Language:
Italian
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
Civiltà Cattolica
Angaben zur Quelle:
3793 (2008) 11-24
Keywords:
Catholic Church Relations
;
Judaism
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism
Abstract:
The "Manifesto della razza", the results of a study carried out by an anonymous group of Italian academics, was published in July 1938 by the newspaper "Giornale d'Italia". It became the ideological-cultural basis for the new racist and antisemitic policy of the fascist regime. Catholic newspapers (e.g. "Civiltà Cattolica", "Il Messaggero", and "L'Osservatrore Romano") received the Manifesto with indulgence, praising its "strict scientific character" or trying, inter alia, to justify the need for new racial legislation that would "guarantee the defense of the nation from the danger of a numerous Jewish immigration and from the predominance of liberalism associated with it" or that would "distribute justice according to the numerical consistency of racial groups". The Vatican was interested in preserving the "Concordato" that had been signed with Mussolini and in avoiding conflict with him, focusing its criticism on those aspects of the racial policy which contradicted the concordat. However, Pope Pius XI exercised a strong ideological critique of Italian racism, based on the ecumenical principle of the equality of the races and on anti-totalitarianism.
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