NON ABBIAMO BISOGNO excerpts:
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061931_non-abbiamo-bisogno.html
>The message denounces the "black ingratitude" of the priests, who are against the party which has been (so the message says) the guarantee of religious liberty throughout all Italy. The clergy, the Bishops, and this Holy See have never failed to acknowledge everything that has been done during all these years for the benefit and advantage of religion; indeed, they have on many occasions expressed their genuine and sincere appreciation. But We and the Bishops and the Clergy and all the faithful - in fact all citizens desirous of peace and order - have worried and suffered and are worrying and suffering in the presence of the systematic campaign all too quickly begun against the most reasonable and precious liberties of religion and of consciences such as were the attacks on Catholic Action, and its different associations, especially those of the young. These attacks had their culmination in the police measures taken against the organizations, and in the manner to which We have already alluded. They were attacks and measures such as to lead one seriously to doubt whether the former benevolences and favours were indeed actuated by a sincere love and zeal for religion, or whether they were not rather due to pure calculation and to an ultimate goal of domination.
>And it was with a grief inexpressible that We saw a real and a true persecution break out in this Our Italy and in this very city of Rome against that which the Church and its head have characterized as most precious and dear to them from the standpoint of liberty and of right. Liberty and right are the heritage of souls and especially of the souls of the young, entrusted to the Church in a particular way by the Divine Creator and Redeemer.
> As is well known, We have repeatedly and solemnly affirmed and protested that Catholic Action, both from its very nature and essence ("the participation and the collaboration of the laity with the Apostolic Hierarchy") and by our precise and categorical directions and orders is outside and above all party politics. We have also affirmed and protested Our conviction that in Italy Our directions and orders have been faithfully obeyed and followed. The message says: "The assertion that Catholic Action has not had a true political character is absolutely false." On the discourtesy of these words We will not enlarge: and, if the case were not so lamentable We should treat as ridiculous the untruthfulness and flippancy of what follows. Catholic Action, says the message, is a political party because it has banners, badges, identification cards and all the other external forms of a political party. But banners, badges, identification cards and other similar external appurtenances are today the most common things in every country of the world for the most varied kind of associations and activities which have nothing, and wish to have nothing, in common with politics, such as sports and professional organizations, civil and military clubs, commercial and industrial groups, and even school children, such as those organized exclusively in a religious way like the little ones who belong to the Crusaders of the Blessed Sacrament.
>The message itself betrays a consciousness of its own weakness and futility; and, hastening to save its argument, it adds three other reasons. The first reason is that the heads of Catholic Action were almost to a man members or heads of the Popular Party, which was one of the strongest opponents of Fascismo. This accusation has been launched many times against Catholic Action, but always in a general way and without specifying any names. Whenever We have asked for precise data and for names, it has been in vain. Only a short time before police measures were taken against Catholic Action, and in evident preparation for them, the hostile press, having no less evidently, access to police reports, had published a series of alleged facts and names which are the pretended revelations referred to in the beginning of the message. These the Osservatore Romano duly denied and corrected, instead of "confirming" them, as the message asserts, in an attempt to mystify and deceive the public.
>There still remain the circles of the Catholic young men, that same Catholic Youth which in the publications of the youth of the [Fascist] party are represented and held up to ridicule and scorn (with what sense of pedagogical responsibility, to say only this, anyone may see) as a swarm of "rabbits," only fit to carry candles and to recite rosaries in sacred processions. This perhaps explains why they have been in these recent days so many times, and with such ignobility on the part of their assailants, attacked and maltreated even to the shedding of blood, and left undefended by those who could and should protect them. If it were not for the harmlessness and peaceableness for which they have been sneered at, would their persecutors (sometimes armed) have dared to fall upon them?
>To say then that "no Government of the world would have permitted the continuance of the situation created in Italy by the existence of Catholic Action" it is necessary absolutely to ignore and to forget that in all other States of the world, as far as China, Catholic Action exists and lives, and the organizations frequently resemble even to the smallest details the Italian Catholic Action. In some countries the organization is even more highly developed than in Italy. In no State of the world has Catholic Action been so hatefully treated, so truly persecuted (We do not see what other word conforms to the reality of the truth of the situation) as in this, Our Italy, and in this, Our episcopal seat of Rome. An "absurd situation" indeed exists, but it has been created against Us, not by Us.