MURRI, ROMOLO

MURRI, ROMOLO. — Priest and sociologist, b. at Montesampietrangeli (province of Ascoli Piceno, diocese of Fermo) on 27 Aug. 1870, d. at Rome on 12 March 1944. He completed his theological studies in Rome, where he was ordained a priest in 1893. In the same year he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rome, where, in a student environment saturated with violent doctrinal and political rivalries, he began his social activity as a propagandist with fervent zeal. Together with G. Salvadori, F. Ermini, F. Crispolti, and G. Semeria, he founded the university circle and his own journal, Vita nuova, laying the foundations of the Federazione universitaria cattolica italiana. Democrazia cristiana (v.) with enthusiasm.

He founded the journal Cultura sociale, whose first issue appeared on 1 Jan. 1898, in order to expound his ideas. These soon developed in opposition to the conservative Opera dei congressi (v.), and M. therefore directed a violent article against the resigned president Paganuzzi in Cultura sociale, entitled Il crollo di Venezia (14 Aug. 1902). This writing provoked enormous noise, protests, and controversy. The Congress of Bologna in 1903 brought considerable success to the Murrian faction, but also left in its wake bitter controversy. The new pontiff Pio X’s provisions concerning Catholic Action provoked the rebellion of some young Christian Democrats and created an autonomous movement: M. founded the Lega democratica nazionale at Bologna with them. It was condemned by Pio X, who, in the letter Pieni l’animo of 28 July 1906, forbade priests to enroll in II. By then the conflict was increasingly shifting from the political sphere to the religious sphere. M., who

had already, in a speech delivered at S. Marino on 25 Aug. 1902, exalted the religious tendencies of Tyrrel and Loisy, thereby entered fully into the controversies then surrounding modernism, which gradually led him away from the correct interpretation of dogma. These motives, in addition to the rebellious attitude to which he gave himself over, led pontiff Pio X first to suspend M. a divinis (1907) and later (1909) to excommunicate him. M. then intensified his campaign against ecclesiastical authority in the new Rivista di cultura, organ of the Lega democratica nazionale. This movement soon lost its breadth and intensity and came to an end at the beginning of the First World War. In 1909 M. was elected deputy for the Montegiorgio constituency, laid aside his ecclesiastical habit, contracted a civil marriage, and engaged in political activity in a far-left party. He subsequently became a contributor to liberal newspapers such as Il Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, etc., but had already lost all influence over Italian political life. He returned to the Church approximately one year before his death.

Works: among M.’s numerous writings (more than a hundred volumes and pamphlets), the following should be mentioned: Propositi di parte cattolica (Rome 1899); Battaglie d’oggi (4 vols., there 1903–1904); La politica clericale e la democrazia (Milan 1910); Dalla monarchia alla repubblica - Lettere portoghesi (there 1910); Della religione, della Chiesa e dello Stato (Rome 1910); La croce e la spada (Genoa 1915); Cavour (there 1915); Dalla Democrazia cristiana al Partito popolare italiano (Florence 1920); Lo Stato e i partiti politici in Italia nel dopoguerra (Rome 1921); La conquista ideale dello Stato (Milan 1923); L’ulivo di Santena, note sulla Conciliazione (Rome 1930); Il messaggio cristiano e la storia (there 1943); Democrazia cristiana (there 1944), a posthumous work, interesting for the protagonist’s one-sided view of the period 1894–1907.