ONE OF THE GOOD ONES

 

Today, few politicians have a reputation for ethics far less holiness, but after WWII, there cropped up men who would have a lasting effect on their country. We have seen Venerable Robert Schuman (French), the Italians, Servant of God Alcide DeGaspari, the foe of fascism,  Servant of God Father Luigi Sturzo, the priest politician, and Venerable Giorgio La Pira, the lay Dominican.

SERVANT OF GOD ALDO ROMEO MORO was born in  1916. He rose to be a prominent statesman and politician as a member of the Christian Democrat Party, eventually becoming the 38^th Prime Minister of Italy from 1963 to 1968 and again from 1974 to 1976.

Known as one of Italy’s longest serving Prime Misters in modern times, Aldo Moro is also considered the Father of the Italian “left of center” politics and a very popular leader in the Italian Republican history. An intellectual by temperament and education, he was known as a mediator, especially within his own political party as well as with the Italian Communist Party of his time.

Aldo Moro implemented a series of social and economic reforms that modernized the country. Due to his accommodation with the Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, known as the Historic Compromise, Moro is widely considered to be one of the most prominent fathers of the modern Italian center-left.

 On March 16, 1978 Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the radical “Red Brigade” and killed after fifty-five days of captivity, on May 9^th.. His body was found in a parked red car on a street in the center of Rome, not far from the church of Gesu, also near the headquarters of both the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Communist Party. 

He was born near Lecce in the Apulia region (southeast) of Italy. He studied law at the University of Bari, where he later taught philosophy of Law, colonial policy and criminal Law. At the age of twenty, in 1935, he joined the Catholic University Students’ Association in Bari. (Photo: with his brother Alberto, on left, who died in 1944)

Four years later, with the approval of Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montoni, who later became Pope (St.) Paul VI, Aldo Moro was chosen as president of the Catholic University’s Students’ association, a post he kept until 1942, when he was succeeded by Guilio Andreotti, another important Italian politician.

Initially interested in social democratic policies, eventually Aldo Moro’s Catholic faith and convictions directed him toward the newly founded Christian Democrat Party. There he befriended Guiseppe Dossetti, another prominent politician who in later life was founder of a Catholic religious community near Bologna.

In 1942 Aldo Moro married Eleonara Chiavarelli, when they were both about 36 years old. They had four children, three girls and one boy. 

Aldo Moro was also an active part of Catholic Action, which was a strong lay movement in Italian Catholic culture and the seedbed for many religious and priestly vocations.

Eventually Aldo Moro became vice-president of the Christian Democrats and took part in an editing of the Italian Constitution. In 1948 he was elected to the Italian Parliament and remained active in politics until his death. During his first term as Prime Minister of Italy beginning in 1963, his political career promoted housing for the poorer sectors of society as well as education initiatives for students of all ages.

 The minimum wage was raised during his time as Prime Minister and pensions for seniors were promoted. Health care was also a concern of his. He was considered a tenacious leader and mediator between varying political parties of the day. He also worked to integrate young people, women and laborers into ordinary Italian life. The need for democracy was a constant theme in his political approach.

When in 1978 the militant far-left organization known as the “Red Brigade” abducted Aldo Moro off a street in Rome, he was not immediately harmed, but police and bodyguards accompanying him, five in number, were murdered by his abductors.

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At the time he was kidnapped Aldo Moro was heading to parliament for a crucial vote on a ground-breaking alliance he had proposed between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists. Both parties had strong objections, even abhorrence, about the alliance. Both Moscow and Washington, DC, were also apparently unhappy about the proposal. 

A general strike was carried out in Italy during the Prime Minister’s abduction in 1978 and searches for him took place in Rome, Milan and Turin. During the almost two months of his captivity, he was allowed to correspond some with family and friends. Attempts were made to have him released but his kidnappers would not move.  Even Pope Paul VI, who had known Aldo Moro for decades, offered himself in exchange for Aldo.

The Red Brigade had a private trial and Aldo Moro was found guilty and sentenced to death. The kidnappers sent out demands that unless sixteen Red Brigade members were released from prison, he would be killed. Terrorist demands were not met and Aldo Moro was ultimately shot ten times, then left in the trunk of a red Renault  that was parked on Via Michaelangelo Caetani on May 9, 1978. The place seemed carefully selected, as midway between the headquarters of the Italian Communists and the Christian Democrats.

Though largely forgotten today outside Italy, the kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro marked an important turning point in contemporary Catholic history, one whose consequences are still being felt. For the Catholic church, the fallout from the Moro affair was immense. Combined with Italy’s adoption of a liberal abortion law in early 1978, the Moro affair helped to seal a growing alienation between the church and the secular left – forces that in the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had seemed to be moving towards detente.

While Aldo Moro is not presently being considered for canonization as our past politicians of the same era, he certainly was “one of the good ones”.

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