CONVERSIONE E IMPEGNO CULTURALE DI AGOSTINO GEMELLI IN DUE RECENTI STUDI

Abstract

The essay takes into account a couple of recent studies about the personal path of Edoardo Gemelli, later known in religion as father Agostino. As a medical student at the University of Pavia and Ghislieri College, Edoardo used to profess socialist ideas, but during his years there, he experienced a spiritual emergency, which urged him to the conversion to the Catholic faith. Figures, friends and the cultural milieu of that time are the matter of the study by Luciano Pazzaglia, who carried out a research about Gemelli’s early life. Also the study by Michele Madonna is closely related to those years and to the same perspective of Gemelli’s social and religious engagement. Here, the author explores the main issues about the relations between Church and State, which were debated during the first thirty years of the Catholic journal “Vita & Pensiero”.