SGADUTO, FRANCESCO. – Jurist, born in Bagheria (Palermo) on 30 July 1858, died in Favara (Agrigento) on 29 June 1942.
A lecturer in the History of Italian Law and in Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Rome in 1883, in November 1884 he was appointed adjunct professor of Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Palermo, and in 1886 full professor of this discipline at the University of Naples. From there he subsequently 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 merit, the study and teaching of the law of the State in ecclesiastical matters appeared for the first time 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 subsequently, as S. himself stated in his inaugural lecture at Palermo, the subject was considered «not so much from the point of view of the Church as from that of the State». In that lecture S. 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 nevertheless taking into account «the canons and decrees... that have been recognized directly or indirectly by the civil power». He thus indicated the laws of the State as the basis of the subject, holding that within the State’s legal order only law issued directly by the State, or approved and received by it, possesses the force of a legal norm; and this in opposition to the traditional conception according to which the legislation of the Catholic Church constituted legislation in force within the State’s legal order.
Turning to S.’s scholarly output, one can see that he was animated by a political sentiment corresponding to the regalistic tradition of southern Italy, according to which the State should not be incompetentist, but should instead control everything that leaves the sphere of religious sentiment in order to give rise to external manifestations pertaining to the legally relevant sphere. Among the various fundamental points for S. in establishing relations between State and Church, his conception of freedom of conscience is of particular interest. RUFFO (v.), who had asserted that religious freedom can exist even under a non-separatist ecclesiastical political system, S. maintained that a necessary requirement for religious freedom was that the State not be confessionalist,
but rather jurisdictionalist, since «the freedom of individual groups, like that of individual persons, cannot exist without an organ that limits their spheres of action, leaving them free insofar as they do not come into contact with the freedom of others and the general interest... of the State».
S.’s theses display an eminently secularist tendency which must nevertheless be considered in the light of the anticlerical ideology that, especially at the end of the last century and in the early years of this one, prevailed in Italy. If, from the standpoint of his attitude toward the religious question, one wishes to pass an objective judgment on S.’s scholarly work, it seems impossible to disregard the historical and political climate in which he lived, since it is necessary to bear in mind how the spirit and content of the same Italian positive legislation on ecclesiastical matters, which he interpreted and systematized scientifically, were so strongly affected by the climate then prevailing that they proceeded from the substantial premise of the secularist conception.
S.’s numerous publications may be divided into three groups. The first comprises significant contributions of a historical-juridical nature, intended to illustrate relations between State and Church in particular periods: Stato e Chiesa negli scrittori politici dalla fine della lotta per le investiture sino alla morte di Ludovico il Bavaro (1122-1347), Florence 1882; Stato e Chiesa secondo fra Paolo Sarpi e la coscienza pubblica durante l'interdetto di Venezia del 1607, there 1885; Stato e Chiesa sotto Leopoldo I Granduca di Toscana (1765-90), there 1885; Stato e Chiesa nelle due Sicilie dai Normanni ai giorni nostri (secc. XI-XIX), Palermo 1887. The second group consists of studies relating to particular questions, mostly concerning Sicilian ecclesiastical law, among which the following should be recalled: Prestazioni ad 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 cattedrale specie in Sicilia (in Diritto e giurisprudenza, 1904); Cappelle ed opere pie nelle Due Sicilie, Naples 1906; Fabbricerie siciliane (Maramme), there 1911. The third group includes writings of a general nature on the ecclesiastical law of the State, such as those concerning ecclesiastical property, the precedence of civil marriage over religious marriage, the position of the Holy See, relations between the State and religious denominations, and so forth. The most important among these studies, to which anyone concerned with problems of the discipline must necessarily refer, is Diritto ecclesiastico vigente in Italia - Manuale
(Naples 1890-91, 4th ed. Crotone 1923-25), a work in which the subject is presented in its entirety, although extensive treatment is devoted above all to ecclesiastical bodies, studied from the standpoint of Italian legislation formed during the years of the Risorgimento.