Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1971 History, Society, and the Person: The Thought of Don Luigi Sturzo R. Eugene Mellican Loyola University Chicago Recommended Citation Mellican, R. Eugene, "History, Society, and the Person: The Thought of Don Luigi Sturzo" (1971). Dissertations. Paper 1209. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1209 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1971 R. Eugene Mellican HISTORYt SOCIETY, AND THE P:EliSON: THE THOUGHT OF DON LUIGI STURZO by R. Eu.gene Mellioan A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 1971 ABSTRACT Don Luigi Sturzo (18?1-1959) has been acknowledged by his­ torians of Italian politics as an effective social reformer, an astute politician, and a great statesman. This active phase ot sturzo's career has been well documented and his name assured a permanent and honored place in the long history of his native country. But the fundamental character and depth of the social theory that also marks the achievement that was his life has not been adequately explored. It is the thesia of this work that the scope or Sturzo's theory embraced nothing less than an integral, concrete and coherent view or, being ~uman. The purpose of this _ study is to serve as an i~trochiction ·fbr such an understanding ot Sturzo•s theory. ..· l. • • f ·~ '\ t Al though this is an ih~erpi,-eta~i ve an.d construe tive exposi- tion rather than simply a hlstoric~l<Qr· ··bextual analysis of Sturzo's thought, the inner logic of this study remains that or Sturzo's own thought. The movement of this logic is rooted in and follows the realization or the ontological structure of the person in his living, and thereby historical, reality. Since this realization is, in its essence, the concretization of soci­ ality--the associative dimension of man's becoming--the activity through which the person achieves his being is at one with the inward formation of society. The individual person and society are constituted together in a synthesizing relational process of differentiation-in-synthesis in which the closer and more intense the relationship, the deeper and more extensive is the distinct reality or each. The definitive and original irresolv­ able principle of sociality is rationality, the specifying principle of the person; and it is the projection of conscious­ ness through the inner dynamism of rationality for expression and completion through the mutuality of thought and action that constitutes the concretization ot sociality. An analysis of this process from the perspective of both the person and society is the starting point. $ . 'two other essential features ot this process provide the focus or attention:. its concrete expression in social forms and the regularities of its movement, which Sturzo expresses in the form of "sociological laws." While the social process is plural­ istic in its structure, polarity is the dominating feature or it in its concrete process. Both characteristics have their ontological basis in the sole substantive and efficient principle animating the process, the individual person. Just as it is history, as the constitutive activity of man, that manifests the inner laws of man's associative nature--laws which reveal that man in and of himself cannot effect a totalizing and conclusive pacification of the tendencies that give rise to the laws--so is it history and history alone that reveals the presence of a personal, transcendent. unifying principle within the historical process. Therefore, not only is Sturzo•s theory of history the foundation of all his thought, but it is also the culminating point of his thought wherein he works out and brings together the implications of his integral social theory in all of its aspects. He bases his integral social theory on an open­ ended historicism that is able to account for both transcendent and immanent factors within the historical process, to preserve their intrinsic unity within a single process. and yet uphold the substantive reality of each. This study therefore concludes with an exposition of the main features of his theory ot history. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 REFERENCES. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 9 Chapter I. PEHSON AND SOCIETY: A SOCIO-PERSONALISM ••••••• 11 II. SOCIAL FORMS: THE STRUCTURAL PROCESS OF SOCIETY ••• 108 III. SOCIETY IN DYNAMIC PROCESS •••••••••••••14? IV. HISTORY: A DIALECTIC OF IMMANENCE-TRANSCENDENCE •• 19? A SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY ••• • •• • • • • • • • • • • • .275 INTRODUCTION In view of certain trends and categories of contemporary thought the relative obscurity or the theory of Don Luigi Sturzo is puzzling. In view of the grave socio-political problems pressing in upon mankind from every side today this obscurity is inexplicable.1 For it is not exaggeration to say that it is precisely the shadow cast over mankind by these problens that measures the stature of Don Luigi Sturzo as a socio-poli­ tical reformer and theoretician. As one commentator on Sturzo's thought has accurately expressed it: Don Luigi Sturzo was a man of his times: This is the key to his mind and spirit. His most outstanding characteristic was that historical identity which is the sole basis of greatness. He was of his times, 1 Numerous reasons have been advanced for the neglect of Sturzo's thought. They are sometimes contradictory. For example, as a thinker who is Catholic, Sturzo has had the misfortune to be interpreted as a Catholic thinker. As a result, on the one side there are those who view his thought as simply a statement of'"Catholic Nee-Thomistic social :philosophy." One critic of Sturzo'a thought dismissed it as an instrument of influence of Catholicism, in this instance "based on a Catholic Platonism." Cf. Paul. Honigsheim's review of Inner Laws of Societt' in Am. J. of Soc., 57 (1945), 160-61. On the other side some end to find nis thought and its expression not "Catholic" enough. One critic finds a strain in his thought "which links him, not to Christian and Catholic traditions, but to the revolutionary thought of post-Reformation times." Cf. werner Stark's review of Timasheff's The Sociology of Lui~i Sturzo in Thought, 38 (Summer, 1963), 318- ~0. See also Franz ueller's review of Inner Laws of Society in Am. Oath. Soc. Rev., 6 (1954), 109-11. Rone of the reasons, whether taken singly or together, provide an adequate account of the lack of attention given to Sturzo's thought. For exanple, even those, such as Nicholas Timasheff, who find Sturzo's theory "both original and profound" point to methodological and termi­ nological difficulties of an extremely complex theory. But, obviously, these difficulties are not peculiar to Sturzo's theory alone. 1 2 moreover, not only because he faithfully reflected their perplexities and problems, but also, because, to a significant degree, he mastered them.2 The problems that were to forge his thoughts and eventually shape his career were those of post-Risorgimento Italy.3 His vigorous and effective response to these problems gradually and laboriously extended itself from social and economic reform on the municipal and provincial level to the organization of a national political party, the Italian Popular Party, with which his name is so closely associated. The eminent historian Federico Chabod has described the birth of this party as "the most noteworthy event in twentieth century Italian history, especially in relation to the preceding century."4 This event occurred on the morning of January 18, 1919 when Don Luigi Sturzo made his historic and dramatic appeal "to all men f'ree and brave" to support the Italian Popular Party. It is here, in the person of Sturzo, that we find the locus of the inspira­ tion, spirit, and thought behind the Popular Party. Just as it marked a new phenomenon in the history of Italy, so too, did Don Luigi Sturzo. He bas been acknowledged by historians ot 2A. Robert Caponigri, "Introduction" to Sturzo's Church and State (Notre Dame: U. of Notre Dame Press, 1962), p. vi. 3For an illuminating account of these problems and Sturzo'a response to them, see A. Robert Caponigri's article, "The Ethi­ cal and Sociological Bases or Italian Politics: Sturzo and Croce," in Ethics, 59 (Oct., 1948), 35-48. The same author presents a tine biographical sketch of Sturzo's development in Review of Politics, 14 (April, 1952), 147-65. For Sturzo's own brief account, see "My Political Vocation,n in Commonweal, 34 (Sept. 26, 1941), 537-40. 4 Federico Chabod, L'Italia contemporanea (1918-1248) (Torino: Giulio EinaudiJ, p. 43. Italian politics as "un uomo nuovo," a new man.5 Due to a renewed interest in the Popular Party in recent years this active phase of Sturzo's career has been well documen­ ted and his name assured a permanent and honored place in the long history of his native country. But it is not oerely his image, though it looms large, as refracted through Italian his­ tory that marks the achievement that was his life. It is true that Sturzo•s thought was formed and his theory articulated in actively coping with the problems of post-Risorgimento Italy. It was from within the context of this active and reflective engagement that his thought matured and his vision expanded. As they did, Sturzo came to see that the problems of Italy were not peculiar to her alone.