THE occasional criticism of Signor Mussolini’s methods of government that has appeared in these columns has brought us a certain number of protests from readers who have reminded us that Mussolini has rescued Italy from the power of atheistic, freemasonry, that, thanks to him, the Church has recovered some of its privileges, and that religion has been restored to the schools. In thus reversing the policy of former Liberal Governments the Fascists have properly earned the appreciation and secured the support of a large part of Catholic Italy. It is now, however, apparent that the new policy was adopted in order to buy the alliance of the Church in the grandiose Nationalist and Imperialist plans with which Signor Mussolini and his associates are dazzling and, as we think, deluding young Italy. Acting on the report of a commission partly clerical and partly governmental, the Fascist Government has proposed to restore to the Church certain of the privileges lost in 1870, and the Fascist leaders are furious because the Osservatore Romano, the organ of the Vatican, has received the proposals very coldly, and has suggested that the Sovereign Pontiff can make no compromise where his sovereignty is concerned. Cardinal Gasparri has been viciously abused; but the Pope, by writing an autograph letter and sending his Secretary-of-State a medallion portrait of himself, has made it quite clear that the Cardinal and he are of one mind. The fact that to the Fascist the Church is nothing more than an important Italian institution, while the statesmanship of the Vatican must always insistently proclaim the internationality of the Catholic Church, which is not likely again to be compromised by too close association with local politics or the patronage of provocative experiments in statesmanship.
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