Papal Lightning

Stubborn correspondents have insisted, for some months, that the "Roman Question" would be solved during 1928. In imagination they have fairly hustled the "Prisoner of the Vatican" out of his retirement and into a concordat with his erstwhile "Jailers," King Vittorio Emanuele and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Rumors to this effect were cabled last month, in extenso, even by respected Salvatore Cortesi, who has served the Associated Press in Rome for 25 years. Meanwhile observers of poised judgment could only point out (TIME, Feb. 13) certain sufficient indications that no such happy event was germinating. They quoted, for example, the continued expositions of Benito Mussolini's real attitude set forth by his trusted brother Arnaldo Mussolini, who declared: "A solution of the differences between the Roman Church and the Italian State will be impossible for another half century."

Last week the strained situation thus indicated led finally to an overt and acrimonious interchange of statements by His Holiness and Il Duce. When the lightning of their irritation had cleared the air, all hopes for a settlement of the Roman Question, this year, had gone glimmering.

The Supreme Pontiff's outburst came after a Centrist Catholic political rally had assembled at Rome, last week, and adopted a resolution pledging loyalty to the Papacy and the State in the same breath. Further, the Centrist convention waited upon Il Duce but sought no audience with His Holiness. Further still, they resolved: "The identity, ideals, and views of the Centrists are identical with those of Fascism."

Clearly it was high time for Achille Ambrogio Damiano Ratti, Pope Pius XI, to speak out. Addressing the Diocesan Board of Rome, he prefaced his remarks thus: "Sad, beloved Sons, are the things we come to tell you."

Launching into his oration, he declared: "Incompetency on the part of speakers at the Centrist Catholic convention is easily seen from the fact of their putting on the same footing and attributing the same right to the despoiled Holy See and the State responsible for this spoliation."

Broadening his discourse, Pope Pius then arraigned the State for rearing the Italian children of today in schools and youth organizations which are becoming progressively less Christian and more purely Fascist.

His Holiness charged the existence of "a complete [Fascist] plan tending to a veritable monopoly of juvenile education, not only physical, but moral and spiritual."

The educative methods of these Fascistized schools and organizations, concluded the Supreme Pontiff scathingly "often show contradiction or ignorance of the most elemental and most noteworthy pedagogic principles."

The immediate reply of Signor Mussolini to this frontal attack was a speech to his Cabinet Council in which he said that "If the State does not accept . . . the duty ... of integral preparation of future citizens ... it purely and simply gambles away its right to existence."

The second thrust of Il Duce was to issue a decree suppressing the Catholic Boy Scouts and all other youth organizations not directly Fascist.

Pope and Premier had thus exchanged blows making their estrangement absolute. But the question arose, "Who counseled His Holiness to flay Fascismo?" For answer observers looked well upon Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, famed Papal Secretary of State. At him a jumpy Protestant might well point a finger and cry, "Papist!" He is of heavy, compact, menacing build, and his great eyebrows have that peculiar upward and outward tilt with which most sculptors have endowed the Prince of Darkness.

Cardinal Gasparri, Prince of the Church, is of course a "Papist" in only the most enlightened and suavest sense. His Policy is to keep on the best possible terms with Christian governments outside of Italy and to wear down the resistance of succeeding Italian regimes to the Pope's claims of temporal sovereignty. Upon this point, Osservatore Romano, organ of the Vatican, declared last fall that His Holiness claims: "Liberty and independence, not only real and perfect, but also manifest to the faithful of the whole world."

As Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri was believed, last week, to have taken a bold step. This was to arrange an audience with the Pope for Gustav Cardinal Piffl of Austria (TIME, May 2) in the course of which His Holiness allegedly said: "This you will please tell all Catholics, I am not free and the relation between the Church and State in Italy today is exactly the same as on Sept. 20, 1870. We will do all possible in the future, and we will also pray. But we must at the same time be prepared to see even worse conditions before we see better."

If the words of Pope Pius were correctly quoted, they authorized Cardinal Piffl to communicate them discreetly to the press. This--there is good reason to believe--he did, making use of a correspondent who is attached to the Austrian Legation in Rome.

Even without such confirmation, however, it was abundantly clear, last week, that pallid, spectacled Pope Pius and swarthy, vigorous Cardinal Gasparri are now as one in their convictions that the Roman Question cannot be settled in 1928.