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JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012accompany the Cardinal Secretary of State to aEucharistic Congress in London.Anti-Democracy and Papal DiplomacyPope Leo XIII reigned from 1878-1903. Hebelieved that the Papal Diplomatic Service had acrucial role to play in the implementation ofinternal Church discipline and the conduct ofChurch/State relations, and had himself beentrained in diplomacy. The permanent mission ofthe Vatican increased from eighteen to twentysevendiplomats, during his watch. On his death,he was succeeded by Pope Pius X. Thisinaugurated an era known as anti-Modernism,also called anti-Americanism. The moderniststried to bring the Catholic Church in line withdemocracy, and the movement was primarilydriven by a disparate modernizing group in NorthAmerica. ‘Americanism’ experienced almostimmediate demise after the Papal denunciation.The ‘poison’ of European Modernismspreading throughout the Church was identifiedas early as 1870 by Professor Louis Duchesne atthe Institut Catholique in Paris. The man appointedto eradicate it by Pope Pius X was UmbertoBenigni. He worked in the mornings in the Vaticanin the same office of Pacelli. During the afternoons,evenings and weekends, he conducted the SecretService known as the Sodalitiums Pianum(Sodality of Pius). Experienced in running aCatholic newspaper and news service, he used themost modern and up-to-date skills in running aninternal espionage service to find ‘culprits’ whomight be suspected of being Modernist or ofhaving Modernist or democratic views.Without recourse to the audi alterem partem(hearing the other view) rule, numerousseminarians, curates, priests, teachers, bishopsand even princes of the Church were ‘delated’ orreported. The Cardinal Archbishops of Viennaand Paris and the entire Dominican Communityof Fribourg University in Switzerland wereaffected and sentenced without an opportunity todefend themselves.A comment made en passant in a refectory,being seen in the company of a suspectedmodernist, a sermon with unorthodox undertoneswere enough to result in destruction of a career,and banishment to a remote region. No one couldbe trusted and even students and old friendssecretly reported each other. Pope Pius X, himselfapproved, blessed and encouraged this intellectualconstriction, which spied on the hierarchy itself.In July, 1907 he published the decree Lamentabilicondemning 65 modernist Propositions (meaning‘viewpoints’). Two months later, he publishedPascendi, an encyclical on Modernism. Thisestablishes for all time that intellectual questionsare not a matter for scholarly or intellectualdiscussion but must be resolved by Papal authority.One accepted not only what the Pope proposed,but also how he interpreted it. This is contrary toall Catholic teaching of conscience and is a formof thought control that was unrivalled even byCommunist and Fascist regimes.Thirty years after the Lamentabili, Pius Xpublished a directive known as the “Anti-Modernist” oath. This required acquiescence toall papal teachings. All ordinands and all priestsin administrative teaching posts must to this daytake an oath in a modified form, denouncingModernism and supporting the Lamentabili. Theoath also includes Pascendi. This fear of themodern world and the fear of loss of total papalcontrol were approved of by Pacelli, even thoughhis mentor Gaspari vehemently disapproved.It was Pacelli who canonized Pope Pius X on29 May 1954, describing him as a “glowing flameof charity and shining splendor of sanctity”.Clearly, he adopted the anti-Modernist philosophyof his predecessor. This made it easier for him toassociate himself with the principle of “Ein weld,ein volk, ein führer” (one world, one nation, oneleader) of Adolf Hitler.In 1904, in strictest secrecy, the Codificationof Canon Law was begun. The project took fortyyears to commence from the inception by PioNino in 1864, and was to be applied universallywithout local discretion or opinion. It waseventually published in 1917 and is probably themost important event in the history of the RomanCatholic Church in modern times. It finallycemented total power control, unequal andunprecedented to the Papacy of the Church. Theprinciple architects and team leaders were Gaspariand Pacelli.According to a distinguished Protestant canonlawyer, Ulrich Stutz, the Code gave “supremeand most complete jurisdiction” of the Church bythe Pope, unlike anything that the Church hadpossessed in its 2000-year existence. 12 It was inmany ways a unilateral declaration of total power,since there were many concordats between theVatican and various governments over thecenturies. Points of dissension between the Codeand the Concordats had to be ironed out. It wasPacelli’s principle task to eradicate obstacles,starting with Germany, the most powerful Catholicpopulation in the world.Pius X was opposed to co-operating withpolitical parties. He did not care for them since hewas unable to control their thought processes.This was the case particularly in France where, asa result of successive revolutions commencing in1789, the monarchy had been replaced by arepublican form of government, whilst the Vaticanfavored a more monarchist, anti-democraticapproach. When the Jewish officer, Captain AlfredDreyfus, was found guilty of selling nationalsecrets in 1895, the Jesuit monthly CiviliaCatholica proclaimed that “the Jew was createdby G-d to act as a traitor everywhere.” WhenDreyfus was later exonerated, the Vatican cameunder attack by the anti-clerical Socialist Party inFrance because of the article.36
JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012Influenced by Pope Pius X and political eventswhich occurred in both France and Italy, Pacellibelieved in the infallibility of leadership in thecase of the Church as well as in the Fascist formof Government. According to Carlo Falconi: “Firsthe believed the mixture of politics and religion tobe the most dangerous possible for the Church,secondly because at that time the Catholic Partiesfostered the participation of priests in politics,and lastly because he thought them useless, forCatholics could always seek support for theirreligious claims from lay parties favorable to theChurch or at least not hostile to it.” 13Pacelli espoused the same view when, asCardinal Secretary of State, he collaborated onbehalf of a docile, quiescent church with the NaziParty. He preferred to help to crush the CatholicCentre Party, which consisted of loyal Catholicsbut was the final obstacle on Hitler’s path todictatorship. In order to achieve control, he choseHitler as a Chancellor, rather than Brüning whowas both a Catholic and a democrat.The Cause of World War IFather Denis Cardon, as described byCornwell, was “a corpulent bustling, meddlesomecleric skilled in several languages including Serbo-Croatian. 14 One evening in Belgrade, he met aminister of the Serbian government to whom hesuggested that a concordat between the Vaticanand Serbia would be mutually beneficial. Theminister expressed his doubts that the RomanCatholic Church would welcome the concept, dueto the expected resistance of the Austriangovernment. Cardon assured the minister that he(Cardon) could introduce him to the correctpersonality in the Church who would welcomethe concept and indeed steer it to fruition.The minister was so impressed with thisrelatively unknown priest that he forthwithproceeded to appoint him as Serbian Special Agentto the Holy See. Thus it was that Cardon went tothe Vatican and put the proposal to Pacelli. Neverbefore had there been any question of the Vaticanhaving such discussions with Serbia.During the Colonial era, it was a familiarfeature for a Catholic country to act as a Protectorof Catholics in a non-Catholic country. TheCatholic Austro-Hungarian Empire was thereforethe protector of Catholics in non-Catholic Serbia,which numbered only 7000 at the time of the 1 stBalkan War in 1912. As a result of Serbia’smilitary success in that war, the Serbian Empirenow encompassed 40 000 Catholics within itsnewly extended borders.Pacelli’s proposal in essence was that controlof the Catholic Church in Serbia be moved fromVienna to Rome. In terms of the treaty, Romewould nominate Bishops and educate priests inthe Latin rite, a right previously held by Austria.The negotiations between Serbia and the Vaticanwere conducted in the greatest of secrecy for awhole year, despite Austrian representations andseveral approaches to the Vatican. On 15 February1913 Archbishop Rafaele Scapinelli, the Vatican’snuncio in Vienna, wrote to Pacelli:“Austria….appears determined to deal harshlywith Serbia and it is widely believed that therecould be a war with that country in the spring,further complicating matters in the extreme.Would it not be better to leave the concordatnegotiations for now, rather than take risks in anuncertain and perilous set of circumstances, thatcan only lead to military humiliation for Serbia?” 15Pacelli, however, was determined to end theprotectorate status of the Austrians in the interestsof Rome. His drive for control was the overridingfactor which caused him to ignore all warningsand pleas and his initiative led to increased tensionbetween Austria and Serbian which escalatedinto World War I. On 7 June, 1914, a final meetingof cardinals was held in the Secretariat of Statewhere Gaspari re-echoed Archbishop RafaeleScapinelli’s warnings. Gaspari understood thatthe Church had been led into the trap by Pacelli’sdesire to exercise direct control over Catholics atthe local level and thus had become involved inthe complexities of local Balkan politics.It may be argued that Pacelli could never haveforeseen the implications of the papacy becominga player on the world stage. However, the pressurecooker which was initiated and escalated by hisirresponsible and self-serving conduct wassufficient indication of the price that Europe andthe world paid for the meddling of amateurs inworld affairs.On 24 June 1914, the concordat with theVatican and the Serbian government was signed.Only four days later, Austria’s Archduke FranzFerdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo. Theuncompromising position of Serbia and Rome,the volatile emotions, the Austrian outrage andthe assassination made war inevitable.Pope Pius X died on 20 August, it was said ofa broken heart after realizing the role that hisbeing manipulated by Pacelli had played in thecommencement of the war. Pacelli remained alivewith his heart intact. The new pope, Benedict XV,was elected on 3 September. He immediatelydismissed the Secretary of State, Merry del Val,and replaced him with Gaspari. Pacelli waspromoted to Secretary in the Department ofExtraordinary Affairs.Pacelli, Between the World WarsPacelli was tasked with dealing with the vastpopulations of prisoners of war, on both sides and“of all religions”. He is recorded as having donean outstanding job wherein, inter alia, 65 000prisoners were liberated and generous parcelscontaining food and medication were distributedamongst many of the hapless prisoners awaitingrelease. He also provided religious solace, workingtirelessly for three years without a day’s vacation.37
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