In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Cattolici a sinistra. Dal modernismo ai giorni nostri
  • Roy Domenico
Cattolici a sinistra. Dal modernismo ai giorni nostri. By Daniela Saresella. [Quadrante Laterza, 178.] (Rome/Bari: Editori Laterza. 2011. Pp. x, 285. €22,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-420-9785-3).

Italian Catholics who identify with the political Left have had a difficult time of it over the past century, a dilemma that Daniela Saresella chronicles in her even-handed and well-researched work, Cattolici a sinistra. Dal modernismo ai giorni nostri. A professor of contemporary history at the University of Milan, Saresella has emerged over the past decade or so in the top rank of scholars of modern Italian Catholicism.

Cattolici a sinistra begins at the start of the twentieth century with Pope Pius X’s crackdown on the modernist controversy that, in Italy, was identified with activists such as Romolo Murri and Ernesto Buonaiuti. The two urged Catholics to involve themselves in politics, although such a move deeply troubled the pontiff. The ascent of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist government after World War I, however, changed the playing field, and—despite misgivings from Pius XI—the new situation prompted more and more of the faithful to engage, some in favor of the regime and some in hostility to it. This opposition inevitably led to contacts and then, during World War II, to antifascist alliances with Marxism. Some of these alliances were so strong that, toward the end of the war, certain groups, most famously some from Roman high schools (licei), began to coalesce as Christian Communists. The Holy See quickly squelched these attempts, and in 1949 the Holy Office issued its famous Responsa ad dubia de communismo that prohibited any Catholic allegiance to communism. Nonetheless, Catholic-Marxist dialogue continued with well-meaning men and women on both sides, their hopes cresting (and crashing) with the “opening to the left” in the 1960s and the failed “historic compromise” in the 1970s.

Saresella extends her investigation through the 1990s and into the twenty-first century when the collapse of the Marxist Left and of Christian Democracy (the D.C.) as well as the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, added more twists to the story. The emergence of what became known as the Democratic Party facilitated the journey for many Catholics on the Left. As the former communists and socialists reformed through the 1990s and tried to shake their Marxist pasts, they changed their identity and name more than once [End Page 826] until the ex-Christian Democrat Romano Prodi surfaced in 2007, perhaps ironically, as their leader, the head of the Democrats.

While benefiting from Saresella’s clear and scholarly arguments, the reader might question modernism’s role in the history of the Catholic Left. Some, like Buonauiti, could easily be read as figures on the Left, whereas others—particularly Murri—ended up flirting with Mussolini’s regime. By the Left, furthermore, Saresella focuses mostly on Marxism, although, as she indicates, until Catholics and Marxists (or some of them) forged their antifascist alliance—that is, long after the modernist controversy—ties between them were scarce. Indeed, she proposes that a true Left Catholicism did not exist before Fascism made it necessary. In a sense such questions enhance this book, which succeeds quite well in provoking thought.

Leading a 2011 student trip to Italy, this reviewer encountered many of the issues raised in Cattolici a sinistra. The students enjoyed a discussion with members of a Democratic Party branch in Rome. Ex-communists constituted one group of Democrats, whereas others came from among the old D.C.—a mix that triggered a lively debate on the “essence,” and the Catholic role, of the new party. It was evident that the ideas found in Saresella’s fine study are still very much alive.

Roy Domenico
University of Scranton
...

pdf

Share