WORK OF CATHOLIC CONGRESSES AND COMMITTEES IN ITALY. - It was the leading organization of Italian Catholics. On October 2, 1870, the supreme Council of the Gioventù cattolica italiana resolved to found an Opera that would gather together all Catholic forces, following the example of Belgium and Germany. The Opera came into being as a result of the First Catholic Congress, held in Venice (June 12-16, 1874) under the presidency of Duke Scipione Salviati of Rome, for the centenary of the battle of Lepanto. At that time the supreme Council of the Gioventù cattolica declared itself constituted as a permanent Committee, and then provided for the Second Congress, which followed from September 22 to 26, 1875 and was held at Fiesole, with the aim of establishing a stable organization, governed by a national committee. There the Declaration of principles (a sort of profession of faith) was pronounced for the first time, written by Baron Vito D'Ondes Reggio of Palermo, a patriot, a member of Parliament, who had resigned after September 20, 1870. The permanent Committee became the Opera dei Congressi and organized the 17 subsequent Italian Catholic congresses, which interpreted and guided the thought and action of Italian Catholics for more than a quarter of a century.
The first president of the Opera was Giovanni Acquaderni (v.), already the founder, together with Mario Fani, of the Gioventù cattolica, who gave the organization a national character with regional, diocesan and parish committees. Acquaderni promoted the Third Congress, opened at Bologna on October 9, 1876, still under the presidency of Duke Salviati, dissolved after the first session, for "public order" reasons, in the face of anticlerical demonstrations in the streets, and the Fourth Congress at Bergamo from October 10 to 14, 1877, entrusting its presidency to Baron Vito d'Ondes Reggio. The presidency then passed from Acquaderni to Duke Scipione Salviati (1878), who, from October 21 to 24, 1879, convened the Fifth Congress at Modena, and only four years later succeeded in promoting the Sixth at Naples (October 10-14, 1883) with the promulgation of the definitive Statute of the Opera, having the purpose "of uniting the Catholics of Italy in a common and concordant action for the defense of the rights of the Holy See and of the religious and social interests of Italians." The presidency of the Congress was held by the Prince of Bisignano.
In 1885, Duke Salviati was replaced in the general presidency of the Opera by the Bolognese physician Dr. Marcellino Venturoli, who held it for five years, though with the celebration of only one congress, the Seventh, which was that of Lucca (April 19-23, 1887), held under his own presidency.
In September 1889, the permanent Committee concentrated its votes on the young lawyer G. B. Paganuzzi of Venice, who had taken part in all or nearly all the previous congresses and had brought new and youthful elements into the Catholic movement. With his appointment, the most flourishing and active period of the Opera began. Paganuzzi called to be part of the permanent Committee other distinguished men, among them Prof. Giuseppe Toniolo, who was to bring a soundly social direction to the whole of Catholic Action. The Eighth Congress, at Lodi (October 21-23, 1890), marked a first awakening of activity, taking place under the presidency of Paganuzzi himself, with the participation of combative young men led by Filippo Meda (v.) of Milan, who directed the organ of the Committee for the centenary celebrations of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, in agreement with Msgr. Sarto, then bishop of Mantua.
In 1891 (September 14-17), still under the presidency of Paganuzzi, the General Congress (Ninth) was convened at Vicenza. It was the year of Rerum novarum, the starting point for a new activity of Catholics throughout the world, social activity, at which Toniolo (v.) had been working for some time, together with the bishop of Padua Msgr. Callegari (v.) and Count Medolago Albani (v.).
In 1892 there were two congresses, both at Genoa: the Tenth of the Opera (October 4-8; president the Marquis Giangramo di Sangineto) and the First of the Unione per gli studi sociali. The Eleventh Congress was held at Rome from February 15 to 17, 1894, president Prince Francesco Massimo, and in the same year (September 9-13; president Count Francesco Viancino) the Twelfth at Pavia, under the auspices of that distinguished bishop, Msgr. Riboldi. The Opera, by now at its maximum development, in 1895 (September 9-13; president Baron Luigi de Matteis) celebrated at Turin its Thirteenth Congress and in the following year (August 31-September 4, 1896; president Count Alberto de Moiana), the Fourteenth at Fiesole (where the Federazione universitaria cattolica italiana [v.] was founded), followed, in 1897, by the Fifteenth (August 30-September 3; president the Marquis Lorenzo Bottini) at Milan, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of St. Ambrose. In that year the Opera dei congressi counted 3,982 parish committees, 708 youth sections, 12 university circles, 700 rural banks, as many workers' societies, 24 Catholic banks and one insurance company.
It comprised the following sections or groups: religious works and associations; then, from the Seventh Congress, Catholic organization and association, Christian popular or Christian-democratic action with a subscription (1901) for the legal defense of charitable institutions, education and instruction, the press, and Christian art. The most important group was the second (called at the beginning: "Charity" section; from the Fifth Congress "Charity and Catholic economy"; from 1902 "Christian popular action"), from which matured the idea of Christian Democracy, which found in Giuseppe Toniolo its most ingenious and competent popularizer, especially with his famous Roman speech on the Christian concept of democracy. The novelty, however, divided the minds of Catholics to no small degree. In 1898, after the revolutionary disturbances, the liberal-Masonic reaction, lumping socialists and Catholics together in one bundle, imposed, through the work of Minister Di Rudini, the dissolution of the Opera dei congressi itself and of its committees.
It was, however, a brief interlude. In 1899 the threads could be rejoined and the congress of recovery (the Sixteenth: April 18-21) celebrated at Ferrara, still under the direction of Paganuzzi, who entrusted its effective presidency to the Marquis Filippo Crispolti.
At this time, the youthful forces militant under the ideal banner of Christian Democracy (v.), largely led by Fr. Romolo Murri (v.) and moderated by Prof. Toniolo (v.), asked to have a greater part in the Opera dei congressi. There was no understanding between the two tendencies; so that the Seventeenth Congress, celebrated at Rome in the Holy Year 1900 (September 1-5; president Count Carlo Santucci), was of scant interest, and the Eighteenth, celebrated at Taranto in 1901 (September 2-6; president Cav. Giuseppe Giglio Tramonte), had no better outcome, despite the efforts of G. Toniolo and other far-sighted men to graft the freshest shoots onto the old trunk of the Opera.
A renewal was attempted with the encyclical Graves de communi of Leo XIII (January 1901), which, while reconfirming the social directions of the apostolate of the laity, yet not permitting action in the political field, recalled the most ardent, with new statutes (January 1902) and with the replacement of the president of the Opera, who by general designation was Count Giovanni Grosoli Pironi, who only after many months, that is, at the end of 1902, was in a position to assume the presidency. The death of Leo XIII and the election of Pius X postponed the Nineteenth Congress to late autumn, at Bologna (November 10-13, 1903; president Count Carlo Zucchini), and it was the last.
The profound disagreement between the currents of the young and the veterans also made itself felt in the Permanent Committee, so that Pius X decreed its dissolution, with the letter of the Secretariat of State to the Ordinaries of Italy (30 July 1904), leaving alive only the second group, that of the economic works, to which 744 mutual aid societies, 835 rural banks and about a thousand similar institutions adhered. The following year, Pius X dissolved the second group as well, replacing it with the Economic-Social Union. He instituted the Popular Union on the model of the German Volksverein, and the Electoral Union (Il fermo proposito, June 1905). Through the work of these national unions the XX Italian Catholic Congress was held at Modena (in 1910), the last one, under the presidency of Marquis Filippo Crispolti. For the subsequent activities of Italian Catholics, v.: AZIONE CATTOLICA ITALIANA; DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA.
Bibliography13 works
Guido Anichini