ALBERTARIO, DON DAVIDE

ALBERTARIO, don DAVIDE. - Catholic priest and writer, b. at Filighera (Pavia) in 1846, d. at Carenno (Bergamo) on 12 Sept. 1902. For thirty years after 1870, he was the most brilliant journalist and the most effective polemicist in the service of the Catholic cause in Italy. His name and activity are linked with the Osservatore Cattolico, a Milanese daily newspaper of which he was editor. During the first twenty years he fought against Rosminian theories and, above all, against political liberalism. After the Rerum novarum he was one of the pioneers of the movement of ideas and works that took the name of Christian democracy. When, in 1898, the Minister of the Interior Di Rudini dissolved more than 6,000 Catholic associations on the charge of subversion, the Catholic newspapers that defended them were also struck, and their editors put on trial. A. was arrested in his home and sentenced by the court-martial to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of one thousand lire. That painful experience, which increased his great popularity, made him understand the necessity of Catholic participation in the political life of the country. He thus moved from defending the famous formula « Né eletti, né elettori » of the intransigent journalist and polemicist D. Margotti, to that already launched by l'Osservatore romano: « Preparazione nell'astensione ». For the younger forces of militant Catholicism, the Milanese daily and its valiant editor became a banner.