[T]here remains the historical truth: that this our European structure, built upon the noble foundations of classical antiquity, was formed through, exists by, is consonant to, and will stand only in the mold of, the Catholic Church.
Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish.
These words, written by Hilaire Belloc at the conclusion of his 1920 book Europe and the Faith, should be borne in mind as we consider the recent efforts to hijack the reputation of a future saint. At the closing ceremony of the diocesan inquiry into the life and heroic virtue of Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954) on February 28, Cardinal Baldassare Reina described him as being “inclusive and forward-looking” and as one of the political “fathers of Europe”. In the euphemistic language of modernist babblespeak, “inclusive and forward-looking” means undogmatic and anti-traditional in terms of Church teaching. And in describing him as one of the political “fathers of Europe”, Cardinal Reina was equating the birth of Europe with the birth of what would become known as the European Union.
In doing so, he was denying implicitly the historical reality of the Europe of the Faith and endorsing implicitly the Europe of the faithless.
The less said about Cardinal Reina, the better, but what about the new saint-in-the-making, Alcide De Gasperi? In truth, and as we shall see, he was a loyal child of the Church and a devoted son of the Europe of the Faith who needs to be rescued from those who seek to claim him for their own heterodox theological agendas or globalist political platforms.
Born in 1881, De Gasperi was a lifelong devout Catholic. Greatly inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which was published in 1891, he became politically active as a teenager advocating Catholic social teaching. In 1904, he was involved in the populist and localist student demonstrations demanding an Italian-language university in the Italian-speaking provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the following year, he became editor of the newspaper La Voce Cattolica (The Catholic Voice) which called for cultural autonomy for Trentino and the defence of Italian culture in defiance of German imperialism and its efforts to subject the Italian majority in the Tyrol region to enforced Germanisation.
In 1911, he became a member of Parliament for the Popular Political Union of Trentino (UPPT) in the Austrian Reichsrat, a post he held for six years. With the outbreak of World War One, he was politically neutral in conformity with the calling of his Catholic conscience, sympathizing with the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of Pope Benedict XV and Blessed Karl of Austria to obtain an honourable peace that would end the war.
In 1919, he was among the founders of the Italian People’s Party (PPI), with Luigi Sturzo, a Catholic priest whose cause for canonization was opened under St. John Paul II in 2002. De Gasperi served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924, a period marked by the rise of Fascism. Although he supported the participation of the PPI in Benito Mussolini’s first government in October 1922, he became increasingly alarmed at the Machiavellian methods employed by the Fascists to gain totalitarian power. He was arrested in March 1927 and sentenced to four years in prison. After serving eighteen months of his sentence, the Vatican negotiated his release. Thereafter, he would work in the Vatican Library until the collapse of Fascism in July 1943.
During the years in which he worked in the Vatican, De Gasperi wrote regularly for the review L’Illustrazione Vaticana, in which he argued that the defining political battle in the modern world was between communism and Christianity. In 1934, he rejoiced in the defeat of the Austrian Social Democrats, whom he condemned for “de-Christianizing” the country. Such was his opposition to such radical relativism and secularism that he declared in 1937 that the Church in Germany was correct in preferring Nazism to Bolshevism. As with his initial naiveté with respect to Mussolini’s Fascists, he would soon see the foolishness of choosing one secular fundamentalist ideology over another.
After World War II, he became Prime Minister of Italy from 1945 to 1953, which remains a landmark of longevity in modern Italian politics. The post-war and Cold War election campaign of 1948 was contested between two competing visions. On one side was the Catholic and conservative vision of the governing Christian Democrats led by De Gasperi; on the other was the secularist, relativist and socialist vision of the Popular Democratic Front. A popular slogan of the Christian Democrats epitomized the choice facing the voters: “In the secrecy of the polling booth, God sees you–Stalin doesn’t.” The Christian Democrats won the election with 48.5% of the vote (their best result ever). By contrast, the Communists received only half the votes they had in the previous election two years earlier.
In 1951, with De Gasperi’s support, Italy became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the apparently harmless germ which would grow into the politically invasive toxic organism known as the European Union. It is for this reason that Alcide De Gasperi is shackled with the dubious distinction of being one of the “Founding Fathers” of the European Union. Yet the ESCS has nothing in common with the EU. As its name suggests, it was an agreement between several nations to cooperate economically and to promote a common economic market.
It was pioneered by another devout Catholic, Robert Schuman, who was inspired especially by the writings and encyclicals of Pope Pius XII, which condemned both fascism and communism. In addition, Schuman was a scholar of medieval philosophy, particularly of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. As a Thomist himself, he admired contemporary neo-Thomist philosophers, such as Jacques Maritain, and believed that democracy had its roots in Christianity. Schuman’s beatification process was begun in 1990 and he was proclaimed a Servant of God in 2004. In 2021, he was pronounced Venerable.
It is indeed ironic that these two tradition-oriented Catholics, Alcide de Gasperi and Robert Schuman, should be claimed by modernist cardinals as being “inclusive and progressive”. It is equally ironic that the “woke” globalists of the European Union can claim them as “founding fathers” of the monstrous anti-Catholic and anti-Christian tyranny which the EU has become. It’s all a long way from the simple economic cooperation that they championed in 1951.
Indeed, it’s such a long way that we are tempted to say that the abyss that separates the Catholic social vision that they advocated from the secularist tyranny of modern Europe is as wide as that chasm that separates heaven from hell.
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A fine, informative history of the betrayal of the legacy of two European Catholic leaders by modern progressives in EU politics, and particularly progressives among Church hierarchy.
I think this article goes too far, and when you go too far you lose punch, authority and appeal. I am a devout catholic, I do not particularly appreciate progressive catholics but I hope to be able to recognize an intelligent progressive when I see one. I also know enough of Alcide De Gasperi and of the EU, having worked in Brussels very close to that “horrible bureucratic beast” as some would say, to subscribe the following: were he alive today, De Gasperi could spend an entire evening telling you what he does not like in the EU, but he never, never would subscribe labels like “politically invasive toxic organism” or accepting the identification of the EU with “the Europe of the faithless”. We have a lot of faithless, some are bad and some are not bad or not bad at all. But what the EU has accomplished, in spite of the recurrent big mistakes, is of clear value in a continent that has seen and fabricated several of the worst horrors of the past. Besides, could anyboby suggest which country, anywhere, could be defined today a christian country? I prefer to have some appreciation for the places that, in spite of the widespread and deplorabele loss of the sacred, still keep some memory of it.
Mr. Pearce’s clear-eyed histories are always greatly appreciated, and this one is certainly no exception.
I had not heard of de Gasperi or Schuman, but I am happy to find out about such courageous modern-day Catholics.
Thanks for this essay.
“Europe will return to the Faith or she will perish”.
Second quote in a week from Hilaire Belloc. Guess it’s time to check this guy out.
As long as “betrayal” is in the title, we might as well consider events outside of the European Union, and yet not unrelated.
One would have to be in the room to see all of the cards on the table today, but take, for example, the similarity between today’s invaded Ukraine, and the earlier declared “neutrality” for Laos in 1962 and then the 1963 betrayal (as in coup and murder) of Diem in Vietnam. And then, in the leadership vacuum, the slippery slope into a full-blown Vietnam War.
About media religion, the case is documented that the flashpoint of Buddhist persecution by the Catholic President Diem was staged and exaggerated by the communists—as a distraction from their real-game invasion into South Vietnam, and final occupation (Geoffrey Shaw, “The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam,” Ignatius 2015).
Of avoidable political trip-wires, and worse, during the instructive 1960s…“that went well.”
If there is even one European nation that could rightfully call itself a Christian country, I’d like for someone to identify that country for me. No country can lay claim to being called Christian based on its historical patrimony. In fact, practically every European country is rapidly turning into an Islamic nation with their open immigration policies.
America needs to take a close look at our own practices. We have seen our future and it is in Europe.
We read: “No country can lay claim to being called Christian based on its historical patrimony.” perhaps you confuse what “European nations[s]” are today with their foundational “patrimony”…All European nations are descendants from an earlier Christendom and the chemistry of the Classical world and the universal Catholic Church. And the sacred tradition and faith & reason and that sort of stuff.
A detail of “patrimony” now to be restored to memory.
Even the aristocratic and well-traveled intellectual from the Austrian Tyrol, Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909-1999: spoke 8 languages and could read 20), surprisingly was not opposed to formation of the European Union—but counseled that it needed “a goal greater than fatness.”
Perhaps a prophecy…
Peter, I am well aware what constitutes an historical patrimony. I was simply asserting that a country’s referring to its historical patrimony as a factor to qualify as a Christian nation is insufficient. That said, can you think of any European country that can be said to be Christian?
Poland is as much of a Christian (specifically Catholic) country as anywhere. Obviously there are vast forces within and without it that are trying to change that, but the memory of JPII and the Church’s role in resisting the Communist oppression has allowed them to hold out longer than most.
Dear Anonymous, yss, Poland is as close as we get to qualify as a Christian nation. They are now where Ireland was about 60 years ago.
Re Diogenes above – “We have seen our future and it is Europe”.
Indeed.
See Catholic Unscripted, Mar. 5.
Also TCT, Mar. 10.
I offer a few reflections on my distinguished fellow citizen from the perspective that interests me most: political philosophy.
When recalling the origins of Christian Democracy, Alcide De Gasperi remained silent about the influence of Don Romolo Murri, the leading figure of Italian modernism, preferring instead to highlight the role of Giuseppe Toniolo, whose credentials were impeccable from the standpoint of orthodoxy.
According to Don Lorenzo Bedeschi (Murri, Sturzo, De Gasperi. Ricostruzione storica ed epistolario (1898-1906), 1994), De Gasperi’s resistance to modernist reformism can be traced to his strictly Thomist formation, shaped by the priest and professor Ernesto Commer (1847–1928), a theologian who taught in various universities before settling in Vienna, where he influenced the young Trentino student.
The brief and intellectually lukewarm correspondence between De Gasperi and Murri contrasts sharply with the deeper bond between Murri and Don Luigi Sturzo. What stands out in De Gasperi is his firm separation between politics and religion: politically, he remained committed to Christian-democratic perspectives, while in religious matters, he largely adhered to the Thomist teachings he had received through Commer.
To what extent this stance resulted from the Church’s modernist condemnations, as opposed to a genuine personal conviction, remains an open historical question. The cultural position of both Sturzo and De Gasperi fits within the 19th-century current of liberal Catholicism, which maintained a rigid separation between the religious and political spheres—favoring not so much a distinction as an outright division.
What is notably absent in both men is any inclination toward reconstructing society under the banner of Christ’s social kingship, a perspective championed by figures such as Joseph de Maistre, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, and the Neo-Thomists.
In contrast, Augusto Del Noce, carrying Maritain’s insights to their fullest implications, regarded De Gasperi’s political model as an ideal and saw the reconciliation of Christianity with democracy and modern freedoms as the essential task of Catholic thought.
Del Noce often spoke of Rosmini, but his real point of reference was De Gasperi. He sought to be De Gasperi’s philosopher.
At a recent conference marking the 35th anniversary of Del Noce’s passing, scholars recalled one of his most prescient reflections: the idea that the “necessary and perhaps failed encounter between Rosmini and Tocqueville” might hold the key to understanding the unresolved tensions between Catholic thought and modern political structures.
A small quibble here:
Pearce is right to show how silly it is for secular progressives to claim De Gasperi as a hero; however, I am not so sure his being associated with the EU per se is all bad. Pope Benedict XVI himself repeatedly referred to De Gasperi as one of the “fathers of the new Europe,” along with Adenauer, Schuman, and Charles de Gaulle. De Gasperi and the others were patriots of their own country first, of course, but they also had a vision of a multi-national Christian imperium that would replace the old balance of powers. Again, Ratzinger called this “the great hour of Christian politicians, after the collapse of the anti-Christian madness.”
Obviously the EU has not turned out to be a holy imperium. Pearce is basically right to call it “anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.” But I do not think it accurate to say that De Gasperi and others wanted merely what Pearce describes as “simple economic cooperation” through the ECSC.
Instead, De Gasperi would have liked to see the right kind of European Union – that is, nations bound to cooperate on many (most?) matters on account of their baptism. At least as I understand Ratzinger’s view, therefore, the tragedy is not so much that De Gasperi’s name is associated with the EU, but rather that the EU has not lived up to his noble ideals.
The EU LOVES to pretend to Catholic roots, from the DeGasparri-Schumann-Adeneur trinity to the Marian-like flag, just as long as one does not insist that Jerusalem is as much a founding place of European values and thought as Rome and Athens. I fear again the Church will play the “we support integration” nonsense and continue to give political encouragement to the at minimum low-grade anti-Catholicism (and that is charitable) of the EU.