Catholic Democrats and Comunione e Liberazione: Different Perspectives on Faith after the Second World War

In the period following World War II, the Catholic world in Italy was veined with different religious sensibilities and differing opinions on the thought of Maritain and the Second Vatican Council. This essay aims to analyze the experience of Azione Cattolica (AC), which, from the fifties onward in Milan, had to come to terms with the affirmation of the Gioventù Studentesca (GS) movement, founded by Don Luigi Giussani. The latter was an organization that considered educational) communities the primary sites for coming into contact with Jesus and judged the work of evangelization carried out by the parishes to be ineffective. Contrary to Maritain’s distinction between the actions of a person “as a Christian,” consisting in obedience to the rites and dogmas of the Church, implying acknowledgement of an independent area for lay organizations and an omincomprehensive vision of religion, GS (which, from 1970 onward took the name of Comunione e Liberazione [CL]), criticized those Catholics who, in the wake of the new inspiration coming from the Council, supported “mediation” with the modern world. These differences in viewpoint were to lead to disagreements with church policy and even polemics.