Luigi Sturzo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Luigi Sturzo

Luigi Sturzo , also Don Sturzo (born November 26, 1871 in Caltagirone , Sicily , † August 8, 1959 in Rome ) was an Italian priest and politician.

Life

Sturzo was ordained a Catholic priest in 1894, studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and taught theology and philosophy in his hometown from 1898. Around 1900 he belonged to the social reform movement of the Christian Democrats around Romolo Murri . From 1905 to 1920 he was also Deputy Mayor of Caltagirone and one of the leading figures within the Catholic Action ( Azione Cattolica ).

In 1919 he was one of the leading founding members of the Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI), from which the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) emerged at the end of 1943 (together with Alcide De Gasperi, among others ). He acted as its general secretary (from 1919 to 1923), but was unable to assert himself in the party in 1922 by refusing to allow the PPI to participate in Mussolini's government , especially since the curia supported Sturzo's internal party opponents. He resigned from this post on July 10, 1923, and was succeeded by Alcide De Gasperi. In 1924 he began to publish the magazine Partito Popolare Italiano . As a staunch opponent of Mussolini's fascist regime , he emigrated to Great Britain that same year, where he wrote several political studies, including on the subject of totalitarianism . In 1926, Sturzo compared the new power apparatuses in the Bolshevik and the Italian "system of totality" and came to the conclusion:

"Altogether there is only one difference to be found between Russia and Italy, namely that Bolshevism is a communist dictatorship or left- wing fascism and fascism is a conservative dictatorship or right-wing Bolshevism ."

In 1940 he went to the USA , where he lived in New York until 1946. In 1946 he returned to Italy, but no longer had a leading role in the DC.

On September 17, 1952, President Luigi Einaudi appointed Sturzo Senator for life in the Senate , one of the two chambers of the Italian Parliament.

Honors

The historical and social science research institute Istituto Sturzo in Rome, founded in 1951, is named after Luigi Sturzo . As part of the Premio Amalfi , a Luigi Sturzo Special Prize for Political Studies is awarded. Streets in various Italian cities are named after Luigi Sturzo.

A process for beatification Sturzo was initiated in May of 2002.

Works

literature

  • Uwe Backes : Luigi Sturzo. Founder and early pioneer of the concept of totalitarianism. In: Frank Shell, Ellen Thümmler (Ed.): Thinking the totalitarian state. Baden-Baden 2015, ISBN 3-8487-1640-2 , pp. 31–50.
  • Jutta Bohn: The relationship between the Catholic Church and the fascist state in Italy and the reception in German center circles (1922-1933). Frankfurt am Main 1992.
  • Gabriella Fanello Marcucci: Luigi Sturzo. Vita e battaglie per la libertà del fondatore del Partito popolare italiano. Milan 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Luigi Sturzo: Bolshevik Russia and Fascist Italy. P. 225: quoted in: Gamal Morsi: America is always somewhere else. The reception of the American Dream in Italy. Tectum Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-8288-8325-7 , p. 86.
  2. ↑ Einaudi appointed a total of eight senators for life: Pietro Canonica · Guido Castelnuovo · Gaetano De Sanctis · Pasquale Jannaccone · Luigi Sturzo · Carlo Alberto Salustri · Umberto Zanotti Bianco · Arturo Toscanini . Toscanini refused the appointment in December 1949.
personal data
SURNAME Sturzo, Luigi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sturzo, Don
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician and Catholic priest
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Caltagirone , Sicily
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1959
Place of death Rome