Throughout the negotiations for the Lateran Pacts and during the three-year period that followed, relations between the Church and the Regime were ultimately determined by one central problem – Catholic Action and its youth organisations. As we have already seen, the Pope's decision to seek a general settlement of outstanding disputes between the Holy See and Italy was strongly motivated by the imperative need to safeguard the future of the Catholic organisations during the period of ‘fascistisation’, and this thorny question nearly shipwrecked the negotiations for the Lateran Pacts on more than one occasion. The Pope finally obtained the juridical guarantee of Catholic Action's future in Article 43 of the Concordat, and armed with this ‘licence’ he embarked on a campaign to expand the activities and influence of Catholic Action in Italian society. Mussolini, however, having made this paper concession in order to obtain the rest of the Lateran ‘package’, was equally determined that Article 43 should not be exploited in this way, that the Catholics should not use it to provide immunity for their aggressive, expansionist activities. In consequence, the history of Church and State relations in Italy in this period is in large part a history of the struggle between the Pope and the Duce over Catholic Action.

THE CHRISTIAN RESTORATION OF SOCIETY

For Pius XI, the Conciliazione of 1929 marked both an end and a beginning.