Antonio Rosmini
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Antonio Francesco Davide Ambrogio Rosmini-Serbati, IC (; 25 March 17971 July 1855) was an Italian
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
priest and philosopher. He founded the
Rosminians The Rosminians, officially named the Institute of Charity (), abbreviated I.C., are a Catholic Church, Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men founded by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio Rosmini and first organise ...
, officially the Institute of Charity, and pioneered the concept of social justice and Italian
Liberal Catholicism Liberal Catholicism was a current of thought within the Catholic Church influenced by classical liberalism and promoting the separation of church and state, freedom of religion in the civic arena, expanded suffrage, and broad-based education. ...
.
Alessandro Manzoni Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel ''The Betrothed (Manzoni novel), The Betrothed'' (orig. ) (1827), generally ranked among ...
considered Rosmini the only contemporary Italian author worth reading. Rosmini has been beatified in the Catholic Church.


Biography

Antonio Rosmini Serbati was born on 24 March 1797, at Rovereto, in the Austrian Tyrol. His brother
Carlo Rosmini Carlo Rosmini (29 October 1758 – 9 June 1827) was an Italian historian, mainly of biographies. Biography He was born to a noble and wealthy family of Roveredo. His brother was a prominent Catholic theologian Antonio Rosmini (Rosmini-Serbate) ...
was a secular writer. He studied at the University of Padua, and was ordained priest at Chioggia, on 21 April 1821. In 1822 he received a Doctorate in Theology and Canon Law.Cormack, George, and Daniel Hickey. "Rosmini and Rosminianism." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 15 November 2016.
During this time Rosmini formulated his "Principle of Passivity". Rosmini felt compelled to ask himself: Do my plans spring more from my own subjective desire to do good than from a desire to do the will of God?”. Reflecting in this way, Rosmini articulated the principle in two parts: be ready to undertake any work of charity but only so long as it is God's Providence that presents it; in the meantime, immerse oneself in the commitment to continual conversion, seeking the amendment of one's own life."Antonio Rosmini", Rosminians, Ireland
/ref>


The Institute of Charity

In 1828 he founded at Monte Calvario near Domodossola, a new religious community, the Institute of Charity, known generally since as the
Rosminians The Rosminians, officially named the Institute of Charity (), abbreviated I.C., are a Catholic Church, Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men founded by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio Rosmini and first organise ...
. In the autumn of 1830, he inaugurated the observance of the rule at Calvario, and from 1834 to 1835 had charge of a parish at Rovereto. Later foundations followed at Stresa and Domodossola. The Constitutions of the institute were approved by presented to
Pope Gregory XVI Pope Gregory XVI (; ; born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in June 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon enteri ...
on 20 December 1838. The institute spread rapidly in England and Italy, and requests for foundations came from various countries. The members might be priests or laymen, who devoted themselves to preaching, the education of youth, and works of universal charity—material, spiritual and intellectual. They work in
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
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,
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,
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, Wales, New Zealand, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Venezuela, and the
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. In London they were attached to the historical Church of St Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn. In 1962,
Rosmini College Rosmini College is a state integrated Catholic School, Catholic secondary school for boys, situated in Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand. The proprietor of the school is Roman Catholic Diocese of Auckland, the Bishop of Auckland. The school cater ...
School for Boys was founded in Auckland, New Zealand by Father Catcheside. Rosmini was retained as a political advisor to the then government of Piedmont. In August 1848, he was sent to Rome by King Charles Albert of Piedmont to enlist the pope on the side of Italy as against Austria. Rosmini was invited to serve in the Roman Curia of
Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...
as prime minister of the
Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...
. He participated in the intellectual struggle which had for its object emancipation from
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, but as a trusted ecclesiastical advisor and diplomat, he was not an initiator of the movement which ended in the freedom and unity of Italy. In fact, while eager for the deliverance of Italy from Austria, his aim was to bring about a confederation of the states of the country, which was to be under the control of the pope. Upon establishment of the
Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...
, the Pontiff was forced to flee and became estranged from his former advisor in political matters. The tenuous political circumstances made it very difficult to reconcile the two men's differing projects: innovative social and juridical reforms, however modest, fell victim to the more pressing existential need to defend the supremacy of the Church's temporal powers.


Writings

Rosmini's works, '' Of the five wounds of the Holy Church'' and ''The Constitution of Social Justice'' (see
Works Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * John D. Works (1847–1928), California senator and judge * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album), a Pi ...
below), aroused great opposition, especially among the
Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
, and in 1849 they were placed upon the
Index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...
. Rosmini at once declared his submission and retired to
Stresa Stresa is a ''comune'' (municipality) of about 4,600 residents on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the Italian region of Piedmont. about northwest of Milan. It is situated on road and rail routes to the Sim ...
on
Lago Maggiore Lake Maggiore (, ; ; ; ; literally 'greater lake') or Verbano (; ) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the List of lakes of Italy, second largest lake in Italy and the List of lakes of Switzerland, largest in southern Sw ...
, where he died. Before his death he had the satisfaction of learning that the works in question were dismissed, that is, proclaimed free from censure by the Congregation of the Index. Twenty years later, the word dismissed (''dimittantur'') became the subject of controversy, some maintaining that it amounted to a direct approval, others that it was purely negative and did not imply that the books were free from error. Vincenzo Maria Gatti, the Dominican professor of theology at the College of Saint Thomas, the forerunner of the
Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (PUST), also known as the ''Angelicum'' or ''Collegio Angelico'' (in honor of its patron, the ''Doctor Angelicus'' Thomas Aquinas), is a pontifical university located in the historic center of R ...
and
Master of the Sacred Palace In the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Theologian of the Pontifical Household () is a Roman Curial office which has always been entrusted to a Friar Preacher of the Dominican Order and may be described as the pope's theologian. The title w ...
, was instrumental in partially rehabilitating the works of Rosmini. In an article published in ''
L'Osservatore Romano ''L'Osservatore Romano'' is the daily newspaper of Vatican City which reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Catholic Church and the world. It is owned by the Holy See but is not an official publication, a role ...
'' on 16 June 1876, Gatti made clear that Pius IX did not intend the "dimittantur" as amounting to wholesale condemnation. The controversy continued until 1887, when
Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Ap ...
condemned forty of Rosmini's propositions. Referring to this condemnation, however, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document in 2001 in which it declared that "the meaning of the propositions, as understood and condemned by the Decree, does not belong to the authentic position of Rosmini." In 1998 Rosmini was named by
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...
in the encyclical ''
Fides et Ratio is an encyclical promoted by Pope John Paul II on 14 September 1998. It was one of 14 encyclicals issued by John Paul II. The encyclical primarily addresses the relationship between faith and reason. Cardinal Georges Cottier, who was secretary ...
'' as one of the greater Christian thinkers.


Thought

The most comprehensive view of Rosmini's philosophical standpoint is to be found in his ', in which he set forth the conception of a complete encyclopaedia of the human knowable, synthetically conjoined, according to the order of ideas, in a perfectly harmonious whole. Contemplating the position of recent philosophy from
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
to
Georg Hegel Georg may refer to: * Georg (film), ''Georg'' (film), 1997 *Georg (musical), Estonian musical * Georg (given name) * Georg (surname) * , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker * Spiders Georg, an Internet meme See also

* George (disambiguation) {{di ...
, and having his eye directed to the ancient and fundamental problem of the origin, truth and certainty of our ideas, he wrote: "If philosophy is to be restored to love and respect, I think it will be necessary, in part, to return to the teachings of the ancients, and in part to give those teachings the benefit of modern methods" (''Theodicy'', a. 148). He examined and analysed the facts of human knowledge, and obtained the following results: #that the notion or idea of being or existence, in general, enters into, and is presupposed by, all our acquired cognitions, so that, without it, they would be impossible #that this idea is essentially objective since what is seen in it is as distinct from and opposed to the mind that sees it as the light is from the eye that looks at it #that it is essentially true, because being and truth are convertible terms, and because in the vision of it, the mind cannot err, since error could only be committed by a judgment, and here there is no judgment, but a pure intuition affirming nothing and denying nothing #that by the application of this essentially objective and true idea the human being intellectually perceives, first, the animal body individually conjoined with him, and then, on the occasion of the sensations produced in him not by himself, the causes of those sensations, that is, from the action felt he perceives and affirms an agent, a being, and therefore a true thing, that acts on him, and he thus gets at the external world, these are the true primitive judgments, containing ##the subsistence of the particular being (subject), and ##its essence or species as determined by the quality of the action felt from it (
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
) #that reflection, by separating the essence or species from the subsistence, obtains the full specific idea (universalization), and then from this, by leaving aside some of its elements, the abstract specific idea (abstraction) #that the mind, having reached this stage of development, can proceed to further and further abstracts, including the first principles of reasoning, the principles of the several sciences, complex ideas, groups of ideas, and so on without end #finally, that the same most universal idea of being, this generator and formal element of all acquired cognitions, cannot itself be acquired, but must be innate in us, implanted by God in our nature. Being, as naturally shining to our mind, must therefore be what men call the light of reason. Hence the name Rosmini gives it of ideal being; and this he laid down as the fundamental principle of all philosophy and the supreme criterion of truth and certainty. This he believed to be the teaching of St Augustine, as well as of St Thomas, of whom he was an ardent admirer and defender. According to Father
Battista Mondin Battista is a given name and surname which means Baptist in Italian. Given named * Battista Agnese (died 1564), cartographer from the Republic of Genoa, who worked in the Venetian Republic * Battista Dossi, also known as Battista de Luteri, I ...
, Rosmini's philosophy cannot be defined as
Thomism Thomism is the philosophical and theological school which arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Thomas's disputed ques ...
because it lacks the fundamental real distinction between
essence Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...
and
existence Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does ...
('' Actus essendi''), as well as the conception of God as '' Esse ut Actus''.


The cause for canonization

On 26 June 2006,
Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...
signed a Decree of the
heroic virtue Heroic virtue is the translation of a phrase coined by Augustine of Hippo to describe the virtue of early Christian martyrs. The phrase is used by the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek pagan term hero described a person with possibly superhuman a ...
s, and hence declared Rosmini to be
Venerable ''The Venerable'' often shortened to Venerable is a style, title, or epithet used in some Christianity, Christian churches. The title is often accorded to holy persons for their spiritual perfection and wisdom. Catholic In the Catholic Churc ...
. On 3 June 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the promulgation of a decree approving Rosmini's beatification. On 18 November 2007, he was beatified in
Novara Novara (; Novarese Lombard, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous ...
, Italy.


Works

Of his numerous works, of which a collected edition in 17 volumes was issued in Milan (1842–44), supplemented by ''Opere postume'' in 5 volumes (Turin, 1859–74), the most important are: * *''The Principles of Moral Science'' (1831) *''The Restoration of Philosophy in Italy'' (1836) *''The Philosophy of Right'' (1841–45) The following have also been translated into English: * * * * *''Psychology'' (Anonymous) (1884–88) * * *


References


Further reading

* * Includes a biographical sketch and bibliography. * : * *


External links

*Antonio Rosmini, Lezioni di Maria Scalisi sull'Antropologia in servizio della scienza morale, in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJyGUDrn2DA * * * (
double-blind peer review Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is ...
ed and
Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
journal) {{DEFAULTSORT:Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio 1797 births 1855 deaths Founders of Catholic religious communities 18th-century Italian philosophers Italian beatified people People from Rovereto 19th-century Italian Roman Catholic theologians Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI Venerated Catholics by Pope Benedict XVI Liberal Catholicism 19th-century Italian philosophers People from Stresa