Faith and Fascism

This is a study of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI) between 1925 and 1943, the organisation of Catholic Action for the university sector. The FUCI is highly significant to the study of Catholic politics and intellectual ideas, as a large proportion of the future Christian Democrats who ruled the country after World War II were formed within the ranks of the federation. In broader terms, this is a contribution to the historiography of Fascist Italy and of Catholic politics and mentalities in Europe in the mid- twentieth century. It sets out to prove the fundamental ideological, political, social and cultural influences of Catholicism on the making of modern Italy and how it was inextricably linked to more secular forces in the shaping of the nation and the challenges faced by an emerging mass society. Furthermore, the book explores the influence exercised by Catholicism on European attitudes towards modernisation and modernity, and how Catholicism has often led the way in the search for a religious alternative modernity that could countervail the perceived deleterious effects of the Western liberal version of modernity.

Auteur

Jorge Dagnino is Assistant Professor of Modern European History at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile, and holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford, UK. He is co-editor of the forthcoming edited collection, The New Man in Radical Right Ideology and Practice, 1919-45.

Texte du rabat
This is a study of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI) between 1925 and 1943, the organisation of Catholic Action for the university sector. The FUCI is highly significant to the study of Catholic politics and intellectual ideas, as a large proportion of the future Christian Democrats who ruled the country after World War II were formed within the ranks of the federation.
In broader terms, this is a contribution to the historiography of Fascist Italy and of Catholic politics and mentalities in Europe in the mid- twentieth century. It sets out to prove the fundamental ideological, political, social and cultural influences of Catholicism on the making of modern Italy and how it was inextricably linked to more secular forces in the shaping of the nation and the challenges faced by an emerging mass society. Furthermore, the book explores the influence exercised by Catholicism on European attitudes towards modernisation and modernity, and how Catholicism has often led the way in the search for a religious alternative modernity that could countervail the perceived deleterious effects of the Western liberal version of modernity.

Contenu

1. Introduction.- Part I.- 2. The FUCI and the Conquest of the Modern World: 1925-33.- 3. The Architecture of the City of God: Politics and Society during the Montini-Righetti Era.- 4. The FUCI and Fascism, 1925-33.- Part II.- 5. A Path to Modernity: The FUCI in the 1930s.- 6. The Crisis of Civilisation and the Sacralisation of Politics in 1930s Europe.- 7. The FUCI Ideas in the 1930s: the Search for a New Spiritual Order.- 8. Building the New Order, 1933-39.- Part III.- 9. Catholic Students at War: the FUCI 1940-43.- 10. Epilogue.- Bibliography.