This essay proposes an analysis of the wartime discourse formulated by mons. Angelo Bartolomasi, bishop of the camp during the First World War. According to the most recent historiographical trends in the topic, the attention is focused on the religious discourse of mons. Bartolomasi: episcopus castrensis, from his word of shepherd millions of Italian Catholics called in the army awaited, between 1914 and 1918, a discourse able to give a senses to the sacrifice for the country to which they were called. Mons. Bartolomasi didn 't back away. Convinced that the deep meaning of war resided in the tragic revelation of the frailty and the contradictions of the modern world, he did not hesitate to propose a religious interpretation of it in terms of Christian sacrifice, offered by God to people and nations for their redemption. However, it revealed to be not a "painless" operation, as mons. Bartolomasi's private papers attest with great lucidity. On the same days when Benedict XV was describing the war as a useless carnage, he got to the point of asking himself, at least for a moment, if it were better to fall silent But silence would have meant renouncing that role of first "priest of the nation " that he had been building up since the first weeks of the war, and mons. Angelo was not willing to allow that.
Autorità, dovere, sacrificio. Il discorso di guerra di mons. Angelo Bartolomasi (1915-1918)
Sante Lesti
2011-01-01
Abstract
This essay proposes an analysis of the wartime discourse formulated by mons. Angelo Bartolomasi, bishop of the camp during the First World War. According to the most recent historiographical trends in the topic, the attention is focused on the religious discourse of mons. Bartolomasi: episcopus castrensis, from his word of shepherd millions of Italian Catholics called in the army awaited, between 1914 and 1918, a discourse able to give a senses to the sacrifice for the country to which they were called. Mons. Bartolomasi didn 't back away. Convinced that the deep meaning of war resided in the tragic revelation of the frailty and the contradictions of the modern world, he did not hesitate to propose a religious interpretation of it in terms of Christian sacrifice, offered by God to people and nations for their redemption. However, it revealed to be not a "painless" operation, as mons. Bartolomasi's private papers attest with great lucidity. On the same days when Benedict XV was describing the war as a useless carnage, he got to the point of asking himself, at least for a moment, if it were better to fall silent But silence would have meant renouncing that role of first "priest of the nation " that he had been building up since the first weeks of the war, and mons. Angelo was not willing to allow that.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
