50 Portraits of Democratic Catholicism

In the June 2024 elections, as many as 58% of practicing Catholics abstained from voting (Pagnoncelli survey). It is urgent to convince Catholics to take an interest in politics again. Politics needs ideas, but also relationships; thought, but also people of flesh and blood. Ideas are not cold and sterile creations—they walk on people's legs. For this reason, I wanted to collect the faces and stories of 50 individuals through whom we can understand their thought.

The book does not have a commemorative purpose, but rather aims to relaunch the political culture of democratic Catholicism, which has contributed—and continues to contribute—so much to our country and to all of Europe. It is not an “operation nostalgia,” so to speak, but an educational endeavor, especially for the new generations who are unfamiliar with these 50 figures, except for a few cases.
In the face of a public debate largely flattened on the present, slogans, and propaganda, delving into the roots of political thought and confronting history is an unusual but fruitful exercise. Also because without political cultures, without ideas and vision, politics becomes shortsighted, unable to design the future, reduced to cynical calculation and mere power management. Without political cultures—Christian democratic, socialist, and liberal—our Constitution would not have been born; and without updating and revitalizing these political cultures, we will lack the tools to face the current crisis of democracy.
The 50 figures featured in this book are thinkers, politicians, trade unionists, teachers, and social activists. All antifascists and opposed to any form of totalitarianism. All with a Christian education and, in many cases, a belonging to specific ecclesial realities (Catholic Action, ACLI, FUCI, AGESCI, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Dominican or Franciscan tertiaries…), which helped them develop a sense of community life and to mature their vocation. Some of them became saints, others are civil martyrs, and twelve are women—a minority, yet extremely qualified and pioneering.

In times like these, we need political cultures and, in particular, the political culture of Christian democracy—centered on the person, the family, and the community; on the importance of intermediate bodies; on Europeanism; on the third way between statism and liberalism; on the principles of solidarity, fraternity, and subsidiarity; and on the method of mediation, secularism, and reformism. Not all Catholics are Christian democrats. Conservative Catholics and maximalist Catholics are not. Christian democrats, in fact, look to the center-left and are reformist in both method and mindset.
Knowing those who laid the foundations of this political culture can help us face the present. Learning about these 50 men and women—who achieved great things despite enormous difficulties (even martyrdom, in the cases of Moro, Mattarella, Bachelet, and Gorrieri)—can encourage us. The 50 men and women portrayed in this book are beacons of light, models to follow, reserves of courage.
Political parties come and go, but political cultures remain—and they need new interpreters, men and women who today too are willing to take on public commitment and continue to bring light.

Monica Canalis
Regional Councillor of Piedmont and editor of the book
NP June/July 2025