POPE AND MUSSOLINI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 19 September 1929, Page 11

POPE AND MUSSOLINI.

POSITION MORE TENDER.

MEN'S TEMPORAL AFFAIRS.

NEWSPAPER'S WARNING

Australian and N.Z. Press ARSociation (Received September 18, 7.55 p.m.)

LONDON, Sept, 17

The Romo correspondent of the British United Press reports that the position between the Prime Minister, Signor Mussolini, and the Pope has become more tender as u result of recent speeches made by His Holiness. In his first speech the Popo is said to have taken a number of the Duce's phrases and turned them to his own use. Thereupon the chief Fascist organ Giornalo d'ltalia, said the Popo would find 99 per cent, of the people of Italy would react violently "if the Holy Father abandoned God and mixed with men in temporal things with a fighting, partisan spirit." The Popo last evening repeated and emphasised his earlier statements to the effect that lie hoped the Government would multiply its surveillanco over the Roman Catholic clergy—organisations in which Signor Mussolini would find virtue and tho promise of great things. ( " We also have our liberty which is an insuppressiblo sovereign gift," the Popo added.

The controversy between llie Italian Government and the Vatican on the question of education, a point on which the Pope and Signor Mussolini both declare themselves to bo equally intransigent, shows no of dying down, wrote a correspondent on July 17. On the contrary, it has been revived by the Prime Minister's pointed words in his address to the heads of the Fascist Party in Milan. Signor Mussolini said"Another problem—the young generations. I hey belong to us entirely and we do not intend to permit of any exception to this firm, fundamental rule. They must be brought up in the proper spirit of l'ascist discipline and it is therefore necessary that they should frequent assiduously and regularly the institutions thaflhe regime has set up for them and those only." The Pope has made no direct answer, but the Osservatore Romano —the Vatican organ —asserts in a series of leading articles that the Christian education of youth belongs entirely to the Church; it is her right and her duty and it t cannot be otherwise; also by Article 43 of the Concordat the State expressly recognises "the organisations depending from the 'Azione Cattolica Italiana* in so far as they carry on their activities outside every political party and solely for the diffusion and actuation of Christian principles."

Mussolini, like the Pope, keeps silence, but the Tribuna, taking up the cudgels for the State, retorts that the "Azione Cattolica" must confine its activities within purely religious limits; if it leaves that ground to enter into questions of sport and pedagogy it practically enters into politics and acts like a party, in opposition to the views of the regime and contravening the laws of the State; in which case it must be repressed. The Pope held a Secret Consistory on July 15 and it was anticipated that his Allocation to the Cardinals might contain sorno references to the question, the only one where there seems any misunderstanding as to the interpretation of the Concordat. The Pope, however, said that he should keep the discussion of certain important affairs of the Universal Church to some future occasion, which would certainly not fail to present itself during this year of Jubilee. The intransigence on the part of the Vatican seeins somewhat perplexing, as the Latcran Treaties, as Signor Mussolini observed in his speech to the Senate on May 25, were by no means hastily concluded. n They are the result of three years of long, difficult and delicate negotiations."