was not present. The conversation’s contents remained undisclosed, but it lasted a long time, and Gasparri said afterward that he was satisfied with it. The discretion surrounding the meeting contrasted with the public consequences unfolding alongside it.

Negotiations between Mussolini and senior Vatican officials had begun months earlier. The book presents reconciliation with the Church as a political resource in Mussolini’s confrontation with the Italian Popular Party. The government advanced concessions under the guise of technical measures: equalizing school taxes, restoring crucifixes to classrooms, making religious instruction compulsory, allowing ecclesiastical authorities to choose teachers, and exempting seminary assets from a special tax. These measures gave the negotiations practical force even as their confidential character kept the political bargain out of public view.

The Church and the Catholic party

Mussolini’s dealings with the Holy See were bound up with his hostility toward Don Luigi Sturzo. Although Mussolini had included members of the Italian Popular Party in his coalition government, he refused to receive its founder. He regarded Sturzo as a threat to the functioning of government and objected to a priest exercising political influence. His private complaints to Cesare Rossi made clear that, for Mussolini, reconciliation with the Church did not mean accepting the autonomy of Catholic political leadership.

The Holy See’s role in Sturzo’s departure became explicit in the crisis over the Acerbo electoral bill. On July 10, Monsignor Pucci publicly urged Sturzo not to create problems, and Sturzo was forced to resign. The book connects that outcome to Mussolini’s demands and to continuing threats of reprisals against Catholic institutions and associations, including churches. With its founder removed, the Italian Popular Party’s survival depended on its deputies, who had to decide whether to oppose the bill without his leadership.

Political leverage and consequence

The distinction between the Holy See and the Italian Popular Party is central to this episode. The Church’s negotiations with Mussolini produced concessions affecting schools, religious instruction, and church property, while the Catholic party faced pressure that weakened its political independence. Mussolini could therefore present accommodation with ecclesiastical authorities alongside an effort to displace the party’s founder and constrain the party’s role in Parliament.

The book does not disclose what Mussolini and Gasparri agreed in their private conversation, so the meeting’s precise terms remain unknown. Its significance lies instead in the conjunction of secrecy, concrete government measures, and Sturzo’s removal: reconciliation between state and Church proceeded at the same moment that the Catholic party was being pushed toward a decisive parliamentary test.