Summary of David I. Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini

By IRB Media

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#1 The death of Pope Benedict XV in 1922 was the result of a persistent cough that had begun to bother him two weeks earlier. He took last rites, and died the next morning. Giacomo Della Chiesa, a cardinal who had only been elected three months earlier, was chosen to replace him.

#2 The death of Pius X in 1922 brought about even more unrest in Italy. The country was split between the Socialists, who wanted to ride the tide of popular anger to power, and the fascists, who wanted to destroy the Church and priests.

#3 The pope excommunicated the king and forbade Catholics from voting in national elections or running for parliament, as he hoped to gain international support to return Rome to papal rule. But as the nineteenth century wore on, this prospect seemed ever more remote.

#4 The conclave began on February 2, and 12 cardinals received votes. On the second day, Merry del Val reached what would be his high of 17 votes. Gasparri received 24 votes by the sixth ballot but remained stuck at that number for the seventh and eighth as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822514980

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Insights on David I. Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The death of Pope Benedict XV in 1922 was the result of a persistent cough that had begun to bother him two weeks earlier. He took last rites, and died the next morning. Giacomo Della Chiesa, a cardinal who had only been elected three months earlier, was chosen to replace him.

#2

The death of Pius X in 1922 brought about even more unrest in Italy. The country was split between the Socialists, who wanted to ride the tide of popular anger to power, and the fascists, who wanted to destroy the Church and priests.

#3

The pope excommunicated the king and forbade Catholics from voting in national elections or running for parliament, as he hoped to gain international support to return Rome to papal rule. But as the nineteenth century wore on, this prospect seemed ever more remote.

#4

The conclave began on February 2, and 12 cardinals received votes. On the second day, Merry del Val reached what would be his high of 17 votes. Gasparri received 24 votes by the sixth ballot but remained stuck at that number for the seventh and eighth as well.

#5

Ratti was a priest, and he was sent to the tiny town of Desio to be the priest of its small parish. He was not very eloquent, but he was very focused on being perfectly clear. He never gregarious, and was more comfortable around books than people.

#6

When the director of the Vatican Library died in 1907, the fifty-year-old Achille Ratti took his place. Four years later, the head of the Vatican Library asked Ratti to go to Warsaw as his personal emissary.

#7

The history of Church demonization of the Jews is an old one, dating back to shortly after Christianity’s origins as a Jewish sect. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, La Civiltà cattolica, the twice-a-month Jesuit journal, had attacked the Jews mercilessly.

#8

In the middle of the conclave, when the zelanti realized that neither Merry del Val nor any other of their candidates would win, they decided to meet secretly with Achille Ratti. They thought they could more easily influence someone with so little experience in the Church hierarchy.

#9

When the thirteen ballots were cast, the two American cardinals, William O’Connell of Boston and Dennis Dougherty of Philadelphia, arrived at the station to find out that they had arrived too late.

#10

The world was eagerly awaiting the result of the conclave. Italians, whose 40 million people were 99 percent Catholic, showed the most interest, but the 260 million Roman Catholics outside Italy eagerly awaited word.

#11

Benito Mussolini was born in Predappio, a small town in Romagna, Italy, in 1883. His family were not very religious, and his father, Alessandro, was a bigmouthed blacksmith who preached his revolutionary faith to anyone who would listen.

#12

Mussolini was a passionate politician, and he spent the next few years railing against the Socialist Party’s reform faction. In 1913, he called for revenge after police killed seven farmworkers during a protest. He began to see a