Italy's Christian Democracy: The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity

This book is the first comprehensive study of Italian Christian Democracy in English. By unraveling the encounter between Catholicism and democracy from pre-unification Italy in the eighteenth century to the present, the book puts into historical perspective the triumphant emergence of the Christian Democratic political party that ruled Italy from 1948 to 1994. With a focus on critical moments of modern Italian history—the Enlightenment and French Revolution, the Risorgimento, World War I, the Fascist period, World War II, the post-war Republic—the book shows the often dramatic ways in which Catholic thinkers, from laymen to popes, sought to direct democratic thought and practice in line with Catholic ethics. The historical narrative presented demonstrates how a Catholic approach to democracy emerged as a significant alternative to both Fascism and Socialism, liberalism and conservativism. The book contributes to existing scholarship by taking seriously the religious and spiritual impulse behind Christian democratic thought. While zooming in on the Italian case, the argument presented therefore also invites a broader theoretical debate on the relationship between religion and politics. The analysis offered is of particular relevance to the contemporary political scene, marked by the increasing use of religion in political and public discourse, as recently appropriated by new populist parties and movements—in Italy and beyond.