Signor Mussolini and the Pope The Italian Chamber has ratified
the Lateran Treaty by an overwhelming majority, but the speech of Signor Mussolini on the relations between the State and the Papacy caused a good deal of pain among Roman Catholics. He said that the Popes before Benedict XV. were all unsympathetic to the Risorgimento and called in foreign troops to check the movement towards national freedom. This is true in substance, but the reminder, of course, was not appreciated. More serious in their immediate context were Signor Mussolini's statements that the State must always be supreme in education, and that the local sovereignty granted to the Papacy by the Lateran Treaty does not mean full sovereignty. The Church, he explained, could never be entirely free as she was subject to the Concordat. The speech has unexpectedly provided subjects of controversy for a long time to come, but it need not be supposed that the Vatican will refuse to ratify the Treaty.
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