Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-02
POPE AND L DUCE
REACH AGREEMENT
IN ACTION DISPUTE
Clubs May Resume Activities,
But Are Restricted to
Religious Endeavors.
SPORTS AND ATHLETICS
SPECIFICALLY BANNED
Organizations Refused Political
Action and Can Have Ital-
ian Flag Only.
BY the Associated Press

BY the Associated Press.
ROME, September "A final accord
was reached by Pope Plus XII and
Premier MusSolini today in their bitter
three-month controversy over Catholic
Action Clubs, clarifying the conditions
Of the Lateran treaty and the concordat.
The Pope's youth organizations are
allowed to resume their activities, but
are restricted to purely religious en-
deavors. 1t was specifically stated there
should be no sports or athletics and
no intrusion into the syndical or trades
union fields.
The Italian government announced an
agreement of three parts. They are as
follows.
l. Catholic Action organizations are
essentially diocesan under the control
of bishops, who appoint club officers
and directors, none of whom may be
from parties hostile to Fascism. There
can be no political action or appearance
Of it, and Catholic Action can have no
flag except the Italian flag.
2. There shall be no organization of
professional classes, and those already
formed within Catholic Action must abb
stain from syndical labors, combining
themselves to religious work.
3. The youth clubs shall be known as
Youth Associations Of Catholic Action"
They shall have no flag except the
Italian flag and their religious banners.
Athletics and Sports Banned.
1t was finally agreed that these local
associations must abstain from any
sports or athletics. limiting themselves
to educational and recreational activi-
ties with religious ends in view.
This agreement, regarded by each
side as a victory. might be considered
as a compromise. 1t reopens $4,000
clubs closed three months ago, but bars
them from those athletic activities
which the Fascists reserve for their
clubs
It emphasizes the restriction. already
in the concordat, that Catholic action
clubs shall be purely religious, but
clarifies brief phrases OF the document
by mentioning sports and syndical
action.
The agreement autc matically re-
este blishes the condition whereby
Italians may belong both to Catholic
action organizations and the Fascist
party. The Fascist party, early in the
controversy, issued an order declaring
membership in the two organizations
was incompatible.
The official communique announcing
the accord was as follows:
LAS a result of conversations between
the Holy See and the Italian govern
ment concerning the dissolution of youth
clubs attached to the Italian Catholic
Action. and, in general, their activities.
there has been reached an accord with
the following terms:
The italian Catholic Action is es-
sentially diocesan and depends directly
from the bishops who choose the lay
and eccleSiastic directors. There may
not be chosen persons belonging to
parties adverse to the Fascist regime.
viii Abstain From Politics.
In conformity with its religious and
supernatural nature, Catholic Action
does net concern itself at all with the
political. and in its external form of
organization it will abstain entirely
from the traditional nature of political
parties.
The banner of the Catholic Action
will he the Italian flag.
Catholic Action does not have in
its program the formation of profess
sional associations and trade syndicates.
It therefore does not contemplate any
synoical action.
Its internal professional sections
now existing and contemplated by the
law of April 3, 1926, have been or
ganized exclusively for spiritual and re-
ligious objects and they intend further
to contribute toward the increasingly
better functioning of legally constituted
syndicalism based on the principle of
collaboration of classes and toward the
social and national ends that the state
in a Catholic country proposes to at
tain with present organizations.
1.-THE youth clubs depending from
Catholic Action will call themselves
Youth Associations of Catholic Action
These associations can have member
ship cards and badges corresponding
strictly to their religious aims.
The various associations shall have
no other flags except the Italian flag
and their own religious banners.
These local associations shall abb
stain from any activity whatever of p
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