OPERA DEI CONGRESSI E DEI COMITATI CATTOLICI IN ITALIA. — This was the foremost organization of Italian Catholics. On 2 October 1870, the Supreme Council of the Italian Catholic Youth decided to establish an Opera that would bring together all Catholic forces, following the example of Belgium and Germany. The Opera came into being following the First Catholic Congress, held in Venice (12–16 June 1874) under the presidency of the Duke Scipione Salviati of Rome, to mark the sixth centenary of the battle of Lepanto. At that time, the Supreme Council of the Catholic Youth declared that it was constituting itself as a Permanent Committee, and subsequently arranged the Second Congress, which took place from 22 to 26 September 1875 at Fiesole, with the aim of establishing a permanent organization governed by a national committee. On that occasion the Declaration of Principles (a sort of profession of faith) was issued for the first time; it had been written by Baron Vito D’Ondes Reggio of Palermo, patriot and member of Parliament, who had resigned after 20 September 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 ACQUADERNI, GIOVANNI (v.), already the founder, together with Mario Fani, of the Catholic Youth; he gave the organization a national structure with regional, diocesan, and parish committees. Acquaderni promoted the Third Congress, opened in Bologna on 9 October 1876 under the continued presidency of the Duke Salviati, but dissolved after the first session, for reasons of “public order,” in the face of anti-clerical street disturbances; and the Fourth Congress at Bergamo from 10 to 14 October 1877, entrusting its presidency to Baron Vito d’Ondes Reggio. The presidency then passed from Acquaderni to Duke Scipione Salviati (1878), who, from 21 to 24 October 1879, convened the Fifth Congress at Modena, and only four years later succeeded in promoting the Sixth at Naples (10–14 October 1883), with the promulgation of the definitive Statute of the Opera, whose purpose was “to unite 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 the Italians.” The presidency of the Congress was held by the Prince of Bisignano.
In 1885, the Bolognese physician Dr. Marcellino Venturoli replaced Duke Salviati as general president of the Opera. He held the office for five years, but during that period only one congress was celebrated: the Seventh, held at Lucca (19–23 April 1887) under his own presidency.
In September 1889, the Permanent Committee concentrated its votes on the young Venetian lawyer G. B. Paganuzzi, who had taken part in all, or nearly all, of the preceding congresses and had introduced new and youthful elements into the Catholic movement. With his appointment began the most flourishing and active period of the Opera. Paganuzzi invited other distinguished men to join the Permanent Committee, among them Prof. Giuseppe Toniolo, who was to give a soundly social direction to the whole of Catholic Action. The Eighth Congress, at Lodi (21–23 October 1890), marked an initial revival of activity. It was held under the presidency of Paganuzzi himself, with the participation of combative young people led by Filippo Meda (v.) of Milan, who directed the organ of the Committee for the centenary celebrations of St. Luigi Gonzaga, in agreement with Mons. Sarto, then bishop of Mantua.
In 1891 (14–17 September), again under Paganuzzi’s presidency, the General Congress (Ninth) was convened at Vicenza. It was the year of Rerum novarum, the starting point for a new activity among Catholics throughout the world, namely social activity, Toniolo (v.) had for some time been working together with the Bishop of Padua, Mons. Callegari (v.), Medolago Albani (v.).
In 1892 there were two congresses, both in Genoa: the Tenth of the Opera (4–8 October; president, the Marquis Giangramo di Sangineto) and the First of the Union for Social Studies. The Eleventh Congress was held in Rome from 15 to 17 February 1894, with Prince Francesco Massimo as president; in the same year (9–13 September; president, Count Francesco Viancino), the Twelfth was held at Pavia, under the auspices of that distinguished bishop, Mons. Riboldi. The Opera, now at the height of its development, celebrated its Thirteenth Congress in Turin in 1895 (9–13 September; president, Baron Luigi de Matteis), and in the following year (31 August–4 September 1896; president, Count Alberto de Moiana), the Fourteenth at Fiesole, where the Italian Catholic University Federation was founded [v.]. This was followed, in 1897, by the Fifteenth (30 August–3 September; president, the Marquis Lorenzo Bottini) at Milan, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of St. Ambrose. That year the Opera dei Congressi had 3,982 parish committees, 708 youth sections, 12 university circles, 700 rural banks, an equal number of workers’ societies, 24 Catholic banks, and one insurance company.
It comprised the following sections or groups: religious works and associations; then, beginning with the Seventh Congress, Catholic organization and association, Christian or Christian-democratic popular 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 (initially called the “Charity” section; from the Fifth Congress, “Charity and Catholic Economics”; from 1902, “Christian Popular Action”), from which the idea of Christian Democracy matured. Giuseppe Toniolo became its most brilliant and competent popularizer, especially through his celebrated Roman address on the Christian Concept of Democracy. This innovation, however, considerably divided the minds of Catholics. In 1898, after the revolutionary disturbances, the liberal-Masonic reaction, lumping socialists and Catholics together, imposed, through the ministry of Di Rudini, the dissolution of the Opera dei Congressi itself and of its committees.
The interruption was brief, however. In 1899 it was possible to reassemble the forces and celebrate at Ferrara the congress of recovery (the Sixteenth: 18–21 April), still under Paganuzzi’s direction, who entrusted its effective presidency to the Marquis Filippo Crispolti.
At this time, the militant youth forces fighting under Christian Democracy (v.), largely led by Fr. Murri (v.) and moderated by Prof. Toniolo (v.), demanded a greater role within the Opera dei Congressi. No understanding was reached between the two tendencies; consequently, the Seventeenth Congress, held in Rome during the Holy Year of 1900 (1–5 September; president, Count Carlo Santucci), was of little interest, and the Eighteenth, held at Taranto in 1901 (2–6 September; president, the Chevalier 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.
An attempt at renewal was made with Leo XIII’s encyclical Graves de communi (January 1901), which, reaffirming the social orientations of the lay apostolate but still not permitting action in the political field, sought to recall the more ardent spirits through new statutes (January 1902) and through the replacement of the president of the Opera. By general designation, this was to be Count Giovanni Grosoli Pironi, who was able to assume the presidency only after many months, at the end of 1902. The death of Leo XIII and the election of Pius X postponed the Nineteenth Congress until late autumn, at Bologna (10–13 November 1903; president, Count Carlo Zucchini); it was the last.
The profound disagreement between the currents of the young and the veterans also manifested itself in the Permanent Committee, whereupon His Holiness Pius X decreed its dissolution, by the letter of the Secretariat of State to the Ordinaries of Italy (30 July 1904), leaving in existence only the second group, that of economic works, to which 744 mutual-aid societies, 835 rural banks, and about a thousand similar institutions belonged. The following year, Pius X also dissolved the second group, replacing it with the Unione economico-sociale. He established the Unione popolare on the model of the German Volksverein, and the Unione elettorale (Il fermo proposito, June 1905). Through the work of these national unions, the XX Italian Catholic Congress, the last, was held at Modena (in 1910), under the presidency of the marquis Filippo Crispolti. For the subsequent activities of Italian Catholics, v.: AZIONE CATTOLICA ITALIANA; DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA.
A. De Gasperi, Uomini e tempi che prepararono la «Rerum novarum», Milano 1946; G. Anichini, I cinquanta anni della F.U.C.I., Roma 1946, passim; A. Vian, G. B. Paganazzi, Roma 1949; F. Fonzi, I cattolici transigenti italiani dell'ultimo Ottocento, in Consortium, 6 (1949), pp. 955-72. Guido Anichini