Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy explores the critical moments in the relationship between the Catholic world and the Italian left, providing unmatched insight into one of the most significant dynamics in political and religious history in Italy in the last hundred years. The book covers the Catholic Communist movement in Rome (1937-45), the experience of the Resistenza, the governmental collaboration between the Catholic Party (DC) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) until 1947, and the dialogue between some of the key figures in both spheres in the tensest years of the Cold War. Daniela Saresella even goes on to consider the legacy that these interactions have left in Italy in the 21st century. This pioneering study is the first on the subject in the English language and is of vital significance to historians of modern Italy and the Church alike.

This book examines the popular bases of Communist influence in Italy, focusing on the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Communist Party for the allegiance of the Italian people. The author details the ways in which the citizens resolve the central paradox of Italy, which lies in its beings the home both of the Vatican and of the largest Communist party of any non-Communist nation. He discusses the local structure of the Party, including its many allied organisations and the nature of participation in Party affairs, and stresses its role in local social life. In this study, Professor Kertzer draws upon the experiences and observations of a year spent in a working-class quarter of Bologna, the capital of Italian Communism. While the national Communist Party calls for conciliation with the Church, there is an ancient tradition of anti-clericalism in this area. Moreover, the official Church position excludes the possibility of people being both Catholic and Communist. The implications of this situation for local-level tactics of Church and Party, and how people divide their allegiances between the competing claims, form the primary theme of the book.

Catholic antimodern, 1920-1929 -- Anti-communism and paternal Catholicism, 1929-1944 -- Anti-fascism and fraternal Catholicism, 1929-1944 -- Rebuilding Christian Europe, 1944-1950 -- Christian democracy and Catholic innovation in the long 1950s -- The return of heresy in the global 1960s

The compelling story of Pope Pius XI's secret relations with Benito Mussolini. A ground-breaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives by US National Book Award-finalist David Kertzer, it will forever change our understanding of the Vatican's role in the rise of Fascism in Europe.

Although seen widely as the twentieth-century's great religious war, as a conflict between the god-fearing and the godless, the religious dimension of the Cold War has never been subjected to a scholarly critique. This unique study shows why religion is a key Cold War variable. A specially commissioned collection of new scholarship, it provides fresh insights into the complex nature of the Cold War. It has profound resonance today with the resurgence of religion as a political force in global society.

Anyone interested in the entire sweep of political thought over the last hundred years will find in Norberto Bobbio's Ideological Profile of Twentieth-Century Italy a masterful, thought-provoking guide. Home to the largest communist party in a democratic society, Italy has been a unique place politically, one where Christian democrats, liberals, fascists, socialists, communists, and others have co-existed in sizable numbers. In this book, Bobbio, who himself played an outstanding role in the development of Italian civic culture, follows each of the major ideologies, explaining how they developed, describing the key actors, and considering the legacies they left to political culture. He wrote Ideological Profile in 1968 to explain from a personal perspective the history behind that decade's tumultuous politics. Bobbio's defense of democracy and critique of capitalism are among the themes that will particularly interest American readers of this updated edition, the first to appear in English. Beginning in the late nineteenth century with positivism and Marxism, Bobbio next presents the ideological currents that developed before the outbreak of the First World War: Catholic, socialist, irrational and anti-democratic thought, the reaction against positivism, and the thinking of Benedetto Croce. After discussing the impact of the war, the author turns to the revolutionary-reactionary polarization of the postwar period and the ideology of fascism. The final chapters consider Croce's opposition to fascism and the ideals of the resistance and conclude with the post-Second World War "Years of Involvement." Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its two-thousand year history. As the curtain comes down on the Church defined by the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, the curtain is rising on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of being Catholic that comes from over a century of Catholic reform; a mission-centered renewal honed by the Second Vatican Council and given compelling expression by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The Gospel-centered Evangelical Catholicism of the future will send all the people of the Church into mission territory every day -- a territory increasingly defined in the West by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. Confronting both these cultural challenges and the shadows cast by recent Catholic history, Evangelical Catholicism unapologetically proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth of the world. It also molds disciples who witness to faith, hope, and love by the quality of their lives and the nobility of their aspirations. Thus the Catholicism of the 21st century and beyond will be a culture-forming counterculture, offering all men and women of good will a deeply humane alternative to the soul-stifling self-absorption of postmodernity. Drawing on thirty years of experience throughout the Catholic world, from its humblest parishes to its highest levels of authority, George Weigel proposes a deepening of faith-based and mission-driven Catholic reform that touches every facet of Catholic life -- from the episcopate and the papacy to the priesthood and the consecrated life; from the renewal of the lay vocation in the world to the redefinition of the Church's engagement with public life; from the liturgy to the Church's intellectual life. Lay Catholics and clergy alike should welcome the challenge of this unique moment in the Church's history, Weigel urges. Mediocrity is not an option, and all Catholics, no matter what their station in life, are called to live the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized: without compromise, but with the joy, courage, and confidence that comes from living this side of the Resurrection.