ROME-ADISTA. The historian’s book will be presented on May 8th in the Senate (10 am Sala Zuccari – Palazzo Giustiniani, via della Dogana Vecchia, 29). Giambattista Sciré dedicated to Mario Gozzini (1920-1999) “cathocommunist” intellectual and senator (Giambattista Scrirè, The man of dialogue. Mario Gozzini beyond the barriers between Christianity and communism, Marietti1820, Bologna 2024, pp. 276, €26; v. Adista News n. 16/24). In addition to the author, among others, the historian will participate Alberto Melloni and the senator of the Democratic Party Dario Parrini, promoter of the initiative. The presentation will be broadcast live streaming at the link webtv.senato.it and on the Senate YouTube channel.
Born in Florence, Gozzini graduated in literature and frequented the circles of Florentine cultural magazines such as Frontispiece and intellectuals like the excommunicated anti-fascist priest Ernesto Buonaiuti. In the 1950s he approached frontier priests such as Mazzolari, Turoldo, Balducci, Barsotti And Bartoletti and to left-wing Christian Democrats like Dossetti, La Pira And Pistelli, convincing themselves that the DC is irreformable. Meanwhile Roncalliwho became pope with the name of John XXIII, convened the Second Vatican Council, about which Gozzini wrote a book (open council) which has great editorial success and “translates” the Council for non-experts.
The barriers begin to fall: the PCI at the 10th congress (1962) recognizes that faith is not an obstacle to the construction of socialism, Get away in Bergamo (1963) calls Catholics to collaborate on some issues, John XXIII writes the Pacem in Terris (1963) and opens up to confrontation with the communists. Gozzini grasps the “signs of the times” and publishes with Vallecchi Dialogue put to the test (1964), a book in which interventions by Catholic and communist intellectuals alternate, which opens the doors to dialogue and lays the foundations for future collaboration. Which was achieved, on a political level, in 1976, when Gozzini, together with five other Catholics (including Raniero La Valle) and the Waldensian shepherd Tullio Vinay, accepts the candidacy for the Senate as an independent in the PCI. A political operation that manifests the end of the political unity of Catholics in the DC, anticipated by the “Catholics for no” in the 1974 divorce referendum.
In his three legislatures in the Independent Left group (1976-1987), Gozzini supported some important laws – from 194 on abortion to 180 which closed mental asylums – and above all he signed the prison reform. With the dissolution of the independent Left and also of the PCI, which he reproaches for abandoning the “utopian charge” and for aligning itself with “Western civilisation”, political experience ends for Gozzini, but not the commitment to dialogue of those who, to use the effective expression of Alfonso Comín (leader of Christians for Socialism in Spain) was «a Christian in the party and a communist in the church».
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