By Paula Huston
The view was spectacular, one of the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Before him lay the sea, a 180-degree spread of it glittering in an immense bay beneath the noonday sun. Behind him rose the mountains, fold after endless fold for miles to the north and south, and above all of it, a piercingly blue summer sky.
He stood near a fence line, his long beard and white cowl ruffled by the sea breeze. Four thousand acres, if they could afford it, but 600 should suffice — the entire face of a mountain with enough level ground to plant olives, vines, fruit orchards, vegetables. True, it wouldn’t be so easy to fish — the crashing of the breakers against the rocky cliffs 1,300 feet below roared up the mountain face toward him like the voice of God — but it could be done.
If only he were younger. After so many years of apostolic ministry — India, Australia, Italy — he was 61 and feeling his age. He’d only been a Camaldolese hermit since 1950 — not long, compared to his decades as a Jesuit on the global stage. After surviving two world wars and experiencing firsthand the cosmic clash of the two great political religions of his day — fascism and communism — he’d been overcome by the urge toward fuga mundi, or flight from the world. His once-endless creative energy had been supplanted by an intense longing for solitude and silence.
But only seven years later, here he was, tramping around potential building sites with real estate agents. He was at one and the same time Dom Agostino Modotti, hermit, and Fr. Ugo Modotti, former Jesuit, and this American expedition would require all the diplomatic and social skills he’d acquired during his long years in foreign lands. Ahead lay intricate negotiations with bishops, not to mention intense fundraising efforts, including among Hollywood celebrities. It helped that, unlike the Italian monks back home, he spoke flawless English. But this was not an assignment he’d ever have sought out on his own.
In the end, he’d reluctantly agreed to give up his recluse cell high in the Apennines, to cross the Atlantic on the USS Constitution, and to lead this mission like a good monk — which is to say, if not entirely willingly, at least humbly and “under obedience.” Now that he was here and seeing what he was seeing, however — the great sea glittering in the sun, the screaming hawks wheeling overhead — he was suddenly filled with joy. Maybe this mountain ranch in Big Sur, California, would prove to be the sanctuary he was seeking.
Ugo Modotti was born in 1897 in Udine, Italy, so he was 20 years old when his country underwent what is still considered to be its most humiliating military defeat. Though he could have easily been one of the more than 13,000 soldiers killed during the infamous Battle of Caporetto — a complete rout by Austro-Hungarian and German troops employing poison gas — he was nowhere near the battlefront. Instead, he was making his Jesuit vows in Rome, where he had been studying philosophy at Gregorian University for the past several years.
In 1920, with the nightmare of World War I now over, the newly minted Jesuit was given his first assignment: exotic Malabar, on the west coast of India overlooking the Arabian Sea. There, he would study theology at Kurseong until his ordination at the age of 26. And there, he would live out the 16-year-long first phase of his vocation, serving as director of St. Aloysius College house and hostel in Mangalore and then as rector of St. Joseph’s College in Callicut.
But even before Modotti left Italy in 1920, it was clear that political tensions were on the rise. The fiery young socialist-turned-fascist Benito Mussolini would soon win a seat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and two years later, 30,000 of his squadristi (violent vigilantes known as the Black Shirts) would march into Rome. The terrified king would capitulate without a fight, handing over the reins of power to its newly designated prime minister. Mussolini, in turn, would declare himself “Head of Government no longer answerable to Parliament,” thereby launching his 20-year dictatorship.
Key to Mussolini’s consolidation of power in a devoutly Catholic country, however, was the church. Though its temporal clout had been greatly diminished since 1870 when the newly formed Republic of Italy absorbed the Papal States, its cultural influence was still considerable. And Mussolini knew he could not simply impose his will on the church; he would have to offer it something it couldn’t refuse. But what?
Popes since the mid-19th-century had been fiercely sounding the alarm against communism. Marx and Lenin believed that religion was simply a useful tool of the wealthy bourgeois, meant to keep capitalism’s “wage slaves” humble and obedient. As the “opium of the people,” religion destroyed any sense of agency in members of the impoverished working class.
Mussolini intuited that fascism would be inherently less threatening to Catholics because fascism did not officially view religion as the enemy. In fact, the church could be used to further fascist aims. Like Christianity, fascism advocated self-sacrificial service to a transcendent good (the state). Mussolini saw enough common ground between newly fascist Italy and the ancient Catholic Church that he sent word to the Vatican: He was willing to enter into secret negotiations with Pope Pius XI.
The pope was willing to talk, and he had some important questions for Italy’s new dictator. Would the church once again reclaim its status as a temporal and not merely spiritual, independent state? Yes — though considerably smaller in actual size than it once was. Would Catholicism once again be the official religion of Italy? Certainly — as long as Pius XI and Mussolini carefully preserved one another’s public images. Would the floundering Vatican-owned Bank of Rome, woefully short of money since the political upheavals of 1870, finally be compensated for the loss of the Papal States? Naturally — Mussolini was more than happy to release 750 million lire, plus one billion lire in Italian bonds, to beef up its coffers.
And in return? The pope would make sure that influential Catholic newspapers and magazines did not criticize Il Duce. He would refrain from publicly disagreeing with fascist policies that did not directly contradict Catholic teachings. And he would formally disband what was left of the anti-fascist party known as Partito Popolare, thereby eliminating any political opposition to the dictator. Alarmed as he was at the rapid spread of communism and judging fascism to be the lesser of two evils, Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty and Concordats with Il Duce in 1929.
In the late 1930s, Ugo Modotti returned to an Italy still under the thumb of its dictator. Mussolini and Hitler had just formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. The quasi-fascist monarchist, General Francisco Franco, was now receiving massive support from the Italian government to crush pro-democracy revolutionaries in Spain. In the midst of all this drama, Modotti was sent on to his third continent. He was tapped for the mission by the Father General of the Jesuits himself, Wlodimir Ledóchowski, who had been asked by the Vatican to find a good Jesuit to serve in Australia as a chaplain to its extensive Italian immigrant population.
Modotti’s arrival in Australia was heralded with enthusiasm by all the Catholic papers in Melbourne. The Advocate raved, “Venice, India, Australia: Brilliant Jesuit Comes Among Us,” adding that even though Modotti’s mission was “approved by the Duce,” it was “purely religious and has no political significance whatever.” Yet the Italian consular officials, well-known as Mussolini’s henchmen abroad, clearly thought otherwise. The Italian Consulate in Melbourne wrote to the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs that Modotti was a “fascist and an Italian and has had the honor being received by the Duce in Rome.”
But Modotti was not naive when it came to the political intrigues of the day, and he immediately set out to carve his own careful path between the fascist and communist factions within the Australian Catholic community. Soon after his arrival, he ordered Catholic men to stop wearing their black shirts to religious festivals and meetings. He started a new Catholic women’s group even though a fascist women’s group already existed. And he launched a new periodical that he promised would be strictly religious. On a personal level, he maintained cordial relationships with people of all political stripes.
When Mussolini declared war on both Britain and France, repercussions for the Italian community in Australia were swift. The government ordered the immediate internment of all “enemy aliens” and “potential saboteurs,” Modotti among them. Two plain clothes officers pulled up at the Jesuit House the day after the order was issued. One of them opened the door of the unmarked vehicle and gestured for Modotti to get in, but he slammed it in their faces, jumped in his own car and sped away. It was only through the intervention of Australian Archbishop Daniel Mannix that he avoided prison.
But Military Intelligence was not satisfied. Modotti was placed on travel restrictions and continued to be surveilled. From September 1940 on, in addition to the Italian residents already imprisoned, Australia took on 18,500 Italian POWs sent by Britain. Modotti was not only heavily involved with the Italian migrant internees, visiting them in the camps, carrying letters from their loved ones, pressing for their release, but he also visited the Italian POWs — convincing the Security Service that clearly he was not to be trusted.
What kept him going was a beautiful vision. If only he could build it, the Lourdes Grotto he was seeing in his mind’s eye might bring together people of all types: fascists, anti-fascists, communists, anarchists — Catholic and non-Catholic alike. And indeed it did: In spite of the grinding war, Italian construction companies and tile-workers volunteered their labor to construct Modotti’s sanctuary out of 20 tons of stone and cement. Even better, some well-known communists and anarchists were part of the crew. The grotto on the grounds of St. George’s parish in Carlton celebrated its grand opening in August of 1941, and thousands came to marvel.
As it turned out, Modotti’s political troubles were not over. When the war finally ended in 1945, he made plans to sail to Italy in hopes of bringing back more Jesuits to serve the Catholic population of Australia. To his shock, however, when he arrived in Rome, he was told he would not be allowed to return to the country he’d called home for the past eight years. Instead, he was assigned a job with Vatican Radio, where in 1949 he interviewed Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco. But by then, the urge toward fuga mundi had completely taken hold of him. One year later, he arrived at the Sacro Eremo of Camaldoli to become a hermit.
In the end, and in spite of successfully founding New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Modotti did not remain Camaldolese. After starting a seminary in Puerto Rico, he returned to the States, where he became a diocesan priest in the farming town of Corcoran, California. By all accounts, he was a beloved pastor, admired and respected in much the same way he’d been during his wartime years among the Italian immigrants of Australia.
As a man of faith trying his best to lead his fellow Catholics through the deadly political strife of the early 20th century, he must have relied heavily on his Ignatian training — particularly discernment. But it seems clear that he also drank at the secret spring of silence and solitude. At his own request, he is buried on a hillside at New Camaldoli beneath the outstretched hands of Mary — a statue reminiscent of Lourdes. Not in the graveyard with the other Camaldolese monks, and not in Italy among his Jesuit brethren, but alone on a hillside overlooking the sea.
A recluse in the end.
Paula Huston is a longtime Camaldolese Benedictine oblate and the author of two novels and eight works of spiritual nonfiction. Her most recent title is “One Ordinary Sunday: A Meditation on the Mystery of the Mass.” This essay is adapted from her book “The Hermits of Big Sur.” For more about her work, please visit her website: paulahuston.com.
