NO MORE POLITICS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 285, 28 August 1931, Page 9

NO MORE POLITICS

Church’s Concession to Italian Government AGREEMENT REACHED By Telegraph—Press Ara.—Copyright. Rome, August 26. The dispute between the Italian Government and the Vatican has been settled, and it is expected that the agreement will be officially announced next week. Both sides make slight concessions. The Vatican accepts the Government’s contention that Catholic organisations must not interfere in Italian politics, but must confine their activities to religious work. The Vatican also agrees to abolish all Catholic Youth organisations. In return, the Government gives the Bishops the right to nominate clergymen as comptrollers of religious education in the Fascist Youth organisations. CHURCH’S CHALLENGE Importance of Rome Issues MANKIND AND THE STATE The present conflict between the Pope and the Duce may be looked at in various lights: for instance, as a personal encounter between two strong-willed Italians, an imperious Romagna! and an inflexible Milanese; or as a new campaign in the chronic warfare between two Italian States, the Papal State, which has shrunk into the City of the Vatican, and the Kingdom of PiedmontSardinia, which has swelled into the Kingdom of Italy, said “The Economist” in a recent article. Yet, as the conflict has drawn itself out and increased in intensity, it has also grown in significance for the world at large. In their exchange of words — note answered by broadcast, and broadcast by encyclical—the protagonists have been revealing, piecemeal and as It were in spite of themselves, the gravity of the underlying issue. The Pope’s challege to the Fascist State is part of a world-wide movement of revolt' against the State’s pretensions which, since the war, has been on foot among private people everywhere, and this largely under the banner of religion, though -it is only in the Roman Church that the leadership is vested in so conspicuous a figure. “Fought Out Symbolically.” In the present duel at Rome between 'the head of a Church which claims universality, and the head of a State which professes the pagan cult of Nationalism in its most militant form, one of the great social issues of our generation is being fought out symbolically. The fortunes of this momentous combat are very much more than a purely Italian concern. What are the odds? At first glance it might seem as though the Duce disposed of the big battalions. What can the Vatican City do against the Kingdom of Italy—especially under the Fascist regime, which obviously has a sharper beak and longer talons than its Liberal predecessors? Will the Fascist Government succeed in Italy, as the Soviet Government has apparently succeeded in Russia, in driving the Church off the field of education and off all other fields of practical social activity? (The cable message above indicates the outcome of these issues.) If once a Church is confined within these limits, its doom is certainly sealed. It is cut off from life, and life will thenceforth pass it by and leyve •it stranded. Fascism’s Ruthless Power. Conceivably it might happen if the field of conflict were limited to the frontiers of the Italian Kingdom. The'Pope has now called upon all Italian Catholics either to refuse the oath which the Fascist State demands of them or else to take it “with a mental reservation, safeguarding the laws of God and the Church'* ——a reservation which, "if necessary, must be openly admitted.” Within the Italian frontiers, Fascism is all-powerful and ruthless. It may prove strong enough to exact external allegiance from Italian Catholics by force though its own authority may be strained to the uttermost in doing so. What happens in Italy, however, win not be decisive, because the Pope has other ground which is beyond Mussolini s reach and other followers over whom Mussolini can exercise no coercion. While Mussolini’s dictatorship is confined to Italy, the Pope is the head of a Church which extends through all the world. And, on this particular issue, he may have the support, not only of Romaq Catholics, but of millions of people of other religions, or of no religion at all, who may nevertheless rally to him now that he is leading a crusade, against the pagan worship of the State.” Demands of the State. The truth is that, all over the world, there has been a profound revulsion of feeling against the pretensions of the Sovereign State within the last, twenty years. In the age which ended in 1914, the State was regarded by mankind on the whole as a beneficent institution winch had an unquestionable claim to the private citizen’s loyalty and obedience. Since 1914,, however, the State has made tremendous drafts upon the individual’s goodwill. It has uemanded from him unheard of sacrifices. It has conscripted him and sent him to die in battle: it has taxed him to the bone;, it has hampered his trade with rising tariffs and checked his very movement by migration restrictions. In all these ways the State has been doing its best to make itself odious, to Man. Possibly the Church has chosen the psychological moment in bidding now. once more, for the first place in Man s affections and esteem.