Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Western Europe and Canada, Volume XXVII

79. Memorandum From the Ambassador in Italy (Luce) to the Counselor of Embassy (Durbrow) and the Army Attaché (Miller)¹

Rome, May 26, 1955.

Many Italian politicians and others who are currently eager to allay American alarms over Mr. Gronchi, are bearing down hard on the fact that Mr. Gronchi is a “practicing” or “militant” Catholic, and therefore will never make common cause with the Communists. In my own interview with him on May 21,² Gronchi also gave as his own main warrant for why he should not be suspected by U.S. public opinion of any desire, no less intention, of “doing business” with Togliatti, his catholicity—his “militant Catholicity.”

At this point, as an American and as a Catholic I feel obliged in duty and in truth to point out that this argument, however sincerely advanced by Gronchi or anyone else, is invalid and fallacious.

To begin with, there is the commonsensical fact that just being a Catholic isn’t (unhappily) a guarantee against a man’s making a political (or any other kind of) fool of himself. Neither does it prevent him from making errors of judgment. Having said that, here are some facts that we do not always think about when we talk about the Communist–Catholic antithesis.

(1) The individual Catholic, like the individual Christian, is presumed to have a dual role in life and therefore dual allegiances: First, his allegiance is to God, in Faith, as a believer; and second, his allegiance is to the State under Law, as a citizen and as a patriot.

(2) The individual Catholic can live, and is taught to live under any state, or under any form of government which does not close his schools and churches, i.e., does NOT FORBID HIM TO WORSHIP ACCORDING TO HIS TENETS OF FAITH. If this condition is met, he can live, as a Catholic, with no scruples of religious conscience, under a Fascist, Nazi, Communist, Monarchist, Democratic, Military, Colonial, or any other type of government. If this condition is met, his other objections to the form of government under which he lives, must be made not on grounds of faith, but on economic or political or humanitarian or ethical grounds, i.e., not as a Catholic, but as a patriot and a citizen. For example, as a citizen he can object to the government because he is given no voice or vote in it; because its policies threaten war or do not hasten peace; because they threaten his livelihood; because the “morals” of government are corrupt and venial; because the government is cruel, unjust, unfair to certain elements, groups or divisions in society; and because, because, because. …³

(3) Assuming the Communist Party promised the average Catholic to leave his religious life untouched, and also offered him as a citizen a richer participation in the nation’s economic and political life, and a long period of peace: if the average Catholic believed these promises, he could find no good reason either as a Catholic or citizen to be against Communism. On the contrary, he should not, in conscience oppose it.

Indeed this is exactly what communism promises in Catholic Italy, and as these promises are believed, there are naturally millions of Communist Catholics.

(4) Mr. Gronchi’s argument that he could never be a Marxian Communist just because he is a Catholic plainly does not apply to millions of his fellow Catholics.

Nor is Italy a special case. There are more than millions of Polish, Yugoslavian, Guatamalian, and Mexican Catholic Communists, not to mention millions of Russian Catholic Communists.

(5) Most intelligent and all well-informed Christians, whether Catholic or non-Catholic realize that Marxism, which is based on dialectical materialism, both as expressed in its mild form of Fabian Socialism, or in its rabid form of Totalitarian Soviet Communism, inescapably works towards the destruction of the duality of the role of the individual in society—i.e., his role as a worshipper owing obedience to God, and his role as citizen owing loyalty to the State. Students of Marxism, both those who are for it and those who are against it, know that it makes the individual’s obedience to the State not only paramount, but exclusive.

Intelligent Catholic leaders, like intelligent Christian leaders in all states have, therefore, been in opposition to both Socialism and Communism.

(6) On the record of past performance and present utterances, Mr. Gronchi plainly seeks the political opening to the left, via Nenni, and has no intellectual or religious prejudices towards Socialism. Therefore, either Mr. Gronchi is not an intelligent Catholic leader and does not know what he is advocating, or he knows just what he is doing and is not as Catholic as he would have us believe.

It is interesting to recall in this connection that Dino Grahdi reports that he and Gronchi joined the Popular Party 40 years ago in the same year, and were both excommunicated for having done so. If this is true, then Mr. Gronchi has, from his earliest beginnings, put his political fortunes and beliefs on economic and political questions so far above his now much-vaunted “militant Catholicism” that excommunication (40 years ago the most dread thing to a Catholic) had no restraining influence on him. And there [therefore] I am of the view that all the evidence supports the guess that if his Catholic Faith ever comes into conflict with his political ambitions or convictions he will, without scruple, choose the latter.

1. Source: Department of State, Luce Files: Lot 64 F 26, Correspondence and Miscellaneous 1955. Secret.
2. See supra.
3. Ellipsis in the source text.