The Vatican in Politics X

IN ITALY, the outstretched palm of the bribe-taker has become almost as familiar as the dinnertime plate of spaghetti. The venerable bustarella—literally, little envelope— slipped to government workers in exchange for favors has created ethical havoc between business and government.

The Italian version of payola flourishes in the thickets of cluttered bureaucracy, and the practice of bustarella often smacks of comic opera. It is perhaps not so amusing in the pharmaceutical field, where, by virtue of a curious Italian law, foreign drug companies are required to register the formula of any product they wish to market. The same law states that if a similar commodity is already being sold, then the foreigner cannot sell his product in Italy. The results are inevitable. No sooner does an American company register a formula than one of the Italian pharmaceutical houses pays somebody in the right office for the privilege of a peek at it. In no time at all, a duplicate product is on the shelves, usually under another name.

Many Italians believe that if you want to get something done, you play the game of bustarella in government offices—or you take money to the Vatican. The more cynical Italians will tell you that service is rendered in direct proportion to the thickness of the envelope. The hard truth about Italy’s political system, particularly since the end of the war, is that the Catholic clergy, having direct access to the ministers and other key government figures, can usually get what it wants. An Italian who wants something done will usually go either to his parish priest or to the bishop of his diocese, who will, as often as not, intervene with a key cardinal—who has the right connections.

This brings to mind a friend of mine, a tenor, who approached, through the usual channels, a highly placed cardinal in the Vatican. The singer, thinking he would enhance his career immeasurably if he could have the honor of opening the season at one of Italy’s major opera houses, asked the cardinal to get him the lead part for the first night. The cardinal suggested that a sum of approximately $32,000 might be appropriate—”for services rendered.” My friend declined making the payment. Later, an American tenor snapped up the part. The American, traveling the same path as his Italian contemporary, had found the same prelate, whose interest in C-notes was more financial than musical.

In another case, the husband of a family friend was killed by an Italian army truck while he was sitting in his parked automobile. The widow easily won her suit against the Italian government, but payments on the $25,000 judgment never reached her. After fourteen years, and no payments, she enlisted the aid of a powerful cleric inside the Leonine Walls. His fee for “making the necessary phone call” came to approximately $12,000. Within six months the widow got all her money from the Italian state.

Informed Italians know where to go when they want to get something done. It’s merely a matter of finding the right cog in the Vatican mechanism. The Italian people are well aware of how intertwined their government is with the Vatican, and the Vatican with their government. This is so because of the nature of Italian politics.

There was a time when the Vatican would have nothing to do with the ballot box. It is not difficult to discern that that time is now past. The Vatican, which has so far been content to manipulate indirectly rather than directly, plays politics in Italy partly because it wants to keep the Communist party at bay and partly because a heavy hand in the Italian cabinet and the twenty-six ministries is a kind of guarantee that the financial interests of the Church will be served.

Toward the end of World War II, the Vatican found it worthwhile to revive a conservative political party that had been founded by a priest, Don Luigi Sturzo, in 1919. The party, which was originally known as the Popular party, was reorganized with Vatican funds and skill and became the present-day Christian Democratic party, which has ruled Italy without interruption since the end of 1945.

The Vatican does not directly control the Christian Democrats, who are popularly known among the Italian people as democristiani, and also as i preti—literally, the priests. It does not give instructions to its men—but it doesn’t have to. It does not express opinions on given political issues—but the party leadership is always aware of the Vatican’s views. Ostensibly, Italy’s is a secular government, but the rules of conduct are formulated by the Vatican. For this reason, the Vatican has allowed only trusted practicing Catholics who will do the Church’s bidding to rise to the top political jobs in Italy.

One might ask whether the success of the Vatican in Italian politics can be attributed to the merging of its secular and spiritual qualities. The answer is indeed in the affirmative. The Vatican alternately poses as a church and as a political force, depending upon which pose will prove more advantageous at the moment. At the lower levels, through the local congregations, the Church presents itself as a religious organization and wins support by religious appeals to its followers; often these appeals influence voters. At the higher levels the Church becomes increasingly a political organization and, indirectly, exerts a controlling influence over the affairs of the Italian state. The Church’s chief instrument has been the democristi-ani, an army of faithful Christian Democratic politicians that has obviated the Vatican’s need for maintaining powerful lobbies. Italy’s postwar political history is intimately tied to i preti, under whom Italy has been carefully guided to its present position in the world of nations.

Italy is no doubt the better for it. But all has not been politically tranquil for the Vatican. After World War II, the Italian Communist party—a prime enemy of the Vatican— became the largest Red party outside the Iron Curtain, but now it appears to have been boxed in by Vatican forces.

Rebuilding a democratic political structure during the postwar era presented considerable difficulties for Italy, whose people had been denied any participation in the affairs of the country for over twenty years. The consequences were deeply felt between 1945 and 1947. Urgent measures were required to help Italy’s economy, and it was apparent that decisive steps would have to be taken in the political field. It was during this period that the Vatican elected to go into politics on a full scale, though deliberately eschewing direct participation. The decision was doubtless prompted by the extreme left-wing parties that were seeking to impose their will on Italy through public demonstrations.

In a period when internal law and order was threatened by strikes and demonstrations, there arose the name of Alcide De Gasperi. De Gasperi, a former Vatican librarian and a devout Catholic, needed little encouragement from the Vatican to enter the political arena and steal the spotlight away from the revolutionary parties. In its own way, the Vatican took on the task of settling Italy’s political unrest by pushing to the fore a man like De Gasperi, who would not only give help to a country badly in need of assistance but would also bring to it the social and economic equilibrium desired by the pope.

With courage and admirable political acumen, De Gasperi devoted himself to the material strengthening of his country. Although the shadow of the Vatican was always behind him, he could not and did not ostensibly cater to the immediate interests of his silent sponsors. Upon his appointment as prime minister in December 1945, he emerged as the strong man of Italian politics. By quieting the various factions that had blocked Italy’s postwar democracy, he was able to call the first free elections the country had had in nearly a quarter of a century. The elections, held in June 1946, had the twofold objective of letting the people decide whether they wanted a monarchy or a republic, and of electing deputies to a constitutional assembly. The referendum showed twelve million votes in favor of a republic and ten million in favor of a monarchy. Umberto II, who had become king after the formal abdication of Victor Emmanuel III in May 1946, and who had reigned for only thirty-four days, removed himself from Italy under protest, to continue to campaign from abroad for the restoration of his throne. His downfall eliminated one of the last brakes on the power of the Vatican. Now the duties of the chief of state were placed in the hands of Prime Minister De Gasperi.

The elections, which brought on the collapse of a number of small parties, allowed the Christian Democratic party to emerge in full strength. When Italy’s new parliament elected Enrico de Nicola the country’s first interim president, Prime Minister De Gasperi forthwith resigned. De Nicola then asked him, as leader of the majority party, to form a new cabinet. Of the many important moves made by the second De Gasperi government, one that particularly deserves mention was the drawing up of a preliminary plan for agrarian reform. This had been one of the Christian Democratic party’s—and the Vatican’s —chief aims at the time. Many aspects of De Gasperi’s agrarian plans have since been carried out.

A subsequent government crisis in 1947 led to the third De Gasperi government, known as the Tri-partite Government, because the cabinet consisted of democristiani, Communists, and Socialists.

In 1948, when Italy’s new constitution came into force, elections were held for the first parliament. In the elections the Italian Communist party, which boasted an unprecedented membership of one and a half million, and which had formed a common electoral slate with the Socialists, made a concerted bid to take over the country.

Italy’s survival of this take-over attempt marks one of the crucial points of its history.

Much of the credit for barricading the Reds in 1948 should go to the Vatican. The Church let out all the stops for that election—even to the extent of swinging open the doors of convents and marching cloistered nuns off to the polling places to vote for Christian Democrat candidates. In many instances where a democristiano won by only a few votes, it was the ballots cast by sisters who had been shepherded from their nunneries to an election booth that made the difference. With 92 percent of the country’s eligible voters casting ballots, and with over a hundred parties presenting candidates, the elections gave the Christian Democrats an absolute majority of 306 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, a high-water mark in democristiani fortunes. The party also showed up strongly in the Senate, winning 131 seats. Had it not been for the 107 special “life senators” appointed under a special provision in the new constitution, this would also have constituted a true majority. In joint session both chambers met and elected Luigi Einaudi president of the republic. Once again, De Gasperi was asked to form a government.

In order to escape the stigma of Vaticanism, De Gasperi assigned some cabinet posts to the Liberals, Republicans, and Social Democrats. A four-party (Christian Democratic, Liberal, Republican, and Social Democratic) center coalition was thus formed. Under it, a politically stable five-year period ensued, during which the astute De Gasperi set about reconstructing and strengthening his regime. During this period monetary stability was attained, a start was made on new construction, new plans for agrarian reforms were introduced, and projects were launched to assist Italy’s underdeveloped areas.

In May 1951, the first local elections were held. The results showed the sinew of the Christian Democratic party. A second national election took place two years later, in June 1953, and once more the democristiani won the majority of votes.

After heading a total of eight governments, De Gasperi finally fell, in August 1953, when a disagreement among the four parties made it impossible for him to obtain a majority for the new cabinet. In eight successive coalitions he had shown himself to be a great statesman who saw Italian politics polarized by the sharp conflict between red and black—the red banner of the Communists and the black cassocks of the priesthood.

The task now fell to another democristiano, Giuseppe Pella, whose government was essentially of a “caretaker” nature. But, with the development of the crisis over Trieste, Pella resigned. Mario Scelba (Christian Democrat) succeeded in re-establishing the alliance of the Christian Democratic, Liberal, Republican, and Social Democratic parties. The four-party government embarked on some farsighted political and administrative projects, negotiating the agreement that returned northern Trieste to Italy and passing new laws approving agricultural reforms, a modernized building code, and new public works. Keenly interested in the public works, the Vatican stood ready to offer the professional services of its construction companies to the government and to private builders alike.

When President Einaudi’s term of office expired in April 1955, the parliament elected Giovanni Gronchi (Christian Democrat) to the office. Shortly thereafter, there followed still another government crisis, when a group of deputies broke away from the National Monarchist party and formed another monarchist party, and Premier Scelba resigned in June 1955. In July, Antonio Segni (Christian Democrat) formed a new cabinet, which was composed of the same four parties as the previous one. This coalition succeeded in bringing into being a new tax law—favorable to the Vatican—and a new ministry, the Ministry for State Participations, which was made responsible for controlling the operations of government- owned holding companies. The Segni government, with pontifical blessings, also initiated several important public works projects in the lower part of Italy and in the northern Po delta region.

In May 1957, a new cabinet was formed under Adone Zoli (Christian Democrat). Parliament eagerly approved the treaty of the European Economic Community, which made Italy one of the founding members of the Common Market. Important decisions were also made for Italy’s depressed rural areas, and pensions for farm workers were approved. Premier Zoli stayed in power until shortly after the May 1958 elections, and, although i preti lost some ground and a number of seats in both houses, Amintore Fanfani (Christian Democrat) was charged with forming a new cabinet in July of that year. With center-left tendencies, the Fanfani cabinet, which included some members of the Social Democratic party, drafted a ten-year plan for the modernization and reconstruction of Italy’s road network (the contracts went mostly to Vatican- owned companies), voted $64.5 million for a ten-year agricultural plan, elaborated a decade-long educational program, and adopted protective measures against abuses in the wholesale business.

Fanfani’s efforts were continued by another cabinet, headed by Antonio Segni, who had previously been the premier from July 1955 to May 1957. Executing policies that encouraged industry and agriculture, Premier Segni brought on monetary stability and a balanced budget, reduced unemployment, and put into operation a vast public works program. But the political situation in Italy was changing and eventually led to a forty-day parliamentary crisis, after which Segni resigned. There followed the usual consultations with President Gronchi, and finally Fernando Tambroni (Christian Democrat) was given the task of forming a new government, consisting of Christian Democrats.

In July 1960, the Tambroni cabinet was replaced by one headed (again) by Fanfani. Fanfani managed to provide loans and other assistance for artisans and small industries, to modernize the telephone network, to reconstruct and bring up to date the national highway system, and to put into effect a five-year plan for agricultural development. He also was instrumental in pushing for more funds for the Southland Development Fund, which had been established to speed industrialization in the depressed regions.

Still another crisis brought the downfall of Fanfani’s cabinet in 1962; nonetheless, Fanfani was called on to try his hand once again. He formed a cabinet with the famous apertura a sinistra (opening to the left). The cabinet, which included Social Democrats, fully adhered to the principles adopted by the Christian Democratic party at its congress in Naples the month before.

Nothing in Italian politics in the postwar era brought on such fiery discussions as did the so-called opening to the left—a policy that was adopted not because of any special philosophical theory, but because it gained the Christian Democrats the support of the non-Communist left. Specifically, this meant the Christian Democrats would get cooperation not only from the Social Democrats but also from Pietro Nenni and his Socialist party. The Socialists—or, as they were more frequently referred to, the Nenni Socialists—had thirty-five seats in the Senate and eighty-four seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Although the new Fanfani cabinet did not include the Nenni Socialists, it had the assurance of Nenni that they would not vote against the Christian Democrats whenever the Prime Minister sought a parliamentary vote of confidence. During this Fanfani government, Foreign Minister Antonio Segni was elected president of the republic, replacing Gronchi, whose term had expired.

The Vatican’s role during this period merits review. If the Vatican had not wanted its Christian Democratic party to work with the left-wing, Marxist politicians, then there would never have been an “opening to the left” in Italian politics; as members of a Catholic party, the democristiani were obliged to maintain their Vatican- approved principles, but the first law of all successful politicians is to retain a position of power. The apertura a sinistra became possible, thanks to a change of climate within the Vatican itself. Much of the change was attributable to Pope John XXIII, whose policies were in strong contrast to the stiffly anti-Communist ones of his predecessor, Pius XII.

Pope John, who made some public pronouncements that did not condemn the Communists outright, felt that the Vatican should stay out of Italian politics as much as possible. By keeping his hands off Fanfani’s attempts to bring on the “opening to the left,” he did the Vatican a service, for because of the “opening,” the democristiani were able to remain in power. As one prominent journalist later said, “Pope John, by being a nonpolitical pontiff during this period, was indeed the most political of pontiffs, and it saved his Catholic party from who knows what!”

The apertura a sinistra worked well, although it was never without sharp criticism both from ranking democristiani and from the public at large. About this time Italy was undergoing a miracolo economico, and this boom helped the Fanfani cabinet consolidate its position. Among other things, it obtained the passage of some important school bills (which implemented a provision for eight years of compulsory education, provided free textbooks for elementary school children, and allocated $320 million to modernize and better equip schools and universities), increased social security payments, set standards to regulate the purity of food products, modernized the country’s judicial system (which had hardly changed in a century), made large-scale expenditures to shore up Sardinia’s economy, appropriated large sums to be spent over a ten-year period for the construction of hospitals, imposed a withholding tax on stock dividends (the Vatican was later—by the maneuver described in Chapter IX—exempted from paying this tax), imposed a new real estate tax that put a stop to land speculation in expanding suburban areas, provided financial assistance to needy university students, and nationalized the electric power companies. This last measure, a key item for the Nenni Socialists, was part of the price the democristiani had to pay for the Socialists’ parliamentary backing.

Premier Fanfani and his cabinet went down to defeat in the 1963 national elections, in which the Catholic party lost a substantial number of seats. The man who eventually succeeded Fanfani was Giovanni Leone, another Christian Democrat. Having formed a minority cabinet composed exclusively of democristiani, Leone ran a “caretaker” government until the political situation clarified.

In time, Aldo Moro, secretary of the Christian Democrats, took over and continued as prime minister until the May 1968, elections, having formed three straight center-left cabinets following one knockdown after another. In that election, though the Communist party made some gains (winning thirteen new seats at the expense of the United Socialist party—which had helped the Christian Democrats govern Italy for five years in the center-left coalition), the Christian Democratic party gained six new seats in the Chamber of Deputies (raising its total to 266) and two new seats in the Senate (bringing the total to 135).

In June, Senator Giovanni Leone, the middle-of-theroad Christian Democrat who had headed a stopgap government five years before, formed a minority cabinet composed of Christian Democrats in a political play with practically the same cast. This move was made when the Socialists refused to join in another center-left coalition because they blamed their May election loss of some two million votes on their having cooperated with the Christian Democrats. Until the Socialists had decided, at a party congress in November, whether to stay at the window or to rejoin the Christian Democrats in a renewed center-left partnership, the caretaker Leone government had to depend on uncertain support from other parties, or abstentions, to get any legislation enacted over the summer.

It appears that, although Italian governments have been falling at a fairly brisk rate since the Vatican entered the political arena, the same eighty men have been playing “ministerial chairs.” Nearly all of these eighty perennials are members of the Christian Democratic party. When Moro formed his third cabinet, only two of his twenty-six ministers were new; fifteen of the remaining twenty-four had served in the previous cabinet. Equally startling is the fact that, since July 25, 1943, when Benito Mussolini was arrested, Italy has had twenty-seven governments with a total of 588 ministerial posts, all of which have been held by only 181 men. Seventy men served only once, and thirty-two twice; thus the remaining 454 posts were shared by only seventy-nine men. This count gives only a partial picture of the durability of these politicians, for the numbers deal only with ministerial appointments and do not include the posts held by these same men as undersecretaries.

To understand, in part, how the Christian Democrats have managed to retain control for a quarter of a century, one must examine the role of Catholic Action in Italy. Conceived and organized by Pius XI soon after his ascension to the papacy in 1922, Catholic Action is a strong lay organization with a membership that numbers many hundreds of thousands. Although the organization’s stated purpose is to promote Christian education and charitable enterprises, its various diocesan branches are also active in politics and cooperate in furthering the political doctrines of the Church. Catholic Action derives its strength from the fact that it is able to influence bureaucratic appointments, to place its men on the boards of directors of state-run industries, and to get its own people major academic chairs.

A good example of the role that Catholic Action plays in Italy’s political picture is provided by Catholic Action’s activities in 1948. Almost certainly, Italy would have gone Communist in that year’s election if organized Catholic Action groups had not been able to meet the Communists in a rough-and-tumble, head-on collision. Since the Christian Democratic party did not at that time have an inner structure that would have enabled it to ward off the extreme left, the Vatican called on the Catholic Action groups in the country’s three hundred dioceses. The intervention of this network prevented the left from emerging from the election as the most powerful political force in Italy.

Whatever principles guide Catholic Action in Italy, it will not be hobbled by genteel considerations of democratic propriety. Politics in Italy, as everywhere else, is a dirty game—and Catholic Action will go to any lengths in order to exercise its power for the Vatican.

An official of the Socialist party’s executive committee holds to the view that no other group in Italy is as powerful as Catholic Action. According to him, “Most of the major policies that have evolved in this postwar period have been policies favored by the Catholic hierarchy, or at least, policies that did not run strongly counter to the values of Catholicism.” He continues:

We all know that with Vatican approval the Catholic Action effort to create civic committees was responsible for theamazing victory registered by the Christian Democrats in the 1948 election. I am of the personal opinion that we wouldhave in Europe today a different Europe—an entirely different Europe—had the Communists succeeded in winning that election. People in the Free World, particularly those in the United States, do not truly know just how crucial Italy’s 1948 election was for the entire world. It transcended the borders of Italy. Indeed Catholic Action made the difference. Because the Vatican has these Catholic Action committees ready, the Pope’s power as a politician is tremendous. The committeescan defeat Christian Democrats who do not cooperate, or at the very least, they can make the re-election of these individuals extremely difficult.

To understand Catholic Action’s enormous power, it is necessary to recognize the extraordinary control Catholic Action has over Italy’s women voters. Of the twelve million ballots guaranteed to the Christian Democratic party in a given election, seven million come from female voters, who are dominated by local Catholic Action workers.

Generally speaking, women in Italy have very little grasp of politics. But Italian women do have the right to vote. And local Catholic Action workers do not fail to take advantage of the situation.

One British author perhaps put his finger on it when he interviewed a Sicilian peasant and recorded her statement:

The cross bears us to heaven. Who does Padre Pietro tell us to vote for? Always for the cross [the symbol of the ChristianDemocratic party is a red cross emblazoned on a white elongated shield], for God knows how to reward us. My mother, paralyzed as she is—they carry her to vote—and I go into the room where you vote, and I put the sign for her, on the shield with the cross. I am not two-faced with God, I do not betray Him. Certainly, all of us make mistakes, and even inthis party there are men who make them, but God looks after them. High-ups promise us a lot of things, make us hope, deceive us, and then give us nothing—but that isn’t to saythat one shouldn’t vote for God. There are many priests inthe Christian Democratic party, and there’s the Pope himself, too—and how can these make mistakes?

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