Reghini's 'Imperialismo pagano' (1)
Heathen Imperialism
"Populus Romanus natura ordinatus
fuit ad imperandum"
Dante Alighieri, "De Monarchia"
In the recent political elections the universal vote, extreme
corollary of the democratic postulate, led us to the triumph of
oversimplification. The two parties, in fact, which have seen the
number of their votes increase the most have been without doubt the
clerical one and the socialist one (1). This is an obvious sign that
the arguments and the promises used by these parties were by their
nature more accessible and more pleasing to the mentality of the
large majority, illiterate, of the voters, than the ideas of the
other parties could. The peasants of Venetia and of Brianza, whose
primitive soul the priests control by using and abusing the tough
Christian belief and by making use if need arises of the less
spiritual argument of the Catholic banks ; the peasants of Emilia and
of Romagna and the workers of the large towns, watered to the
inexhaustible source of the ready-made and now undone sentences of
democratic eloquence, since everything is reduced in their narrow
class egoism to the fulfilment of a petty immediate material
interest, proud to feel developed, persuaded of representing
Progress, fantastic new God ; all, armed the with the gregarious
discipline and strength of the numerous leagues, have used their
sovereign right to vote for the two large internationalist parties.
Illiteracy, oversimplification and internationalism, in league, have
thus won together to the utmost glory of the parliamentary regime.
Besides, the nationalist party, while having emerged victorious from
some beautiful battles, did not succeed in obtaining a success
proportionate to the force with which Italian national consciousness
has awakened in the last years. What happened to that overpowering
nationalist tide which wanted the war (2) and which removed Italy
from the indecent and humiliating condition of the Cenerentola (3) of
the nations, then ? If we do not want to believe that so much energy
has vanished in thin air, it is necessary to admit that it was not
able to express itself because of the conditions of the parties in
Italy, since there is no party in Italy with which national
conscience can identify itself trustingly. And, in reality, that
party which claims to be nationalist does not give to the Italian
soul a secure confidence in its absolute Italianity ; the deep
intuition of race does not feel persuaded, and hesitates and
renounces to affirm itself nationalist if nationalist should mean
clerical.
Instinctively we are basically suspicious of the nationalism of the
clericals.
The change was so sudden, so unanimous, that it smacked straight away
of manoeuvre. We do not want to bother the reader by repeating very
well-known things ; yet, we cannot abstain ourselves from recalling
the continuous aversion of local and foreign clericals for our
country; in Belgium, in Austria, Spain, Germany, the eternal Roman
question was discussed in their congresses (4) ; still yesterday the
Secretary of State protested against the one he holds, and the tears
shed by the faithful on the imprisonment, with the related straw, of
the Pope, have not dried yet (5). And now, all of a sudden, there is
change in view ; to the faithful who in Saint Peter scream hooray to
the Pope-king, Pious X motions in silencing, an archbishop in a
visibly official speech, from which the most recent reversals cannot
remove every value, declares that the time of temporal claims is
gone, the clericals monopolise nationalism ; magazines, weekly
newspapers, big national dailies cloaked in nationalism appear
everywhere with the clericals' blessings. Has the Brother turned into
a devil, then? Already in other times we saw a Pope ask God to bless
Italy, and he was likely to be sincere. But it was a short-lived
agreement without result. The Papacy is essentially an international
institution, openly catholic, the clericals in the political life of
all the peoples represent the army of this institution ; to become
nationalists is for them to lose their very nature. Thus, we do not
believe in the sincerity of this unexpected change, through which the
word 'Jesuitical' shines too obviously ; and, at any rate, by the
natural inevitability of things, we do not believe it to be lasting ;
and, in the end, sincere or not, we see in it a serious danger for
the future of Italy.
It is not difficult to guess, besides, what considerations should
have induced the Company of Jesus to this apparent change of its
policy towards Italy.
International and national conditions made this move opportune - we
would almost say essential.
France, precious ally against Italy at the time of Leo XIII, once the
nationalist clerical militarist attempt had failed because of the ill-
omened Dreyfus Affair, is today in the hands of Free-Masonry ; and,
if it bustles against Italy, it does it by the intermediary of the
Giustiniani Palace and of democracy, and more by means of the
Vatican. Austria certainly does not provide with these displeases ;
the clerical party is here omnipotent at the court, in the army, in
the bureaucracy : the hereditary archduke and his non-princely spouse
(6) have the best relations with the Company - Austria is simply
always old Austria ; but it has too many troubles at home and too
many threats at its frontiers to afford the luxury of an anti-Italian
policy. In Spain, it is necessary that, nilly-willy, Alphonse XIII
appears as liberal if he does not want to end like his colleague in
Lisbon (7) ; and the establishment of an independent, catholic Poland
possibly with a king of the House of Hapsburg, does not seem very
close. On the other hand, atheism, materialism, socialism flood more
and more through the working-class masses and even through the
peasants of the whole Europe.
Mala tempora currunt! And the progress of Catholicism in the
Protestant countries is not of much comfort in front of so many
troubles ; in Germany where the emperor needs the votes of the
Catholic centre ; in England and in the United States where the
Catholic religion, more picturesque than the various Protestant forms
of worship, gains continually ground.
Besides, two unexpected changes have taken place in Italy. The war
and its related diplomatic contests, which have reawakened the
national sense of the Country ; and the universal vote which has led
almost the whole uncultivated and malleable mass of the nation to
participate in the political activity. Would it not be a master
manoeuvre, the old foxes of the pontifical Curia must have said to
themselves, if, instead of continuing to claim from an Italy stronger
every day a return (!), more and more unlikely (8), we ought to turn
to our advantage the unexpected events to take control little by
little not only of Rome, but of the whole Italy? We have a clergy,
young and aggressive, which does not let itself smothered by the
fireworks of socialist speakers any longer ; it will manage to
dragoon columns and columns of peasants ; we will capitalise on the
great rebirth of nationalism by taking advantage of the unilateral
economical infatuation of the democratic parties, which, while
bawling out the sacrosanct principles of the nineteen century, are
blind enough to oppose factual necessity, and good enough to let us
the monopoly of this great current. Count Gentiloni will be charged
to import in Italy the system of the secret agreement which did so
wonderful a service in the United States (9) ; and the boat of Saint
Peter will be able to sail also on a raging sea and albeit the
stubbornly little favourable wind. In this way, the biggest trouble
which has happened to the Church of Rome, the formation of Italy as a
united and independent nation, will end up turning to our benefit.
The Church does not wander, therefore, judging suitable for it to
make use of nationalism. It remains to see whether and to what extent
this interested help suits non-clerical nationalists.
(1) In the first election by male universal suffrage of the 26th of
October 1913, the electorate went from around 3 millions to 8
millions and a half : there were more than 5 millions voters. More
than 200 Catholic and 52 Socialist deputies entered the Chamber.
(2) It is a reference to the Italian-Turkish war of 1911-1912 by
which Italy got Lybia, Rhodes and the Dodecanese islands.
(3) 'Cenerentola' is the title of an opera by Rossini on
a 'disenchanted' version the fairy tale 'Cindrella'.
(4) Arisen with the end of the temporal power of the popes on the
20th of September 1870.
(5) In his typical allusive style, ironical at times, highly so in
low ones, Reghini refers most likely either to the Pope who
proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and that of
Pontifical infallibility and became popular for taking democratic
steps, namely Pius IX who, in 1848, refused to support the surging
nationalist Italian movement and to recognise the new Italy, when
Victor Emanuel marched into Rome and made it his capital. By this, he
began what is known as the voluntary papal imprisonment ; or to the
one who, later, strongly encouraged 'social Catholicism', namely Leo
XIII who, at the dawn of the XXth century, was seen being carried on
a portable throne around the Vatican, which he looked upon as a
prison. Pius XI ended six decades of papal so-called self-
imprisonment in 1929 by signing the Lateran Treaties with Benito
Mussolini, which created the 108-acre Vatican state.
(6) The archduke Francis Ferdinand had married Sofia Cotek, who was
only a countess, therefore, not of royal rank. They were both
assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavril Princip on the 26th of June 1914 -
thus, four months after the publication of this article by Reghini -
giving rise to the events which led to the first world war and to the
fall of the Central Empires.
(7) The king Charles of Portugal was assassinated with the eldest
child and hereditary prince in 1906. The youngest child succeeded
him, but the republican revolution broke out in 1910.
(8) Of the temporal power.
(9) Reghini refers to the so-called 'Gentiloni pact', that is to say,
the pact between Catholics and liberals promoted by the president of
the Council Giliotti in 1913.
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