Blessed James Alberione

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PRESENTATION

1. Importance of the work

La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale [Woman associated with priestly zeal] (DA) is the second extensive book (after Appunti di teologia pastorale) written by the young priest Giacomo Alberione during the years 1912-1915, the time when the Pauline Family began to exist. The first edition of DA was printed in 1915 in Alba by the newly established Scuola tipografica «Piccolo operaio» (Little Worker Printing School). The last edition, in English, was in 1964, with Alberione still alive, after having been translated, adapted and updated after the suggestion of the same Founder, by the Daughters of St. Paul in Boston (USA).1
Although in DA no mention is made either of the Society of St. Paul, or of the Daughters of St. Paul, or of the Pious Disciples, or of the Pastorelle and much less of the Apostoline, an impression that remains in the reader, man or woman, of these pages is that they contain some theory or prospect that is at the base of the foundation project2 of that family of which Fr. Alberione not only thought but was already bringing to reality (1914-1915). In Ut perfectus sit homo Dei (I, 376), which may be considered the Founder's spiritual testament, during the course of an Instruction of great importance for the Pauline Family, he locates the start of the branch for men with reference to the Appunti di teologia pastorale and as regards the branch for women, he affirms: The Sisters in general represent the 'woman associated with priestly zeal',3 also published before 1914,4 when the first aspirants were gathered and the first and small printing press was opened.
The reading of DA together with Appunti di teologia pastorale could then contribute to a rediscovery of a Pauline Family charism or at least of that association or collaboration, held necessary of woman with the priest, as the title of the book itself suggests. DA seems a foundational and at the same time charismatic work. Certainly, it is a reference text, although for many years it has gone out of circulation, in spite of the fact that it is the only book of Alberione - after The Manual of Prayers of the Pauline Family and Maggiorino5 - that has had at least nine editions.
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2. DA has a history

In Abundantes divitiae gratiae suae,6 the testimony of Alberione himself is reported, that he had, already in 1911, started drafting DA.
In an unpublished introduction prepared in view of the publication of the ninth edition, Sr. Cecilia Calabresi of the Daughters of St. Paul gathers other bits of information.7
On a calendar page kept at the Fondo San Paolo at the General House of the Society of St. Paul, with a date (handwritten by someone else) R[oma] 1-VIII-1966, Alberione noted:

The poor book [DA] was written in 1912 and reflected its own time. At the same time, however, it shed some light on what was to come.
I did not follow up the succeeding editions; many things have been retouched; partly useful and partly less useful.
Take into consideration the present times and the Vatican Council II... SAC. G. A.8

These indications of the Founder already lead to a historically contextualized reading of his work. That is, it has to be placed, in its context along the wave of that continuing aggiornamento or updating which Fr. Alberione himself showed to have appreciated.9
Being a book bound to the thought and the work of a Founder, DA deserves a reading and deepening, also technical, especially by the Pauline Family.
Certainly, DA does not deserve a reading of the literal type, perhaps with the preoccupation of keeping oneself repetitively faithful, and as a whole immobile, to the Founder's charism, something which would perhaps not be an authentic approach either.
In Italy, as was mentioned, DA had nine editions10 but until 1937, the text remained almost unchanged.
In the eighth edition instead - according to Fr. Damino -through the work of one or two Daughters of St. Paul assigned by Fr. Alberione, corrections, additions and cancellations were introduced; more, at the start of the 29 chapters a verse of the Scriptures was added and, to close, there is an added feature, In margine alla storia, with a biographical example.
The preparation of the ninth edition (in 1954) was entrusted by Fr. Alberione to Sr. Cecilia Calabresi.11 This is the edition that is most reworked, considering that, at the request of the same Fr. Alberione - many passages on women, extracted from the writings and speeches of Pius XI, and especially Pius XII, were introduced therein.
The Center of Pauline Spirituality, presents anew the first edition of which authenticity and authority are unquestionable.
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3. History in DA

DA reflects its own time - as Fr. Alberione wrote - that is, the period from 1912-1915 and thereabouts: a time that sets the environment and necessarily also the date of the work.
Alberione mentions, as current during those years, a Jacobine, revolutionary, socialist activity [DA 36]; socialism as popular Freemasonry, [DA 33]; Freemasonry [cf. DA 31], etc.
Terms like collectivism, positivism, socialism, feminism, anticlericalism, laicism, arrogance of the press, women's vote, labor union, circles, association, credit, emigration point only to some of the important social phenomena of those times, well known to the Author. In fact, aside from taking note of them, he was fighting against many of these.
When Fr. Alberione wrote DA, he was not yet 28 years old. It is perhaps also for this reason, his youthful age, that he conceived his own writings as a weapon, while accepting the counter-positioning of the good press against bad press.
Soon, however, his ideas would become initiatives, although the context within which he moved remained to be that of an ongoing laceration between the Church and the State. Naturally, Fr. Alberione stands with the Church and, as a whole, against the secularist State.
Nonetheless, this religious militancy of his, that transpires in DA, did not lead him away from a personal commitment as regards social issues. On the other hand, it led him also to the area of politics.
For example, he would join Catholic associations along the path of the dissolved Opera dei Congressi.
Dialogue between Church and State, as well as between progressives and conservatives in the same Catholic world, was scarcely practiced and also Fr. Alberione showed himself scarcely convinced of its need and effectiveness. It was the time when loyalty to one's side, or to the hierarchy, was the priority virtue.
It was the time of the anti-modernist struggle. In DA, nonetheless, there is no trace of modernism or modernist. This would seem strange, considering the notoriety that the movement had also among the clergy of Piedmont.
Evidently, Fr. Alberione tried to keep his distance by following his own path, for example, by drawing from modernism what was modern or new that, being safe, could be welcomed by all.

This is something new: some modern means used for an ancient purpose: to save souls.
The enemies has taken recourse to new weapons; we cannot or should not fight the cannons of Krupp by using the cannons conceived by Napoleon I [DA 39].

Fr. Alberione declared himself explicitly open to renewal. Along the way of the same great feminist movement, Catholic and Freemason, of those years, he would point out a new and at the same time natural mediation that could be taken up by the clergy to fight the ill, and it is precisely the man-woman cooperation.
At the eve of the great war (1915-1918), in 1914, Pius X, whose pontificate significantly marked the young Fr. Alberione, died. Benedict XV (Giacomo Della Chiesa) would succeed Pius X.
In the same year, 1914, Fr. Alberione, at 30 years old, started the Pious Society of St. Paul. A year later, coinciding with the publication of the second edition of the Appunti di teologia pastorale (Notes in Pastoral Theology), he started the foundation of the future Pious Society Daughters of St. Paul (15 June 1915).
Italy joined the great world war when DA was already in print, too late for the echoes of this conflict to get into this work.
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4. The contents of the book

Also a fast synthesis of the many topics proposed to us by DA should bring to light at least the following affirmations:
- the man-woman relationship is not achieved only in marriage inasmuch as it can be and should be achieved also in an apostolic association between women and priests;
- pastoral ought to be renewed by adopting the collaboration of woman, as the first and most important means for achieving the salvation of man;
- the care of souls must be renewed by assuming modernity, understood as the combination of new and effective means in pastoral activity, like the press, to arrive at the whole of today's society, which is ever more and with hostility detaching itself from the Church.
In this direction, at least the following affirmations could be considered emblematic:

He who reduces his priestly life to mass and breviary: or else he who writes over his own flag and takes as his motto only these words: I-God, he would not be a priest: it is better for him to enter the cloister [DA 16].
Let one have as his motto: I-God-Souls-People [DA 17].
The priest without women would lose three fourths of his influence in society; women without him would lose all. Just as between God and man stands the priest, so between the priest and man stands the woman, the adjoining ring [DA 66].
If today there are new forms of immorality, it is because the spirit of evil takes seriously all the portents of civilization, especially today's spirit of association, by organizing evil. Less important complaint: we notice instead that we must, for the sake of goodness, make use of all the modern progresses, particularly of association [DA 171-172].
A most zealous priest was telling me: 'We need to expand according to the needs of today the goals of the old associations.' It is true: no one ought to ever doubt this truth: choose the means most convenient to the goal to reach. Today, it would be ridiculous to obstinately cling on to primitive systems of navigation, of the press, of military tactics, etc. Religion, the dogmas, Christian morality are unchangeable in their substance but the manner of knowing and applying them progresses. The Catholic Church is indefectible and the word of the Gospel would not let even the tip fall: but the Church and the Gospel possess as well the marvelous ease of adapting themselves to the times and to peoples [DA 318-319].

Fr. Alberione intended to renew the means and forms of the pastoral ministry in order to better respond to the needs of his times. Also he knew well, however, that what was new yesterday is old today.
To be renewed had been his challenge and the same is true for the heirs of this text: to take from it what is perennial, find the means and the forms of actualizing it today. It is still worth believing, like Fr. Alberione, that today every pastoral or apostolic initiative that is conceived and brought to reality as exclusively masculine, at the exclusion and in competition with woman (or only woman, or in competition with man) would be destined to fail.
At the background of the DA there remains a proposal of synodality or cooperation, association or alliance by the Founder so that his Family may become a unitary subject, either as regards the formation of its members or of the Pauline mission which, centered on communication, has to be accomplished in a Church and in a world called to be transfigured together into a single family of God.
Thus, although that old, a work like the DA would find newer fulfillment in its charismatic value. What lasts, at least as for a tree, aren't the the roots? And at least as relevant as the house are not perhaps its foundations?
Rome, 26 November 2000.

ANGELO COLACRAI


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1 This version (Woman, her influence and zeal, St. Paul Editions, Boston, USA, 1964) also had the honor of being briefly reviewed by International Survey (1965), The Priest (August, 1965), Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Social Justice and Today's Family - through the efforts of the then Provincial Superior Concetta Belleggia.

2 On this matter, let the many testimonies that Fr. Alberione himself left be noted. All the congregations for women maintain in their documentation explicit references to our book, in relation with their specific mission. To the Pious Disciples: “Beginning that year 1908, I began praying and making others pray so that a religious family of withdrawn life, dedicated to Adoration and to the priestly and liturgical apostolate, may be born. It was then that I wrote the book La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale, wherein I expressed myself in a manner that was then possible...” (cf. Alle Pie Discepole [APD] 1946-1947, no. 22). In a course of Spiritual Exercises held in June 1947, still to the Pious Disciples, Fr. Alberione literally said: “In 1911 I began to write the book La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale and I finished it in 1913 in order to shed light on the Pious Disciple as regards her vocation and on vocations” (APD 1946-1947 no. 504). Sr. Joseph Oberto, PD, has extracted numerous passages, at least six, wherein Fr. Alberione speaks explicitly of DA as addressed to the Pious Disciples (cf. APD 1957 no. 105; APD 1958 no. 214; APD 1963 nos. 320, 443; APD 1964 nos. 22-28). One among many references to the Pastorelle Sisters: “Hold on to the constitutions. Your mission is as if Mary's mission, associated with that of Jesus in saving souls. For you I wrote the book: La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale” (Prediche alle Suore Pastorelle 1950, vol. V, p. 88). In the same manner, speaking to the Apostoline, he said (7 August 1961): “And, hence, the mission: go, preach, teach... Which means: La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale, a book addressed to all the sisters of the Pauline Family; the foundation is there. And it was written precisely even before the first house was opened...”

3 See note 6.

4 When Fr. Alberione indicates as date of composition of DA a year preceding 1915, he probably refers to the work of gathering the material and the preparation of the book.

5 T. ALBERIONE, Maggiorino Vigolungo. Aspirante all'Apostolato Buona Stampa. Alba, Scuola Tipografica editrice, 1919. The book has had many editions and reprints, at least, 11, and translations in different languages.

6 In no. 109, speaking of the preparations for the founding of the Pauline Family, he affirms: “[As] for the Sisters, he had, already in 1911, started drafting the book, La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale”.

7 On 5 June 1961, speaking to the Daughters of St. Paul gathered in Spiritual Exercises in Ariccia, Fr. Alberione said: “Before establishing the Congregation, I had prepared La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale precisely for you. And he repeated the same thought (recorded, as before, on magnetic tape) during a meditation made in Rome on 13 February 1964: He said, “Before you were born, the book La donna associata allo zelo sacerdotale was written”. At another time, he confided that he thought of it in 1909 and then wrote it in 1912.

8 This annotation is found also in Carissimi in San Paolo, on p. 1284, where it is followed by the explanation: “The principles are always from the Scriptures and from Tradition; instead, the application to the current times must be done wisely, according to the time, place, social conditions.” (MM).

9 In confirmation to this, read the Avvertenza (Notice) that the Author placed at the end of the book in its 2

nd edition: “This book was written when the Catholic action of women did not yet have the marvelous progress that are known to all in Italy. Hence, the author did not take it into consideration; the Readers are asked to refer themselves to the Italian environment of 1914”. - An integration was then expected. This would be done in 1928, with the 5

th edition, as it would appear in this other note that came before the Appendix:
“An appendix is considered useful to come with this fifth edition: 'Le organizzazioni femminili dell'Azione Cattolica Italiana'.
Considering the most consoling development that these organizations are assuming, under the invitation and the sweet but strong insistence of the Holy Father, Pius XI, a reference to them seemed necessary. Many women readers in fact are also leaders and active members of the Women's Catholic Action.
The appendix has been drawn, with the gentle concession of the Author, from the book: 'Prontuario dell'Azione Cattolica Italiana' of the most zealous and very competent Fr. Marotta O.D.I. Along with that of my women readers, my most sincere gratitude to him.
Feast of the conversion of St. Paul, 1928. THE AUTHOR.” (MM).

10 Aside from the 1

st edition of 1915: the 2

nd in 1925; the 3

rd and the 4

th are only reprints; the 5

th in 1928; the 6

th in 1932; the 7

th in 1937; the 8

th , still always in Alba, in 1940; the 9

th , instead, in Albano, in 1954. - The 5

th edition has the same cover as the 2

nd , with the same thick paper, advertisements, typefaces and price of L. 5. Considering that the reprints are not editions, the 5

th edition would pass for the 3

rd and not the 5

th . Hence, DA should have had 7 editions and not 9! Two reprints (or even more) between the 2

nd and the 5

th edition. - From researches it shows further that copies numbered from 25,000 to 30,000, including the first large outputs. (MM).

11 Sr. Cecilia Calabresi writes: “Precisely in 1953-1954, Fr. Alberione entrusted to the undersigned the task of revising the book. On 10 March 1953, Fr. Alberione wrote me: 'Revise, take away, add as you think: for as long as it does the greatest good!' The following 17 October, he was insisting: 'The Holy Father Pius XII, in his last speeches, tends to give ever greater importance to women's work in various areas. It is good to bear them in mind for the next edition of the book La donna...' On 15/4/54, after having received the revised book, Fr. Alberione hastened to thank before even having paid much attention to the work: 'I thank you very much for the work on the book! It is a delicate and practical work!' Two months later, he confirmed: 'I am very grateful for all the work... The revision of the book is very good (7/6/54). Following a more attentive review, done in about a month's time, he wrote: 'I am very happy for the intelligent revision. Deo gratias. Some little additions (Pius XII) would be needed here and there regarding the clergy (in the first or the last part) that you could introduce. As soon as these additions are made, the book would be printed by the novices of Albano' (12/7/54). - Having received the book and the additions, Fr. Alberione passed it on to the printing press and dated the text on 22/11/1954, feast of St. Cecilia.”