Items20The creator’s order
  1. 1Luigi SturzoLuigi SturzoBorn 26 Nov 1871A Sicilian priest, Sturzo founded the Italian People's Party in 1919 on a point that still defines the tradition: a party inspired by Christian values but independent of the Church hierarchy and open to non-Catholics. Its programme of local autonomy, proportional representation and cooperatives…0i
  2. 2Konrad AdenauerKonrad AdenauerBorn 5 Jan 1876Adenauer's biggest contribution to the tradition was the CDU itself: a "Union" that brought Catholics and Protestants into one party for the first time, after their division had weakened German democracy before 1933. As chancellor from 1949 to 1963 he anchored West Germany in the West and in…0i
  3. 3Alcide De GasperiAlcide De GasperiBorn 3 Apr 1881De Gasperi built Italy's Christian Democracy into the party that governed for nearly fifty years, and he did it by refusing to be the Church's instrument: he governed with smaller secular parties even when the 1948 landslide gave him an outright majority in the Chamber. He chose NATO, the Marshall…0i
  4. 4Robert SchumanRobert SchumanBorn 29 Jun 1886Schuman, of France's Popular Republican Movement, was a devout Catholic who spoke of reconciliation with Germany in moral terms, but his 1950 declaration was practical: pool French and German coal and steel under a common High Authority so that war between them became "materially impossible".…0i
  5. 5Ludwig ErhardLudwig ErhardBorn 4 Feb 1897Erhard was a Protestant economist with no particular religious politics, which is the point: he shows how the CDU absorbed ordoliberal ideas from outside Catholic social teaching. His 1948 currency reform and abolition of price controls launched the "economic miracle", and the "social market…0i
  6. 6Leopold FiglLeopold FiglBorn 2 Oct 1902Austria's interwar Christian Social Party had ended in Engelbert Dollfuss's dictatorship and a brief civil war with the socialists. Figl, a farmers' leader who survived Dachau, helped found the People's Party in 1945 to break with that past, and as chancellor governed in a grand coalition with the…0i
  7. 7Amintore FanfaniAmintore FanfaniBorn 6 Feb 1908Fanfani led Christian Democracy's interventionist left and argued that Catholic social teaching was incompatible with laissez-faire capitalism. His INA-Casa plan from 1949 built hundreds of thousands of homes for workers, and his government of 1962 nationalised electricity as part of the "opening…0i
  8. 8Aldo MoroAldo MoroBorn 23 Sept 1916Moro was the party's great mediator. He brought the Socialists into government in 1963, and in the 1970s negotiated the "historic compromise" under which the Communist Party supported a Christian Democratic government from outside, arguing that Italy's democracy needed its two mass parties to…0i
  9. 9Franz Josef StraussFranz Josef StraussBorn 6 Sept 1915Strauss led Bavaria's Christian Social Union for nearly three decades and stands for its more conservative, nationalist wing. His rule that there must be "no democratically legitimate party to the right of the CSU" defined a strategy: absorb right-wing voters rather than let a rival form. He was…0i
  10. 10Giulio AndreottiGiulio AndreottiBorn 14 Jan 1919Seven times prime minister, Andreotti is the case for the prosecution against Christian Democracy's long dominance. He was a skilled operator who led the Communist-backed governments of the late 1970s and was close to the Vatican, but also the patron of a Sicilian faction tied to organised crime:…0i