Pacem in terris and political action

While we celebrate Pacem in terris and the enlightened and timely mention the Holy Father made of it in his Message for New Year of this sad and tormented 2003, it seems my duty here to recall the repeated support the Holy See has always given to the inspiration and working out of a foreign policy strictly based on solidarity and peace.
I begin from the years of De Gasperi. The legacy of the “fascist” war weighed heavily on Italy and despite the participation of the Italian army on the Allied side very few weeks after the armistice was made public (the cemetery of Montelungo on the plain of Cassino is there to remind us), Italy was burdened with freezing isolation. The doors of the UN (the new League of Nations) would open to us only in 1955 even if in 1949 we had joined the Atlantic Alliance after a courageous battle in parliament, in which – here comes the first “memory” in my gratified participation in this conference organized by Monsignor Fisichella – apart from the hostility of the Socialist and Communist opposition, delicate disagreements arose also within the majority. Article 11 of the Constitution, which repudiates war, had been greeted with enthusiasm in line with the popular religious tradition that in its prayers begs to be saved from war as well as plague and famine. Leaving aside the still lively distrust of propaganda for the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis and so on, the idea of a military pact was not welcome in Catholic circles. Convincing people that Soviet expansion could only be halted by a strong armed entente between the two shores of the Atlantic was not easy. And even within the Christian Democrats, perplexity and even aversion was very strong in such spiritually exemplary people as Igino Giordani.
Clarification given by Cardinal Spellman to various Italian bishops had not been sufficient. I recall that the archbishop of New York had worked with effect on the State Department in the Italian cause since 1943. It was necessary, however, that Pius XII in person be won over to the idea of a defensive alliance.
I believe we owe to Monsignor Montini a valuable suggestion made to De Gasperi: let the Pope receive the Italian ambassador to Washington, a person deeply knowledgeable about the whole issue, including difficulties with the American Congress because of its recurrent unwillingness to take on foreign commitments: keep in mind the well known isolationism that, in its time, had opposed President Wilson and so prevented the United States joining the League of Nations.
In his book Ten years between Rome and Washington former ambassador Alberto Tarchiani has this to say about the audience: «On one of my trips to Italy – in the summer of 1948 – I was told, at Palazzo Chigi, that one of the reasons for the government’s hesitation was the Vatican’s stance against our entry into the Atlantic Bloc. I thought it necessary to go and hear directly what Pius XII thought, were he courteous and trusting enough to communicate it. I was received on 8 September at Castel Gandolfo and retained, against all custom, very benevolently, for forty minutes. I won’t report that conversation but I can testify that the Holy Father, though entirely faithful to the doctrine of brotherhood and of peace in world, was absolutely against the idea that Italy, in case of war, should pass – because of inability to defend itself – “behind the Iron Curtain”. I repeat it because it was an obvious aspiration, one that for that matter emerged from a great many public actions and official and unofficial messages from the Pope and the Holy See. When I reported the Pope’s state of mind to De Gasperi he said he didn’t doubt it, since he knew the extent to which he nourished clear and resolute opinions. Thus the offensive legend that the Holy Father opposed the most adequate and effective forms of defense of the country, and also, implicitly, of the Church, fell to the ground».
So far, as it were, the official version.
As I remember it, official news of the audience was not given, but on the following day L’Osservatore Romano devoted a long front-page article to the unrest in the Red zone of Berlin. The memories that the news from Germany must have evoked in Pius XII are not difficult to imagine.
At all events the audience produced a decisive result. Tarchiani had set out for the Holy Father the exact terms of the problem: free Europe was not, by itself, in any condition to face the Soviet Union militarily; that among other things the latter would, in case of attack, be able to count on the co-operation (or at least on the… non-belligerence) of the strong western Communist parties. The defenestration – a grotesquely exact term – of the democratic Czechoslovakian government meant that distrust was necessary.
The instructions that followed produced an immediate effect. The Pope had been struck by the lucidity of the analysis made by the very secular ambassador Tarchiani and by the unavoidable nature of the defensive remedy. That such it was – defensive – the Euro-American alliance then being worked out could be clear-mindedly sure.
In the Italian parliamentary groupings – Senate and Chamber of Deputies – the go-ahead for De Gasperi, earlier so much hampered, was made positively easy.
The day of the fall of the Berlin wall and, immediately afterwards, the dissolution of the Soviet empire, without a shot being fired and without there ever being even a minimal temptation to aggression on the part of Nato, though there was plenty of provocation (I am thinking of the Berlin air-lift), the thought of those of us who had live through 1949 went with gratitude to Pius XII and to Monsignor Montini, in the latter of whom we find strong traces later of other choices of great importance, one in particular after his elevation to the papacy.


Monsignor Montini, whose friendship with De Gasperi is well known, had experience of the passion with which the President had labored to give organicity to the European part of common defense, through a Treaty of Integration: the CED (European Community of Defense). Unfortunately the difficult internal situation of Italy, and the fall of the last De Gasperi government in July 1953, prevented Italian ratification of the treaty, which was then definitively buried by France a few days after the death of our president in August 1954.
When approaches began to be re-adopted, this time in the economic sphere, for a scheme for European community agreements, Monsignor Montini – speaking with Moro, with Taviani and with other of former members of the Catholic student’s union (FUCI) with whom he maintained an enlightening relationship – affirmed forcefully that it could not be restricted to trade agreements; and that a political and cultural community had to be created. From 1957, when the European Economic Community began, this urging remained constant. And it was to be the fulcrum of the backing of the Holy See to united Europe, expressed repeatedly by Popes, before and after Paul VI: but in a very particular way by Pope Montini, as was recalled at an unforgettable conference on this theme in Milan; and as documented by Monsignor Macchi in his detailed biographical publications.

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But there is another fixed point in our foreign policy still more closely linked with the Vatican action. I refer to the Act for European Co-operation and Security, signed in Helsinki in 1975, by all the countries of the old continent (except Albania) and instead including the Holy See, in the person of Cardinal Casaroli.
The first idea on the issue had been launched some years earlier by Moscow in the primary intent of making definitive the borders fixed after the second war. At the start – precisely ratione originis – there was widespread distrust. When however in 1972 I went on a governmental visit to the Soviet Union, Gromyko in particular spoke to me about it with great objectivity and provided food for thought that I was able to go into shortly after with President Nixon. Richard Nixon was a great President of the United States who brought about the recognition of China while maintaining detente with Moscow. In that climate there was welcome for the idea of a Euro-American protocol that was not a true and proper treaty but a solemn declaration of intent which, as I’ve said, was signed in the Finnish capital in 1975.
Nixon was turned out of office in August 1974 but by then the American approach on the issue of the CSCE was in place; and under the presidency of Gerald Ford the link with Europe was made concrete. It was George Bush who in 1990 underwrote the transformation of the CSCE in OSCE.
Aldo Moro, who in the dual role of President of the Council of Italy and current President of the European Community had signed in 1975, made clear answer to those who advanced criticisms alleging contradiction in the Soviet position in so far as Russia had, precisely in those days, re-affirmed the limited sovereignty of the Warsaw Pact countries. Breznev will pass – said Moro – and the seed we have sown will one day give fruit.
In fact, twenty-five years later – with not only Mr. Breznev departed from this earth, but the Berlin wall knocked down and the empire of the East liquidated – in November 1990 in Paris the commitment to co-operation was re-affirmed giving it the form of a Treaty known as: Charter of the New Europe. Unfortunately Moro was dead, as was Paul VI, who at the time of Helsinki had been in close contact with Aldo and whom we knew had had to work to convince a part of the Roman Curia. It is an interesting point that only one person signed in both Helsinki and Paris: Cardinal Casaroli, accompanied on both occasions by Monsignor Achille Silvestrini.
On the inter-governmental level the activity of this Organization has not been remakable, but the relative parliamentary assembly has and still does function well: with the committed participation of American congressmen and senators that in other bodies, such as the Interparliamentary Union, no longer exists. I believe that in a moment when international institutions are in deep crisis, with the United Nations Organization deprived of its prestige, with political divisions within the European Union (in dramatic contrast with its expansion), with relations difficult with America, I believe that an effort of will to give back (or perhaps give) vigor to the OSCE could represent – against any tendency to break-up and isolation between continents – the solution that sets mankind on the upward path again, something that wars will surely never achieve.



A fourth line adopted and cultivated by Italy in constant harmony with, and indeed often by the urging of, the Vatican, concerns aid to the developing countries and in particular the cancellation of their debts. John Paul II has several times spoken strongly on the latter issue, including his exhortation to parliamentarians and public administrators gathered for the 2000 Jubilee. Unfortunately the commitment adopted, by multinational bodies also, of destining to poor countries a quota, even if small, of gross national product, has not been fulfilled except on a very small scale. Nevertheless it has recently been re-affirmed both by the Italian Parliament and by international bodies. It remains a fixed point not least in the safeguarding of peace, which can only be a work of justice.
Overall the Italian quota amounted to an average of 19% of the overall debts of countries benefiting. Specifically Italy has cancelled 78% of the debt of Uganda, 28% of that of Ethiopia and 23% of that of Mozambique. In three agreements (Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Mauritania) total cancellation has been arrived at.
One cannot, however, not stress that when the Pope solicits these interventions, he is morally supported also by the contribution that Catholic missionaries have given and give on all the continents to the efforts for growth of a great many disinherited peoples; not infrequently paying in person even to the giving of their lives.
Some years ago, bringing together the health ministers of Latin America to agree an Italian aid program, we invited the bishop of Recife, Monsignor Helder Camara, to attend the proceedings. He stirred deep emotion when he formulated a prayer to God who created the world and not a first, a second and a third world.

Allow me, in parenthesis, a terminological remark, so to speak. At the beginning of two great encyclicals the same word is to be found. Rerum novarum of Leo XIII speaks of the «burning greed for new things that has begun to agitate peoples». Pacem in terris opens with: «All men who at all times “cupidissime appetiverunt pacem” [greedily seek peace]». It’s worth a thought.
Will the new generations manage to steer their cupiditas in the right direction?


Thirteen years or so ago at a conference in Bergamo I had the honor to speak of: “Peace today: the aspiration of peoples and the responsibility of governments”. I’d like to re-read the conclusion:
«Gathered here on the centenary of the birth of Angelo Roncalli, at a moment when the hearts of all men are troubled; (and sometimes it is not a sign of cowardice to be afraid), we feel hovering above us his soothing optimism, his trust anchored in the Only One who does not tremble and does not betray. And the prayer comes spontaneously to our lips: stay with us, Pope John, because evening comes on, and a very dark evening».
They are conclusions that, unfortunately, maintain their painful relevance.
Without confusing our social concerns and our belonging to the Christian community, I believe that there are no valid alternatives for fulfilling our political duties apart from unyielding service to the peace for all peoples to be constructed, as said in the encyclical we are here to remember: in truth, in justice, in charity and in freedom.
The Popes do not command troops, but they do have the legions of the working charity and, more generally, they can arm spirits. As John Paul II is doing with extraordinary profundity, and who represents the sole fixed point in a world disoriented and gone astray. May Jesus help his Vicar on earth!