POPULAR UNION. – An association formed among Italian Catholics after the dissolution of the Opera dei Congressi (see), with the aim of gathering, in accordance with the directives of the encyclical *Il fermo proposito* (11 June 1906), Catholics of all classes around a single center of doctrine, propaganda, and social organization, following the example of the *Volksverein* in Germany.
To implement the provisions of the aforementioned encyclical, a meeting of representatives of Italian Catholics was held in Florence, from which the Union originated (1906). Until 1915, the Popular Union had the almost exclusive task of supporting Italian Catholic cultural activities. Without a federal structure, it was organized on the basis of individual membership through a diocesan delegate. From 26 February 1915, by the will of the new Pope Benedict XV, it assumed the role of high direction of the Italian Catholic Union, thus fully taking on the functions that had previously belonged to the Opera dei Congressi. The Presidency was then transformed into a Directive Board of the Italian Catholic Union, which oversaw Diocesan Boards representing all the various Catholic activities; later, parish groups were added. The presidential seat moved from Florence to Padua (1913) and then to Rome (1915). The Directive Board, assisted by a General Council, had a Central Office as the executive body for its decisions, and in 1913 it established a specific Secretariat for the defense of religious instruction in schools and the freedom of education, a task that was among the principal activities of the Popular Union, alongside the struggle against the mandatory precedence of civil marriage over religious marriage and charitable works during the war (first among these was the National Work for War Orphans, established as a legal entity). It held three national congresses of Diocesan Boards in Rome (1918, 1919, 1920). After the dissolution of the Electoral Union (see) and the Economic-Social Union (see) in 1919, it absorbed their functions, replacing the latter with a Secretariat (1919), which was later integrated by a National Center for Culture (1920). The weekly *La settimana sociale* was the organ of the Popular Union, supported by the monthly *L’allarme*. To fulfill its original and primary cultural mission, the Popular Union organized countless lectures and courses; it disseminated single-issue publications, pamphlets, and books. But its principal and most characteristic institution was the Social Weeks (see), the great assemblies of the leading class of Italian Catholics, the first ten of which were organized by the Popular Union.
The presidents of the Popular Union were, in chronological order: Giuseppe Toniolo (see) (1907–1908); Antonio Boggiano, interim from 1908 to 1909; Lodovico Necchi (see) (1909–1912); Giuseppe Dalla Torre (1912), who, with the reform of the Popular Union, later became President of the Directive Board (1912–1920); Bartolomeo Pietromarchi (1920–1922). Through individual memberships, the Popular Union reached 100,000 members, to which were added, after the reform of Benedict XV (1915), the members of all other Catholic associations.