Murri, Romolo

MURRI, ROMOLO. - Priest and sociologist, b. at Montesampietrangeli (province of Ascoli Piceno, diocese of Fermo) on 27 Aug. 1870, d. in 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 ardor. Together with G. Salvadori, F. Ermini, F. Crispolti, and G. Semeria he founded the University Circle and its own journal Vita nuova, laying the foundations of the Italian Catholic University Federation. He joined Christian Democracy (v.) with enthusiasm.

He founded the journal Cultura sociale, whose first issue appeared on 1 Jan. 1898, in order to set out his ideas. These soon developed in contrast with the conservative tendencies of the Opera dei congressi (v.), for which reason M. hurled against the resigning president Paganuzzi a violent article in Cultura sociale entitled Il crollo di Venezia (14 Aug. 1902). The noise, the protests, and the polemics aroused by this piece were enormous. The Congress of Bologna in 1903 brought a notable success to the Murrian faction, but together with it a trail of bitter polemics. The provisions of the new pontiff Pius X on Catholic Action stirred the rebellion of some young Christian Democrats and created an autonomous movement: M. with them founded in Bologna the Lega democratica nazionale, which was condemned by Pius X, who in the letter Pieni l'animo of 28 July 1906 forbade priests to enroll in it. By now the conflict was shifting ever more from the political field to the religious plane. M., who had already in a speech delivered at San Marino on 25 Aug. 1902 exalted the religious tendencies of Tyrrell and Loisy, thereby entered into the heart of the controversies then agitating regarding modernism, which gradually led him far from the right interpretation of dogma. These motives, besides the rebellious attitude to which he abandoned himself, determined the pontiff Pius X first to suspend him a divinis (1907) and later (1909) to excommunicate M., who accentuated his campaign against ecclesiastical authority in the new Rivista di cultura, organ of the Lega democratica nazionale. This movement soon began to lose extent and intensity, ceasing at the beginning of the First World War. In 1909 M. was elected deputy in the constituency of Montegiorgio, laid aside the ecclesiastical habit, contracted a civil marriage, and carried on political activity in a party of the extreme left. He later became a contributor to liberal newspapers such as Il Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, etc., but he had already lost all influence on Italian political life. He returned to the bosom of the Church about a year before his death.

Works: among the numerous writings of M. (more than a hundred volumes and pamphlets) the following are to be remembered: Propositi di parte cattolica (Rome 1899); Battaglie d'oggi (4 vols., ibid. 1903-1904); La politica clericale e la democrazia (Milan 1910); Dalla monarchia alla repubblica - Lettere portoghesi (ibid. 1910); Della religione, della Chiesa e dello Stato (Rome 1910); La croce e la spada (Genoa 1915); Cavour (ibid. 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 (ibid. 1943); Democrazia cristiana (ibid. 1944), a posthumous work, interesting for the protagonist's one-sided vision of the period 1894-1907.

Filippo Caraffa