Domenico Tardini

"What will happen when the stark and painful reality opens the eyes of this innumerable mass of demented people?"

"Everyone understands that the Holy See cannot stop Hitler. But who can understand that it does not know how to rein in a priest?"

"While important Italian cardinals offered support to the military campaign and L’Osservatore Romano remained in a position of prudent legitimization of the war, Tardini assesses and judges the consequences on the clergy, that in his eyes represent ‘the greatest disaster. [...] [Tardini was aware that] the Italian Church is accused of being in league with Fascism. And with the Italian Church, the Holy See. The Holy See has never passed a more difficult period than this’, in which it risks ‘seriously compromising for a century the moral prestige’ accumulated."