POPULAR UNION. - An association that arose among the Catholics of Italy, after the dissolution of the Opera dei Congressi (v.), in order to gather, according to 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 carry out the provisions of the aforementioned encyclical, a meeting of the representatives of Italian Catholics was convened in Florence, from which the Union originated (1906). Until 1915 the U. p. had the almost exclusive task of assisting Italian Catholic cultural activities. Without a federative structure, it was organized on the basis of individual membership, by means of a diocesan delegate. From 26 February 1915, by the will of the new pope Benedict XV, it assumed the task of high direction of Italian Catholic Action, thereby fully taking on what had been the functions of the Opera dei Congressi. The Presidency was then transformed into the Giunta direttiva of Italian Catholic Action, to which the Giunte diocesane reported, with the respective representation of all the various Catholic activities; later the Gruppi parrocchiali were added. From Florence the presidential seat moved to Padua (1913) and then to Rome (1915). The Giunta direttiva, assisted by a Consiglio generale, had as executor of its resolutions a Ufficio Centrale, and in 1913 it established a special Segretariato per la difesa dell'insegnamento religioso nelle scuole e la libertà della scuola, a task which was among the principal activities of the U. p., together with the struggle against the obligatory precedence of civil marriage over religious marriage and with charitable works during the war (first among works of this kind, the Opera nazionale per gli orfani di guerra, erected as a moral entity). It held in Rome three National Congresses of the diocesan Giunte (1918, 1919, 1920). It took over the functions of the Unione elettorale (v.) and of the Unione economico-sociale (v.), when these dissolved (1919), replacing the latter with a Segretariato (1919), supplemented by a Centro nazionale di cultura (1920). The organ of the U. p. was the weekly La settimana sociale, flanked by the monthly paper L'allarme. To carry out its first and original task, that of culture, the U. p. had countless conferences and courses of lectures held; it distributed special issues, pamphlets and books. But its principal and most characteristic institution were the Settimane sociali (v.), the great Assemblies of the ruling class of Italian Catholics, the first ten of which were in fact organized by the U. p. The presidents of the U. p. were, in succession: Toniolo Giuseppe (iv.) 1907-1908; Boggiano Antonio, ad interim from 1908 to 1909; Necchi Lodovico (iv.) 1909-12; Dalla Torre Giuseppe (1912), who with the reform of the U. p. then became President of the Giunta direttiva (1912-20); Pietromarchi Bartolomeo (1920-22). With individual memberships the U. p. reached 100,000 members, to whom were added, after the reform of Benedict XV (1915), the enrolled members of all the other Catholic associations.
Bibliography13 works
Pietro Palazzini