HEADING III
TWO KINDS OF FEMINISM
For various years, we have been witnessing a women's movement,1 that seems to extend and further intensify its agitation. Its appearance had been surprisingly welcomed by many, with suspicion by all, with a smile of compassion by many: few are those that have taken it seriously, being careful to study [what] it might want, with what means, with what hope, with what interests it has for humankind. On its part, the clergy either believes it to be a negligible utopia, or a colossal ingenuity that is being organized, or an unreasonable demand. - So it is in general, not all, and the feminists were justifying these evaluations of serious people and of the clergy: their demands are so strange, their principles so unreasonable, their reasons are so light, and in great part the means set in motion are so indecorous!!! - But what happens in every historical event, even the most unfortunate, could not be wanting also here: amidst so much evil and exaggerations, however, is always hidden something good and some truth. Evil, however, appears ordinarily to be more impressive,
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inasmuch as it floats in the social environment, evil is violent and more noisy: good instead is ordinarily at the bottom, is accomplished in silence, calmly and constantly. And that ridiculous and vain feminist movement, in general, shall not allow the public to notice another movement which, blessed by the pope, inspired by religion, nourished by charity, was advancing ever more, doing a lot of good everywhere. Two feminisms therefore: one might be called socialist feminism,2 revolutionary, anti-Christian, antireligious, immoral: the other instead is moral, is Christian, in a word, good.
[Socialist and Masonic feminism]
The main point of difference between these movements is religion: socialist, revolutionary, etc., feminism professes itself non-confessional and ends up being anti-Catholic; Christian feminism places at the base of all its understanding the sincere profession of the Catholic faith. - Dr. Bolo3 in the book La donna e il clero (Women and the clergy) gives proof to these four propositions that here we can only quote: 1. All that is useful or essential a woman can demand has been done or at least drafted by the Catholic clergy; 2. The possibility of a feminism exists only through the Church; 3. Feminism, inasmuch as reasonable, has nothing new except its name; 4. The sufferings that today feminism would want to relieve women from depend on in the rejection, in theory, and more in fact, of the doctrines of the Gospel.
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If the Gospel is set aside, women will turn into slaves again, instruments of pleasure, means of production and nothing more. The entire olden times is proof to it: it is enough to refer to Greece and pagan Rome where the cadavers had to be entrusted for embalming or burial only in advanced stage of decomposition due to the danger of immoral posthumous outrageous violation.4
Well was it recently written: women, watch out for your executioners, for your worst enemies, hypocritical enemies, because clothed in sheepskin, poised as your defenders: they are the feminists who want to emancipate you in order to oppress you: who want to raise you up in order to throw you to the garbage heap: watch out for chatty feminism: he who promises too much is either a megalomaniac, or a liar, or a traitor.
What then are its ideas? Pius X summarizes them in these words: See how wrong are those who expect absolute equality for women, with all the rights and attributes of men. Can you imagine a woman amidst the noise, the excitements and the passions of public life: an emancipated, independent woman, placed at the same level of man in social life, on the stage, in the parliaments, who argues, legislates, imposes herself, conspires, rebels, stands on barricades?... This is not the mission of women; hence he errs who supports this ill-understood feminism
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it would mean wanting to correct God's work, just like that mechanic who pretends to correct and reshape the course of the stars...
Besides, the purposes of this utopia-feminism were declared by the best of their representatives.
The General Congress was held in Paris in 1900, wherein the better women members as well as the better male members of the party of England, German, Austria, Russia, Italy, France, America, etc., participated in. Here is the doctrine manifested there:
Christianity is the greatest historical disaster; we need to abolish the confessional and whatever Christian instruction; the daughter at home subjected to parents and the bride indissolubly bound to a man are miserable slaves, lay sisters, criminally made stupid: this morality, brought to heaven by religion in the person of the Virgin, a hypocritical, slow, assassination of every minute. Freemasonry, an enemy of superstitions and of error, is the natural adversary of the Church: let women enlist themselves in the loggia, assume its spirit, transmit it to the family: to exclude women from Freemasonry means to prolong the Church's empire and the authority of priests. And in order not to transcribe here all the vulgarity of the thoughts and of the language to which they have been carried away,5 I shall but say that they made vows for prostitution, for divorce, for free love,
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for the right of adultery, for social revolution, for lay school,6 for the equality of woman to man in all employments and offices, etc... As one could see there is but one Masonic thought: and today, one can notice it in magazines and pamphlets. Freemasonry aims at putting women under it's yoke.
The Freemason Levillon,7 during the international congress held in Paris in 1900, said: It truly is not such a good thing that as a new generation comes, we have always to restart the same work: it is not convenient that we remake Penelope's woven cloth, always worked on and always unwoven... but we cannot arrive at so much without the help of women. Nathan8 expressed the same sentiment as well when, in 1898, he revealed in Turin the plan of action for the Italian Masons. Vainly would we hope on the absolute effectiveness of our work, no matter how intense, when we do not know how to put in it the action of her who, by nature and aptitudes, is an educator by excellence... of that person who from cradle to tomb presides over the family, governs it, directs to it her talent. And he continues by saying that she must be removed from being religious, take her away from the governors of her conscience, who are the priests, to accept her in the order of Masons.
Let this be noted: Masonic cleverness! Inasmuch as women would abhor
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the sect, in a meeting held in Rome lately, it was decided to let them join through treachery: by proposing to them lay or neutral beneficence, whose bottom lines, however, are secretly manipulated and regulated by Freemasonry! And so behold the lay institutions for the sick, for the poor, for children, for endangered girls, for wayward women. It is an ancient trick of the devil: to fake God's work in order to attract followers for himself! Did he not go so far as imitate, or better, ape the miracles? - And yet how many good women have already fallen into the shameful trap! Perhaps due to simple naiveté and ignorance!
And what is socialism doing, that which had been called, and not completely wrongly, popular Freemasonry?
The Confederazione Generale del Lavoro9 (The General Labor Confederation) compiled in 1912, through the Chamber of Labor, statistical data on the socialist organization for women in Italy. It showed that, in spite of the natural repugnance of women to being organized by subversives, socialism has already gone relatively far. Almost a hundred thousand appear in those socialist groups!! And work is ever fervent!
Such feminism does not need any rebuttal; besides, the rebuttal had already been given by the great majority of women, themselves,
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who either remained indifferent to it or have stood against it.
[Christian feminism]
And truly, feminism did not have anything new but for its name: the errors themselves were so old, as old as women of the oldest profession.
It is not the noticeable name of feminism, but the substance of good feminism that is as ancient as Christianity itself and, even more, by many parts. In fact, it consists in bringing to reality all the doctrines of our faith for the sake of the weakness and of the dignity of women.
And going to details, we can say that the program of good feminism, blessed and expounded by His Holiness Pope Pius X on 21 April 1909, has two parts: one negative and the other positive, as regards the negative part, this feminism is opposed to:
1. The removal, systematic and as a matter of principle, of the woman from the family environment in order to cast her into all the occupations: lady-lawyers, doctors, members of the parliament, policewomen, women soldiers, etc, etc.: women are essentially mothers and as such they must remain; mother of the body through generation and of the soul through education, there are creatures that are especially hers: mother of the body through charity and charitable deeds and mother of the soul through instruction, if she does not have creatures that are unquestionably hers.
2. the unmaking and destruction of the family, the cell of society: and hence, divorce, free love, every form of modern immorality,
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dishonest entertainment, provocative body exposure, etc.
3. all that revolutionary and socialist feminist movement that today is being organized in all parts of the world. Neither can one believe that such a movement is only a wishful thinking: started in the United States of America, it has moved on to England, France, Germany, etc.: and in Italy it is introduced to us especially in the two national institutes that are the Consiglio Nazionale delle donne italiane [National Council of Italian Women] (a creation10 of an international federation of women) and l'Associazione per la donna [Association for Women]. Neither can one doubt of their anti-religious spirit: the first, in fact, boasts of its being non-political and non-confessional (art. 11), but in practice it shows itself anti-Catholic. For example, in Rome, in 1908, it casts its vote against catechism11 in the elementary schools; then the second clearly shows itself in its Jacobine, revolutionary, socialist, etc., activity. And the number of women, organized in these institutes, has increased as a whole to about 16,000. Neither could it be said that socialism, in the part concerning women, has lost its prestige and by now no longer has any purpose except economic: inasmuch as, given but not granted, that socialism is dead in Italy, Freemasonry is not dead and will not die that easily. Now, Freemasonry as it was seen above, today tends to take for its own
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women, in order to make of them instruments of struggle against the truths of faith, against faith, against the bishops, against religion. Today, against this false feminism rises good feminism.
And coming to the positive part of this last, we can say that it especially aims at these goals:
1. To seek that women achieved the maximum good at home. This is the first, the most obligatory, the most effective, the easiest work of women. As for me, I am persuaded of this: the enemies of religion and of priests take crazy delight and believe to have placed us in serious trouble when they tell us that we are metaphysical and they poke fun on St. Thomas12 and the Scholastics: meanwhile, however, they fall into the pit that are dug for others. Not only are they metaphysical but they are truly real planners and manufacturers of utopias when they want women, at all cost and always and systematically, to get out of the home. But that would mean putting the foundation in place of the roof, the basement in place of the attic; it is to set aside the principle that the poet expresses with these words:
Se il mondo di laggiù ponesse mente
Al fondamento che natura pone
Seguendo lui, avria buona la gente.13
As God expresses himself in the Scripture, in accordance
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with her aptitudes, the needs of daily life, the woman has, in the first place, her own family as her area of work. And whoever wants to give her, as her primary occupation, a job outside the home, shall have to violate her tastes, shall have to oppose God's providential designs, shall have to create very serious embarrassments to man and to society, shall have to produce displaced persons, unhappy ones, useless ones and, worse, rebels. Women are queens at home, if they know how to be so and, without having to pretend, they could dominate the hearts of their loved ones. - And it is from here that, when she wants it, she could succeed to have the greatest influence on society. Then, if there were also here some planner who dreamed of a State based no longer on families but above all on badly defined state collectivism extended also to individuals, nature and good sense agreeing together will always tell us that the family is the foundation of the State, the cell of the State, is indispensable to the State. That if the State is made up of families, it shall be what families are: that this, the better the families are, the better the State is and behold that gender which is called weak, remaining in its own place, becomes the hidden, but true giver of strength, prosperity, progress of the country. And so, just as in every special event the proverbial phrase, cherchez la femme,14 is heard, so face to face with
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the conditions of the people and of a State, one could say: observe how the women are. Well understood feminism therefore is that which tends: [a] to form daughters that are, in fact or almost by adoption, the little mothers in virtue towards their younger siblings: form spouses that are the soul friends of their husbands in order to make their souls similar to them in faith, in piety, in virtue: to train mothers that are like the mould wherein the soul of their children shall be formed.
It would be said: for this we need not a name and of a new program: it is what has always been preached. It has been said: the substance of good feminism is as old as our religion, which, by itself, possesses what is needed not only for guiding souls for heaven, but also for bringing peoples to that relative happiness possible in the present life. Centuries will not add other things, neither will they change its essential and unchangeable principles. New, however, is this: today's women must shape today's men: they have to meet the needs of man today: they have to make use of the means today. And, just to make an example only, today's woman must be instructed in faith unlike the women of the centuries past. She has to foresee a bit the objections, the difficulties that the faith of her children would meet amidst the world: she cannot cast her children as defenseless lambs amidst rapacious wolves:15 she
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has to arm them with complete as ever instruction. It is repeated till boredom, but not quite enough: young people go to church and also receive communion until twelve, or fourteen years old... then you see them no longer. This is a fact that can have many causes: not last of it are mothers who could not give them what they do not have: broader religious instruction, a character that is stronger face to face with the so many seductions of the world... This what is new: some modern means used for old purposes: of saving souls. The enemies are making use of new weapons, and we must and neither must we fight the cannons of Krupp16 by using the cannons conceived by Napoleon I.
Further below, we shall better see the meaning and the means for the principle: today's woman must form today's man.
2. The first and the most natural workplace of women is the home: second and almost as a complement is that outside the walls of the home. And here women can be of help in a very great number of women's work. She can help in the propagation of religion by joining associations: Ladies of St. Vincent, Ladies of mercy - parish catechism classes - religion classes - Marian associations - Pious union of Christian Mothers - Retreats for workers17 - Protection of young women18 - Holy
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Childhood - Propagation of the Faith - League for holiday rest - League against blasphemy, of the good press, etc.
They can help in social action: Guidance and mutual aid for women workers - Rehabilitation work - Protection of women abroad - League against duels - Inexpensive cooking - Family pensions - Endowments - Maternity funds - Social security - Shops - Labor union for women, etc.
A woman can improve her own level of culture as regards religion, social sciences, morals, hygiene, management of the home, etc. And all these she can have in home study, in cultural circles, in schools of sociology, in proper libraries.
As can be seen, the possibilities for women to work are many: and they would even grow immeasurably if one would want to remember the two areas of activities commonly assigned to nuns and to teachers: areas of work where women, according to Msgr. Bonomelli,19 can truly be of help to the priesthood and to the Church in the vast work of salvation of souls.
What remains to be answered yet is the question indicating more or less the work program of Christian feminism: what does it think of other matters, raised by socialist feminism, for example as regards political and administrative suffrage
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for women? Christian feminism does not get directly involved in it, persuaded that the murky world of political passions is not the better place for women wherein to get involved. It is certain, however, that on the day that such right would be recognized, it would then be her duty, too, to avail with it; if only not to renounce a weapon that in the hands of sectarians would immediately be turned to a revolt against Christian principles.
Thus distinguished one feminism from another, there is no reason left for not fighting with all zeal against the first and for not promoting, on the other hand, the second. To fight against the first and to struggle against Freemasonry, that makes use of everything to damage the Church: and this is inarguably the duty of a priest; to support the second means to take advantage of an instrument for good and to support the spirit of the Church.
However, can women truly accomplish such a mission? Did they accomplish it in the past? Shall they have to accomplish it for the future? These are the three questions to which it behooves giving an answer in order to persuade also the skeptics.
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1 Read what in those years La Civiltà Cattolica was writing, associating “feminism” and “decadence” and trying to distinguish good feminism from a corrupt and corrupting one: “According to a well-known saying: men make the laws and women the customs, no one ignores the capital influence that women exercise on public and private morality, and as a consequence the importance of their moral mission towards man, the family and society. It is proper therefore that the suitable purpose of a healthy feminism ought to be that of defending and promoting the morality of women, to facilitate her moralizing mission. Without this, whatever other rehabilitation or juridical, economic or political demand cannot but turn harmful to her and to others.”
2 Enemy of the Church (cf. DA 33; 35; 157; 172; 269); regarding such feminism further cf. DA 40; 203; on social revolution, cf. DA 32.
3 Cf. BOLO E., La donna e il clero, translation by P. Carlo Negro B., Napoli, Rondinella e Loffredo, Librai-Editori, 1913. Alberione quotes or draws inspiration often from this book (even if he does not refer to this edition - cf. DA 230 - but to a preceding one, printed and distributed in Turin).
4 Cf. BOLO E., op. cit., p. 144.
5 Variation in the Italian DA: the original has trascorsero instead of trascesero.
6 Nine days after the fall of Rome, on 29 September 1870, a government ruling made the teaching of religion voluntary in the schools of the Kingdom of Italy. Religion would be taught only after the request of parents. In 1873 the theology faculties in all the universities of the Kingdom of Italy were suppressed (cf. FERRARI B., La soppressione delle facoltà di teologia nelle università di Stato in Italia, Morcelliana, Brescia 1968). In 1877, the office of the spiritual director in senior high schools, in high schools, in the technical schools was abolished, thus automatically taking away the teaching of religion in high school, which was, in the preceding law, entrusted to the spiritual director. In 1883 (regulation no. 1590 of 21 June) the teaching of religion was definitely suppressed in all the courses of schools for teachers, a maneuver to abolish it directly also in the elementary schools by taking away the qualification from teachers. These were all dispositions that went against the Casati law of 1859 that was still valid and was respectful of freedom. In order to excuse the contradiction of such a decree against that law, it was said that the times had changed, that the new spirit was that of the Constitution of 1848 (on which also the Casati law was founded); that in the school the non-dogmatic principle was introduced along with respect to the freedom of thought, etc. In 1877, the study of I diritti e doveri dell'uomo e del cittadino (The rights and duties of man and of the citizen) was imposed. These rights had to take the place of religious education. The Gazzetta del Popolo of Turin, in the issues of 11 and 14 November 1877, denounced the teaching of the catechism of the diocese as not saying any word on the duties towards the motherland, and instead was guilty of turning children stupid; to profess dogmas that are rejected by the civil world. It decidedly forgot that “the supreme, absolute, universal principle of constitutionalism is the sovereignty, the omnipotence, the cult of the popular majority, that makes and supports the law, the rights, power, all.” Now in no other argument had the great majority of the Italian population manifested so clearly its will, as for the keeping of catechism in schools. In the survey of 1901, not more than 36,092 in Italy declared themselves without any religion; 138,818 above the age of 15 did not give any indication of their own religion; the others, more than 31 million, had replied as belonging to the Catholic religion. And in the more recent referendum of the parents of family on catechism in the schools, in Venice there were but 196 against, among 10,000 students of the elementary school; in Turin 31 among 26,000; in Genoa 208 among 18,000; in Florence 562 among 18,000. If one reflected afterwards that those against were largely Jews and “heterodoxies” and that those not against have expressly asked the keeping of the teaching of catechism, it was by force right to conclude, with Hon. Greppi at the meeting in Milan, “To go against such a plebiscite of the will of parents is to subvert the public right; if the majority has never to tyrannize the minority, to admit that tyranny might be exercised by the minority would be enormous and contrary to every political system” (cf. “La guerra al catechismo” in La Civiltà Cattolica 4 [1907] 644f). Already many years before, in Piedmont, Msgr. Gastaldi had reacted vigorously by writing on Christian education and supporting the foundation of Catholic schools, while praising the parents of the 11,487 children who, in Turin (in 1877) were asking for the teaching of religion in the state schools, as against only 397 that did not want it (cf. Chiesa e Società nella II metà del XIX secolo in Piemonte, edited by Filippo Natale Appendino, Istituto regionale piemontese di pastorale, Edizioni Pietro Marietti 1982, p. 339). “The lay school,” so La Civiltà Cattolica 4 [1907] 405 wrote, “is specifically a masonic dogma and is an essential part of that broad program of de-Christianization of Italy that Leo XIII summarized in a marvelous synthesis in the Encyclical of 15 October 1890 to the Italian people, while basing himself on the vows and the resolutions taken by the Masonic sectarians in their most authoritative assemblies.” Here, Fr. Alberione shows how he was especially attentive to the school problem.
7 One of the many French journalists sympathizing with Freemasonry (MM).
8 Ernest Nathan, politician (London, 5 October 1845 - Rome, 9 April 1921), was the son of Sara Nathan Levi, a Jew of Pesaro, friend and collaborator of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) known during his exile in London. He actively participated in the administration of Rome and from 1907 to 1913 he was the city's mayor, the head of a lay and democratic coalition. As mayor, he encouraged housing initiatives and attended to state schools. The municipality's taking over public services is credited to him. Nathan was also among the initiators of the Dante Alighieri Society, founded in 1889, with the aim of spreading the Italian language and culture abroad.
9 See below, DA 203, note 41.
10 DA has reazione = reaction.
11 Alberione refers often to the catechism, cf. DA 127; 169; 187, 189, 190-192; 221; 250; 255; 259; 275; 324-325. During the last thirty years of the 19
th century and the first decade of the 20
th , a reflection on catechetical method was related to French Msgr. Dupanloup, bishop of Orléans, who in a written discourse sent to the congress of Piacenza by his biographer - Msgr. Lagrange, bishop of Chartres - he was called “the greatest catechist of his century.” Msgr. Lagrange wrote, “His (Dupanloup's) fundamental concept of catechism is this: it must not only instruct, but also and above all bring about religious education; thus it is not only teaching, a class of religion, but a ministry, an apostolate.” For Dupanloup, “the aim of catechism is Jesus Christ and his love” (cf. DUPANLOUP, L'Œuvre par excellence: Entretiens sur le catéchisme, translated into Italian in 1870). The catechetical revival raised by Vatican Council I had a strong moment in Italy in the National Catechetical Congress in Piacenza in 1889. About 400 priests, coming from all over Italy, participated in it while excluding lay persons although their cooperation was decisive in it. In his opening address to the congress, Card. Capecelatro sustained two basic theses: 1) the unification in Christ of the whole religious teaching; 2) catechesis must first of all teach the “Christian facts” and must follow their “historical purpose,” because “while it helps much to imprint well the events on memory, it gives unity, warmth, and life on the events themselves (cf. Atti e Documenti [Acts and Documents] of the First Eucharistic Congress held in Piacenza on 24, 25, 26, September 1889, Piacenza, Tedeschi, 1890, p. 59). In the Congress, there was this worry on the deterioration of teaching and of religious instruction among Italian Catholics. Msgr. Scalabrini pointed out from the start that “in better times, the science of theology was the science not only of the Church, but of all the schools, and how, in small degrees, it was learned lovingly by the child at the parish priest's class, as much as it was profoundly studied in senior high schools and in universities” (pp. 60-61). Now, however, catechism was “neglected, belittled, opposed,” excluded from the schools and least attended also in parishes. Msgr. Bonomelli - whom Fr. Alberione admired - in his talk sustained that “the teaching must not only be vocal, but also visual” (p. 228). On this matter, also the Swiss priest, Hippolyte Ducellier, of the Geneva diocese, sustained that “many constitutive elements of the Church are visible and they must be seen” and because of this “youth that escapes us” we must “find new methods of action” because “the oral method, through questions and answers, that is, the catechetical method, is no longer enough” (pp. 329-330). The Congress had had steps forward made as regards the catechism text and on the unification of catechisms. Certainly, it is due to its influence that the Bishoprics of Lombardy and Piedmont (of whose members expressed their views on a single Catechism for the whole of Italy) would reach an agreement in 1896 to adopt the same Catechism, that of Msgr. Michele Casati (Bishop of Mondovì, 1765) which eventually was also welcomed in Liguria and in Emilia and, in 1903, in Tuscany. Pius X, in 1905, had taken this Catechism and, with slight retouches, adopted it for the dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Rome. In 1912, what would be known to be Pius X's Catechism would be drawn from a radical revision and shortening of this same text. (cf. Chiesa e Società nella II metà del XIX secolo in Piemonte, op. cit. [DA 32, note 6], p. 363). Fr. Alberione would prove himself especially aware of the problem of catechesis.
12 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) from Roccasecca, Frosinone, is recognized in the Roman Catholic Church as the greatest philosopher of the Middle Ages. His philosophy, which for centuries became the official doctrine of the Church (“Thomism'), attempts at putting together Christianity and Aristotelism.
13 Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, VIII, 142-144. (Our translation: Should the world down below consider / the foundation that nature sets / abiding by it, good its people shall be).
14 “Look for the woman” is a sentence made by a Paris policeman in the drama (presented for the first time in 1864) Les Mohicans de Paris by Alexandre Dumas, father, (1803-1870), act three, setting five, scene seven.
15 Cf. Lk 10:3.
16 DA has Kroup. Krupp is the surname of a German family that owned the biggest steel foundry and the manufacture of armaments in Europe.
17 They are the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, given for some successive days to persons gathered in houses meant for them; “a work that the French call des retraites fermées among which des retraites fermées ouvrières, the “retreats for workers”. “In Chieri... for a long time it was thought and was begun finally the attempt to hold [retreats for workers] in 1907; then it was repeated anew in 1908 with better success. In a well equipped house, which from a hill raised over the field, looks over the nearby city, far from the hurry and the distractions of life, were gathered, for three days in silence, in meditation and in other religious practices proper to the Spiritual Exercises according to the method of St. Ignatius, at first some thirty, then some fifty and more workers. Something similar was done, this year itself, in Turin and in another small city, Avigliana, near Turin. And the outcome was such a success that for five courses of Exercises held at intervals, there were 210 workers who participated in them and, in spite of the rigorous obligation of silence, the mental work, unusual for such men, the regularity and the discipline, something very new to them, all, except four, have persevered in it till the end.” (cf. La Civiltà Cattolica 4 [1908] 61-69). In DA, Alberione mentions still these retreats for workers (cf. DA 197) that originated in France with Fr. Watrigant as a method for trying to make them be helped, and which soon reached Piedmont (cf. precisely I ritiri operai in Chieri nel 1907 e 1908 - I ritiri operai in Torino nel 1908 [Opera degli Esercizi Operai], Torino, Tipografia Artigianelli 1908).
18 The foundress is Baroness Montenach, wife of a member of the Swiss Parliament.
19 Geremia Bonomelli, born on 22 September 1831 in Nigoline, Brescia, was ordained priest at the seminary of Brescia on 2 June 1855. He was then sent to the Gregorian University in Rome where he had as teachers Passaglia, Schrader, Patrizi. Two years later, a doctor in theology, he began teaching in the seminary of his diocese at first as professor of philosophy of religion and then of hermeneutics and of dogma, until, on 8 July 1866 he was promoted as parish priest of Lovere. On 26 November 1871, he was consecrated Bishop of Cremona (by then it had 222 parishes, 650 priests and 350,000 faithful). Bonomelli launched an energetic action for the reform of discipline and of studies. He opened free schools, supported youth and workers' circles; he encouraged the growth of religious communities and personally dedicated himself to an intense catechetical work, preaching up to eight times a day during his pastoral visits. A vast publishing activity extended the space and time of his more intimate vocation as catechist and apologist. He promoted the foundation of different newspapers in Cremona, among which are Il messaggere (1880-1894) and Il cittadino (1898-1905). In his whole life he kept a tight correspondence with the more prominent people of his time, both Italians and foreigners, in an exchange of ideas regarding the burning issues of his time.