The FUCI and the Conquest of the Modern World: 1925–1933

Abstract

The prevailing interpretations in the historiography of the FUCI during the period of 1925–33—that is, of the years when the organisation was led by Giovanni Battista Montini and Igino Righetti—tend to underscore the alleged openness and willingness of the federation to enter into dialogue with the modern world, with a positive stance to rescue what was true and good in it, and not with the attitude of condemnation and anathemas that was so common in Catholic circles of the time. Instead of an approach characterised by a categorical negation of the features of the modern world and of modernity in general, the FUCI supposedly endeavoured to rescue the characteristics of the times that could be brought into line with the spirit of Catholicism, always sensitive to the needs and yearnings of modern men and women. This is especially the case for the depiction of the thought and activities of the central ecclesiastical assistant Giovanni Battista Montini. Thus Peter Hebblethwaite, in his noted biography of the future pontiff entitled Paul VI. The First Modern Pope.¹ More recently, Giselda Adornato has published a biography of Paul VI with the suggestive title Paolo VI. Il coraggio della modernità (Paul VI. The courage of modernity).² According to Richard J. Wolff, in the only English account of the history of the association, the hallmark of the Montini-Righetti administration was the profound belief of its members in the compatibility of faith and reason, scientific research and the secular and religious realms.³ For his part, Giovanni Battista Scaglia has insisted on the FUCI’s—and especially Montini’s—openness to the values of modern culture and to the notion of true liberty and personhood as core characteristics of the organisation during these years.⁴ Along similar lines, Massimo Marcocchi has argued that what was central to the FUCI between 1925 and 1933 was the conscious effort to build a bridge between the church and the modern world in order to create a harmonious balance and not to hide behind defensive trenches or sterile anathemas—an attitude that was so common among many intransigent Catholic circles of the time.⁵ For her part, Maria Cristina Giuntella affirms that the FUCI’s cultural approach was one devoid of traditional apologetics and spirit of conquest, concentrating its efforts rather on transforming culture as a means of dialogue with the modern world.⁶ Following a similar interpretation, the foremost historian of the FUCI, Renato Moro, has asserted that the cultural line of the FUCI under Montini and Righetti was one of assimilation, not of conquest of the modern world. Furthermore, he insists that the approach adopted by the Catholic intellectuals tried to create a just balance between modernity and tradition, capable of rescuing what was true and vital in the modern world. According to Moro, during this period the FUCI refused to engage in stances of a priori condemnations, opting instead for a serious and impartial analysis of secular culture, leaving behind any legacies of fanatical anti-modernism or a categorical disapproval of the modern world.⁷ Finally, Antonio Acerbi has written of Montini’s ‘extraordinary sensitivity for comprehending and appreciating the aspirations, feelings and thoughts of his contemporaries’.⁸