Have you ever heard of Alcide De Gasperi? You would probably answer the same way I did a month a go with a twisted brow. Over the past month I have begun to learn about his fascinating life from growing up in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to becoming the Prime Minister of Italy for 8 years – if you keep track of Italian politics, it won’t surprise you that he had 8 different governments in that time.
As a politician he always put his faith first – actively trying to implement the first social Encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII and other Church teachings – to the point he is now on the path to sainthood.
He was one of the most outspoken opponents ofboth the Fascists and the later Italian Communists. The Fascists sentenced him to four years in prison for political crimes and made him unemployable so the Vatican picked him as a Librarian. He fought the Communists tooth and nail for his election victories.
Great but “what’s your point?” you ask. I learned all this because for lunch we have been reading Uomo Solo (Lone Man) by his daughter Maria Romana Catti de Gasperi. In order to help us pray and learn more interesting things, we usually read a book during lunch and supper, and eat n silence. For supper it is a spiritual book and for lunch it is more history or current events. Of course, when Jesus of Nazareth came out we read it for both meals.
