{{Short description|Italian Priest}}'''Alberto Giovannetti''' (1913 – 1989) was an Italian priest of the Catholic Church who worked in the Roman Curia and served as the first Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations from 1964 to 1973.
==Biography== Alberto Giovannetti was born in Monterotondo, Rome, in 1913.
In preparation for a career in the diplomatic service, he completed the course of study at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1940.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdeccles/documents/1900-1949.htm | access-date = 3 July 2019 |language= it| title = Pontificia Accademia Ecclesiastica | publisher = Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy}}</ref> He worked in the offices of the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State and was a ''peritus'', that is, a designated expert, at the Second Vatican Council.<ref>{{cite book | page= 164 |publisher= Peeters | date= 2009 | title = "You will be called repairer of the breach": the diary of J.G.M. Willebrands, 1958-1961 }}</ref>
As a Vatican historian, he published works defending Pope Pius XII for failing to denounce the Holocaust. Writing in the official Vatican newspaper ''L'Osservatore Romano'' in 1963,<ref>{{cite news | language = it|work=Osservatore Romano | date=5 April 1963 |title = Storia, teatro e storie }}</ref> he said that "the enormous dimensions and monstrous cruelty [the Jews suffered] were apparent in their full sinister light only after the war. The information about these crimes that reached the Vatican was scarce and vague...and was based on revelations and news that even those who conveyed it could not guarantee."<ref>{{cite book | pages= 93ff. | date= 2002 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F6doPwxjeCsC&pg=PA93& | publisher = Yale University Press | title = Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy | first = Susan | last = Zuccotti }}</ref>
Though most of his work in Rome and as a diplomat in New York was not carried out in public, he developed a reputation for skill and acuity. Late in his career ''Time'' magazine described him as "deceptively cherubic".<ref>{{cite news | volume = 112 |page=140 | date= 1978 | work = Time |title= Not available }}</ref> Early in 1964, when the government of China said that the peace strategy of Pope Paul and his two predecessors was nothing more than "chloroforming the world", Giovannetti chose to accept that assessment as a compliment, writing in ''L'Osservatore Romano'': "It is with surprise that we see the Chinese Communists affirm the existence of a perfect identity of intent and action in the last three Popes in the field of the fundamental problem of peace."<ref>{{cite news |title= Chinese Charge on Popes Is Rejected by Vatican| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/20/archives/chinese-charge-on-popes-is-rejected-by-vatican.html | work= New York Times | date= 20 February 1964 | access-date = 5 July 2019 }}</ref>
The Vatican state department notified U.N. Secretary General U Thant that Giovannetti would be its first Permanent Observer at the United Nations on 21 March 1964.<ref>{{cite news | work = New York Times | access-date = 5 June 2019 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/07/archives/vatican-names-un-observer.html | date = 7 April 1964 | title = Vatican Names U.N. Observer}}</ref> Giovannetti met with Thant for the first time on 21 September.<ref>{{cite news | work= New York Times |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/22/archives/vatican-observer-sees-thant.html | access-date = 5 July 2019 | date= 22 September 1964 | title = Vatican Observer Sees Thant}}</ref> His only public role came with the visit of Pope Paul to address to United Nations General Assembly in 1965, for which he also managed behind-the-scenes negotiations, preventing the trip from taking on a political cast and allowing local Church officials a role.<ref>{{cite book | access-date = 5 July 2019 | page= 262 | title= What Happened at Vatican II| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rqGiCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA262& | first = John W. | last = O'Malley | date= 2010 | publisher = Harvard University Press}}</ref> His duties extended to U.N. agencies as well, in this era before the Holy See had an observer in Geneva with that responsibility; he led a delegation to a United Nations Trade Conference there in April 1964.<ref>{{cite news | work= New York Times | access-date = 5 July 2019 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/02/archives/delegates-from-the-vatican-take-an-interest-in-trade-developments.html | date= 2 April 1964| title = Vatican is Active at Trade Parley }}</ref> As both a priest and diplomat, Giovannetti continued to perform certain pastoral duties, officiating, for example, at the wedding of a U.N. official from Dahomey, attended by that country's president.<ref>{{cite news |work = New York Times | access-date = 5 July 2019 | date= 1 November 1970 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/01/archives/miss-constance-gray-is-married-to-dr-achille-elisha-un-aide.html | title = Miss Constance Gray Is Married To Dr. Achille Elisha, U.N. Aide}}</ref>
Pope Paul appointed Giovanni Cheli to succeed Giovannetti at his U.N. position in 1973.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/28/archives/laird-a-stayer-denies-rumors-of-quitting-notes-on-people.html | access-date = 5 July 2019 | date = 28 July 1973 | work= New York Times | title = Laird, a 'Stayer,' Denies Rumors of Quitting}}</ref> Like Giovannetti, Cheli was not yet a bishop when appointed; the policy of giving diplomats of a certain rank the status of archbishop was established later.
In retirement Giovannetti authored a spy novel that appeared in Italian as ''Requiem per una spia'' in 1978 and in an English translation as ''Requiem for a Spy'' in 1983. Its cover carried the description "a novel about a false priest and a true faith".{{efn|"Seeking information about Arab and Israeli plans, the KGB substitutes agent Vladimir Panin for his double, Monsignor Righi, the Vatican observer at the United Nations"}}
==Writings== * {{cite book|title=Pio XII parla alla Chiesa del Silenzio | language = it| publisher = Editrice Ancona|location= Milan| date= 1958}} * {{cite book | title = Il Vaticano e la guerra: 1939-1940; note storiche| language = it | publisher = Libreria editrice vaticana | date= 1960}}<ref>{{cite book | title = Pio XII tra guerra e pace: profezia e diplomazia di un papa (1939-1945)| page= 78 | language = it | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=76_FjfCSqSoC&pg=PA78& | date= 2002| first = Matteo Luigi | last = Napolitano | publisher = Città Nuova}}</ref> * {{cite book| date= 1975 | title = Il Palazzo è di vetro | language = it |trans-title= The palace is made of glass | publisher = Coines}} * {{cite book| title= Roma, città aperta | location = Rome|date= 1962 | publisher = Ancora}} * {{cite book | title = Italians of America | publisher = Manor Books | date= 1979}} Originally ''L'America degli Italiani'' (Edizioni Paoline, 1975), Series: Problemi sociali d'oggi, volume 10. * {{cite book | title = Requiem for a Spy | publisher = Doubleday |date= 1983 |translator-first = Frances Frenaye| translator-last= Lanza }} Originally ''Requiem per una spia'' (1978)<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=t7WVhymRPZEC&pg=PA293& |page= 293 | access-date = 4 July 2019 | title = Twentieth-century Italian Literature in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography 1929-1997 | date= 1998 | publisher = University of Toronto Press | first = Robin | last = Heaney}}</ref> * {{cite book | title = Strada facendo in America. Quasi un Diario. | language = it | date= 1988 | location = Monterotondo | publisher = Tipolithografia Balzanelli Aldo}}
==Notes== {{Notelist}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Giovannetti, Alberto}} Category:1913 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy alumni Category:Diplomats for the Holy See Category:Participants in the Second Vatican Council Category:Permanent observers of the Holy See to the United Nations Category:Clergy from Rome Category:20th-century Italian novelists Category:20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests