Luigi Sturzo

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Luigi Sturzo
Undated photograph
Member of the Senate of the Republic
Life tenure
17 September 1952 – 8 August 1959
Appointed byLuigi Einaudi
Vice-Mayor of Caltagirone
In office
1905–1920
Personal details
Born(1871-11-26)26 November 1871
Caltagirone, Sicily, Kingdom of Italy
Died8 August 1959(1959-08-08) (aged 87)
Rome, Lazio, Italy
Political partyItalian People's Party (1919–24)
Independent[1] (1924–43)
Residence(s)Rome, Italy
Alma materPontifical Gregorian University
ProfessionPolitician
Priest

Luigi Sturzo (Italian pronunciation:

Italian People's Party in 1919, but was forced into exile in 1924 with the rise of Italian fascism, and later the post-war Christian Democrats. In exile in London (and later New York) he published over 400 articles (published after his death under the title Miscellanea Londinese) critical of fascism.[4][5]

Sturzo's cause for canonization opened on 23 March 2002 and he is titled as a Servant of God.[2]

Life

Priesthood

Luigi Sturzo was born on 26 November 1871 in

Bishop of Piazza Armerina. His two other sisters were Margherita and the nun
Remigia (or Sister Giuseppina).

From 1883 until 1886 he studied at

Noto
. He commenced his studies for the ecclesial life in 1888.

Sturzo received his

Bishop of Caltagirone Saverio Gerbino (at the Chiesa del Santissimo Salvatore) and following his graduation served as a teacher of philosophical and theological studies in Caltagirone; he served as his town's Vice-Mayor from 1905 to 1920. In 1898 he received a doctorate in his philosophical studies from the Pontifical Gregorian in Rome in 1898 and he taught that subject in his hometown from 1898 to 1903.[5][4] It was around this time that he knew Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi
.

In his spare time he liked to collect antique ceramic art and while serving as the Vice-Mayor opened a ceramicists' school in 1918. He also founded the newspaper La Croce di Constantino in Caltagirone in 1897.[3][4] In 1900 - at the same time as the Boxer Rebellion - Sturzo asked his bishop to serve in the missions in China despite the persecutions the Church was enduring there. But he was denied this request on the account of his precarious state of health.[2] Sturzo also was involved since 1915 with Azione Cattolica. He was also close with Romolo Murri.

Sturzo's political activism and collaboration with his colleagues prevented Giovanni Giolitti assuming power once again in 1922 which allowed for Luigi Facta to assume the prime ministership.[2]

Italian Popular Party

Don Luigi Sturzo in 1919

Sturzo was among the founders of the

Partito Popolare Italiano on 19 January 1919. The formation of the PPI - with the permission of Pope Benedict XV - represented a tacit and reluctant reversal of the Vatican's Non Expedit of non-participation in Italian politics which was abolished before the November 1919 elections in which the PPI won 20.6% of the vote and 100 seats in the legislature. The PPI was a colossal political force in the nation: between 1919 and 1922 no government could be formed and maintained without the support of the PPI. But a coalition between the Socialists and the PPI was deemed unacceptable within the Vatican despite the Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti in 1914[clarification needed] proposing it and something his progressive and powerless successors—Bonomi (1921-1922) and Facta
(1922) – reimaged as the single possible coalition that excluded the Fascists.

Sturzo was a committed anti-fascist who discussed the ways in which Catholicism and Fascism were incompatible in such works as Coscienza cristiana and criticized what he perceived to be "

Saint Augustine of Hippo and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz as well as Giambattista Vico and Maurice Blondel. He did this in order to elaborate on what he called the "dialectic of the concrete" and opposed this dialectic as a veer towards absolute idealism and scholastic realism.[5]

Sturzo was not among the 14 PPI members who defected—under pressure from

his regime.[5] He further resigned from the board on 19 May 1924. After Sturzo's departure the Vatican endorsed the formation of the Unione Nazionale which was pro-fascist and Catholic which hastened the rupture of the PPI and provided political cover for its former members to join Mussolini’s inaugural government. Following the Matteotti affair (after which Sturzo thought the Aventine Secession should return to Parliament) Cardinal Pietro Gasparri acceded to the wishes of Mussolini and forced Sturzo to leave the Italian nation before the re-opening of Parliament commemorating the March on Rome
.

Exile

Sturzo was exiled from 1924 to 1946 first in

Servites at their priory of Saint Mary in Fulham Road where he was asked to leave in 1926 because the Servites' motherhouse
in Rome was being denied funds as long as Sturzo was their guest.

In 1926 he refused an offer from the Vatican - communicated through Cardinal

Saint Peter's Basilica
in Rome again in exchange for his permanent renunciation of politics.

On 22 September 1940 he boarded the Samaria in

Office of War Information providing them with his assessments of the political forces with the Italian resistance movement and radio broadcasts to the Italian peninsula. Sturzo returned to Brooklyn in April 1944 but his return to his homeland received a Vatican-Alcide De Gasperi
veto in October 1945 and May 1946. De Gasperi with Sturzo on the scope of a referendum to abolish the monarch as the head of state.

Return and death

Sturzo set off to return to his homeland on the Vulcania on 27 August 1946 (after the June Referendum had abolished the need for a monarch) but did not have a dominant role in Italian politics after his arrival on 6 September in Naples. He instead retired to the outskirts of Rome after landing in Naples. In 1951 he founded the Luigi Sturzo Institute which was designed to endorse research in historical science as well as in economics and politics. He was made a Senator on 17 December 1952 and Senator for life in 1953 at the behest of President Luigi Einaudi and he obtained a dispensation from Pope Pius XII in order to accept the title.[4][3][2]

Autochrome
by Georges Chevalier

On 23 July 1959 he celebrated

San Lorenzo al Verano but were transferred in 1962 to the church of Santissimo Salvatore in Caltagirone.[2]

Beatification cause

Sturzo on 18 November 1950

The beatification process for Sturzo opened under

Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the official "nihil obstat" decree and titled the priest as a Servant of God. Cardinal Camillo Ruini inaugurated the diocesan process of investigation on 3 May 2002. The diocesan process concluded on 24 November 2017 in the Lateran Palace.[6] The postulator
for this cause is Avv. Carlo Fusco.

See also

Authorship

Sturzo was the author of several works in relation to philosophical and political thought. This included:

  • Church and State (1939)
  • The True Life (1943)
  • The Inner Laws of Society (1944)
  • Spiritual Problems of Our Times (1945)
  • Italy and the Coming World (1945)

Articles

Notes and references

  1. ^ He never joined the Christian Democracy despite being a party inspired by his values
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Servant of God Luigi Sturzo". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d "Luigi Sturzo". Britannica. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d Vincenzo Salerno (2006). "Luigi Sturzo". Best of Sicily Magazine. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d "Sturzo, Luigi (1871-1959)". Encyclopedia.com. 2006. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  6. ^ "Don Luigi Sturzo, tutto pronto in Vaticano per la sua Beatificazione". Prima Pagina News. 9 August 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.

Bibliography

  • De Grand, Alexander. 1982. Italian Fascism: Its Origins & Development. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Delzell, Charles F. "The Emergence of Political Catholicism in Italy: Partio Popolare, 1919-1926." Journal of Church and State (1980) 22#3: 543-546. online
  • Farrell-Vinay, Giovanna. 2004. "The London Exile of Don Luigi Sturzo (1924-1940)." HeyJ. XLV, pp. 158–177.
  • Molony, John N. The emergence of political catholicism in Italy: Partito popolare 1919-1926 (1977)
  • Moos, Malcolm. 1945. "Don Luigi Sturzo--Christian Democrat." The American Political Science Review, 39#2 269-292.
  • Murphy, Francis J. "Don Sturzo and the Triumph of Christian Democracy." Italian Americana 7.1 (1981): 89-98. online
  • Pugliese, Stanislao G. 2001. Italian Fascism and Anti-Fascism: A Critical Anthology. Manchester University Press.
  • Riccards, Michael P. Vicars of Christ: Popes, Power, and Politics in the Modern World. New York: Herder & Herder.
  • Schäfer, Michael. "Luigi Sturzo as a theorist of totalitarianism." Totalitarianism and Political Religions, Volume 1. Routledge, 2004. 39-57.

External links