Of Luciano Garibaldi
Fra' Ginepro from Pompeiana (photo from the Ragazzi del Manfrei website)
He was a priest, Don Ennio Innocenti, theologian and historian, famous radio preacher (his broadcasts entitled “Listen, it's evening"), as well as founder of the “Sacra Fraternitas Aurigarum in Urbe”, to reconstruct Mussolini's path towards faith. He did it with a book, “Dispute over the conversion of Benito Mussolini”, published in Rome in the mid-nineties, precisely from the Fraternitas (via Capitan Bavastro 136, 00154 Roma). Don Ennio Innocenti had dedicated twelve years of research and personal investigations to this unusual story. At first, had revealed what Father Eusebio OFM had confided to him, born Sigfrido Zappaterreni, chief chaplain of the Black Brigades, moved to Argentina after the war and died in Buenos Aires. Several times - this was revealed by Father Eusebio to his brother - he received the sacramental confession of Benito Mussolini. Afterwards, it was another Franciscan who administered it to the Duce, after confessing it himself, the Eucharist. His name was Fra' Ginepro.
Don Innocenti rebuilt, in his book, the history of the relationships that linked the Duce to Fra' Ginepro from Pompeiana, born Antonio Conio, born in 1903 and died in 1962, very popular preacher in Liguria, where the city of Loano dedicated a bronze monument to him.
Antonio Conio, became a priest after discussing a degree thesis entitled “Francis of Assisi, the most Italian of Saints", he participated in the Greek campaign as a military chaplain and, after being seriously injured, he was taken prisoner and placed in an English camp in India. He returned to Italy in 1943, following an exchange of wounded or sick prisoners, he told reporters, rushed to interview the veterans in Taranto, that every day, in the prison camp, even though it was forbidden, he had secretly celebrated Mass praying for the Duce. Moved, Mussolini wanted to meet him. He summoned him to Palazzo Venezia and entrusted him with the presidency of the Assistance Committee for former prisoners.
Ma he 25 July and the collapse of the regime blocked everything. Fra' Ginepro saw Mussolini again 14 December 1943 at Villa Feltrinelli, on Lake Garda. The Duce opened his heart to him: “To benefit I was a heretic, with the Conciliation I became religious in politics, now I feel religious even in my intimate life".
Ennio Innocenti says that Father Ginepro "immediately seized the opportunity and proposed, for the next day, to bring him the Blessed Sacrament. The Duce accepted". That morning, all 9,30 – according to the testimony given several years after the end of the war by the same Ligurian friar – a tall lieutenant, with the Alpine feather on his hat, he accompanied Fra' Ginepro up the stairs and introduced him into the room where Mussolini was waiting for him. All 10 Confession was over. After receiving the Eucharist, Mussolini hugged the friar.
Father Ginepro returned to the head of the RSI 30 July 1944 to celebrate Mass in his study. According to Don Innocenti's research, However, the understanding between the two men had broken down, because the brother, taking advantage of his privileged status, he would have demanded from Mussolini certain positions towards the Germans that the Duce was unable to implement. This cooled their relationship and, a short time later, Mussolini once again entrusted his problems of conscience to the care of Father Eusebio.
Remained faithful to CSR, Fra' Ginepro returned to dedicate himself to the Italians interned in Germany, managing to significantly alleviate their suffering. After the 25 April '45, he was arrested as a “fascist criminal” and locked up for 11 months in the Genoese prison of Marassi, where, however, he became very popular among the inmates for the Mass he recited aloud, singing, from his cell. Freed, he returned to preach in his Liguria, loved by all, former fascists, partisans and even communists, such was the good that his figure was able to radiate.
Beyond Father Eusebio and Fra' Ginepro, two central figures in Mussolini's journey towards faith, don Ennio Innocenti quotes, in his work, other characters and other documents on the Duce's religious conversion. Prisoner on the island of Ponza, after being arrested by the police by order of the King, Mussolini asked and obtained permission to keep in his room - and this is known - the famous book "The Life of Jesus", of Abbot Ricciotti. Less known - and credit must be given to Don Ennio for having highlighted the circumstance - is that the 5 August the prisoner sent the book as a gift to the parish priest of Ponza, don Luigi Dies, together with this autograph letter whose retrieval is also thanks to Don Ennio Innocenti: “Very Reverend, Saturday 7 marks the second anniversary of the death of my son Bruno, fell into the sky of Pisa. Please celebrate a Mass for his soul. I enclose a thousand lire which you will use in the most convenient way. I would like to give you the gift of Giuseppe Ricciotti's book. It's an exhilarating book, where historical science, religion, poetry are wonderfully fused together. With the work of Ricciotti, Italy perhaps reaches another record. My cordial greetings. Mussolini”.
Don Innocenti ascertained that Don Dies immediately asked to speak to the prisoner, but he was prevented from doing so by a colonel of the carabinieri, While, the next day, the Duce was transferred to Maddalena. Here he had four meetings with the parish priest, Don Salvatore Capula, which however he will take with him to the grave (he died at a ripe old age in July 2000) the secret of those conversations. Only hypotheses were made, including that Mussolini would have confessed and communicated.
Mussolini's proclamation of Catholic faith in a will stolen from his papers is then proven. It is taken from a handwritten letter from the Duce sent to his sister Edvige from prison, in data 31 August 1943, and reproduced in Don Ennio's book: “In one of the folders that I kept near the lamp on my table in Palazzo Venezia and that I asked to have back in vain”, the Duce wrote to his sister, “there is a will in my hand, maggio 1943, what he says: “Born Catholic, apostolic, romano, I intend to die like this. I don't want funeral honors of any kind". I bring these wishes of mine to your knowledge”.
Effectively, Mussolini's slow journey towards faith, from the bold professions of atheism of the socialist period, and even from the sacrileges committed with Pietro Nenni, when, together, they desecrated a tabernacle, it is marked by dozens of significant episodes, of which the Concordat of 11 February 1929 it is only the most conspicuous. Ennio Innocenti traced them in various texts and documents and listed them scrupulously.
Beyond the contradictory behaviors of the first years of the regime (Mussolini restores the Crucifix in schools, but then dissolves Catholic Action), due to the contingent political struggle, there is a precise thread that indicates the inner path. In his speech to the House of Representatives 21 June '21 says: “I think that the only universal idea that exists in Rome today is the one that radiates from the Vatican”. In the 1923, recovering the years lost in the affirmation of his atheism, he has his children baptized. In the 1924, in Vicenza, dice: “If I entered the church and bowed before the altar, I did not do this to pay superficial homage to the religion of the State, but out of an intimate conviction". In the 1925 writes to Father Semeria, the famous Ligurian Barnabite: “Goodness cannot be skeptical, must be a believer". The same year, il 29 December, marries his partner, Rachele Guidi, in the church of Santa Maria Segreta, in Milan, in front of the parish priest Don Natale Magnaghi, who notes the event in the parish register "with all the characteristics of regularity". He confessed? Don Innocenti has no doubts about it, and identifies Father Tacchi Venturi SJ as the confessor. The proof? Some time later, the Duce had the statue of the Madonna del Fuoco restored at his own expense, protector of Forlì, which he had picked in his youth, and signs the decree that civilly recognizes the solemnity of Corpus Christi. It is the "penance" that was assigned to him by the confessor.
A few days before the signing of the Lateran Pact, he confides to his niece, Rosetta Mancini, daughter of her sister Edvige: “When you read the news of the Pacts between the Italian State and the Church in the newspapers, remember the sign of the Cross that my mother, your grandmother, it traced on my head every evening, while I fell asleep in our poor house in Dovia". In the end, in his latest writing, the letter to his wife Rachele, written at dawn 26 April 1945 in the prefecture of Como before heading towards the deadly trap of Dongo: “I swear affection to you before God. Bruno, from Heaven, will assist us".
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Luciano Garibaldi. (short bio-bibliographical notes taken from the websiteSolfanelli publisher). Born in Rome in 1936, He has been a professional journalist since 1957. Dal 1958 al 1968 he was a regular collaborator of the weekly magazine “Tempo” with Raimondo Luraghi, Curzio Malaparte and Pierpaolo Pasolini. In the 1964 he published in installments, in several national newspapers, the first historical reconstruction of the attack on Hitler in 20 July 1944, carried out by interviewing the survivors of that event.
In the 1968 he was the first Italian journalist to enter Czechoslovakia the day after the Soviet invasion. Dal 1969 he was a special correspondent for the weekly "Gente". In the 1974 he was among the first hired by Indro Montanelli's "Giornale".. Central editor of “Gente” in 1976, In the 1984 he held the same role in the newspaper “La Notte”.
Dal 1986 al 1994 collaborated on the third page of “Avvenire”; between 1992 and the 1995 he was a columnist for the "Independent" and then for the "Giornale". He currently collaborates with various newspapers and magazines including "Studi Cattolici" and "Storia in Rete".
He has published over thirty books on historical subjects, the last of which are: Fidel Castro: story and images of leader Maximo (White Star, Vercelli 2007) translated into various languages including Chinese; Either the cross or the swastika (Lindau, Torino 2009) e Because they killed Mussolini and Claretta (Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2010) together with Franco Servello.
He published with Edizioni Solfanelli: Stormy winds on the eastern border (Chieti 2010) e In the name of Norma (Chieti 2010) with Rossana Mondoni; The true story of the Everyman (Chieti 2013) with Paolo Deotto.
