FRANCESCO SCADUTO. – Jurist, born in Bagheria (Palermo) on 30 July 1858, died in Favara (Agrigento) on 29 June 1942.
In 1883 he became a *libero docente* in the History of Italian Law and in Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Rome; in 1884 he was appointed lecturer in Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Palermo, and in 1886 full professor of this discipline at the University of Naples. From there he moved to the University of Rome, where he remained until the end of his career in 1933, also serving for several years as Dean of the Faculty of Law and as Rector from 1919 to 1922. He was appointed Senator of the Kingdom on 1 March 1923.
Through his efforts, the study and teaching of State law in ecclesiastical matters first presented itself as an autonomous system among the various legal disciplines. Indeed, until that time, ecclesiastical law had always been understood as canon law, that is, the legislation issued by the Catholic Church, whereas thereafter, as Scaduto himself affirmed in his inaugural lecture in Palermo, the subject was considered «not so much from the point of view of the Church, but from that of the State». In that lecture, Scaduto outlined the juridical framework of the discipline, teaching that ecclesiastical law should concern itself «with the laws of the civil power in ecclesiastical matters», while nonetheless taking into account «the canons and decretals... which have been directly or indirectly recognised by the civil power». He thus identified the basis of the subject in State laws, holding that within the legal order of the State only the law emanating directly from the State, or approved and received by it, has the force of a legal norm; this in contrast to the traditional conception, according to which the legislation of the Catholic Church constituted a law in force within the State’s legal order.
Examining Scaduto’s scholarly output, one discerns a political sentiment in him that was consistent with the legalistic tradition of the Mezzogiorno, whereby the State was not to be incompetent, but rather was to control everything that lay outside the realm of religious sentiment so as to give rise to external manifestations pertaining to the legally relevant sphere. Among the various fundamental points in Scaduto’s formulation of the relations between State and Church, of particular interest is his conception of freedom of conscience. RUFFO (v.), who had maintained that religious freedom could exist even within a non-separatist ecclesiastical political system, Scaduto argued that it was a necessary requirement for religious freedom that the State not be confessional, but rather jurisdictional, inasmuch as «the freedom of individual groups, like that of individual persons, cannot exist without an authority that delimits the spheres of their action, leaving them free so long as they do not encroach upon the freedom of others and the general... interest of the State».
Scaduto’s theses display a markedly secularist tendency, which must, however, be considered in light of the anticlerical ideology that, especially at the end of the last century and in the early years of this one, dominated Italy. If one wishes to pass an objective judgment on his scholarly elaboration from the standpoint of his attitude towards the religious problem, it seems impossible to disregard the historical and political climate in which he lived, inasmuch as one must bear in mind how the spirit and content of Italy’s own positive ecclesiastical legislation—which formed the object of his interpretation and scholarly systematisation—were so strongly influenced by the then-dominant climate as to constitute a new and substantial premise for the secularist conception.
Scaduto’s numerous publications may be divided into three groups. The first comprises notable contributions of a historical-juridical character, aimed at illustrating the relations between State and Church in specific periods: *Stato e Chiesa negli scrittori politici dalla fine della lotta per le investiture sino alla morte di Ludovico il Bavaro (1222-1347)*, Florence 1882; *Stato e Chiesa secondo fra' Paolo Sarpi e la coscienza pubblica durante l'interdetto di Venezia del 1607*, ibid. 1885; *Stato e Chiesa sotto Leopoldo Granduca di Toscana (1765-90)*, ibid. 1885; *Stato e Chiesa nelle due Sicilie dai Normanni ai giorni nostri (secc. XI-XIX)*, Palermo 1887. The second group consists of studies on particular questions, mostly concerning Sicilian ecclesiastical law, among which the following deserve mention: *Prestazioni ed enti ecclesiastici siciliani* (in *Rivista di diritto ecclesiastico*, 5 [1895], pp. 26-31); *Per l'abolizione delle decime siciliane* (in *Riforma sociale*, fasc. V, vol. X); *Decime siciliane: pretesa origine geronica* (in *Diritto e giurisprudenza*, 1901); *Rappresentanza del Capitolo cathedrale specie in Sicilia* (in *Diritto e giurisprudenza*, 1904); *Cappelle ed opere pie nelle Due Sicilie*, Naples 1906; *Fabbricerie siciliane (Maramme)*, ibid. 1911. The third group includes writings of a general character on State ecclesiastical law, such as those on ecclesiastical property, the precedence of civil marriage over religious marriage, the position of the Holy See, and the relations between the State and religious denominations, and so forth. The most important among these studies, to which no one dealing with the problems of the discipline can fail to refer, is *Diritto ecclesiastico vigente in Italia – Manuale* (Naples 1890-91, 4th ed. Crotone 1923-25), a work in which the subject is expounded in its entirety, although ample treatment is reserved especially for ecclesiastical entities, studied from the standpoint of the Italian legislation that took shape during the years of the Risorgimento.