Ortensio Zecchino, Why We Cannot Not Call Ourselves “Christians”. Readings and disputes on the famous essay by Benedetto Croce, Rubbettino Editore, Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro) 2024, pages 255, euro 18.00.Both the Preface (pages 11-15) by Eugenio Mazzarella - philosopher and, as he defines himself, «a Christian man… reasonably obliged to transcendence by what I see in immanence» (page 13), and the Afterword by Dino Cofrancesco (pages 231-249: a true essay after the essay!) which precisely, as stated in the title, offers «a modest non-philosophical commentary on the essay by Ortensio Zecchino» (page 231), already highlight well, albeit synthetically, the various emerging profiles in Ortensio Zecchino's research. Above all, they outline the underlying themes of the essay, which Benedetto Croce published ten days after a sleepless night on August 16, 1942, during which the idea of writing it also occurred to him (page 5).Appearing in “La Critica” on November 20, 1942, with the famous title Why We Cannot Not Call Ourselves “Christians” (page 6), this essay by Croce, written not without “labor… in those terrible times” (page 88, number 79), Zecchino - firmly convinced that it should not be read in isolation, but rather “in a continuum with the others of the same period” (page 196), “in the context of the writings that came from Croce’s pen in those terrible years between the agony of fascism and the dawn of democracy” (page 138) -, therefore examines the premises, the contents and the outcomes; and from the very first bars, he clarifies the text and context, as in the opening scene of a theatrical action, of which the rest of the pages will offer a meticulous analysis and a very informed analytical development, also the result of archive consultations that are punctually reported in the course of the gripping exposition. Croce's was an essay that enjoyed «an extraordinary fortune», having been published «in the midst of a “world” war», in a «Europe» that «now appeared Nazified» (page 9) and when «in the spring of '42 the first creaks of the fascist regime had begun to appear» (page 10). The future organization of a new Order was being hypothesized, involving parties, intellectuals and even the Holy See. The volume reminds us: «At the Catholic University of Milan, already at the end of 1941, a group of “little professors” had begun to gather around Giuseppe Dossetti… In August 1941, Spinelli, Rossi and Colorni’s manifesto For a free and united Europe had been launched from Ventotene… In September of that 1942, Alcide De Gasperi, with a handful of volunteers, founded the Christian Democracy in Milan, in Enrico Falk’s house» (page 11). Later, Croce’s peculiar relationship with the “dear De Gasperi” would be intense (Croce’s last letter to him is dated 25 January 1951), as will be seen particularly, after Croce died on 20 November 1952, in the oration in memoriam pronounced by De Gasperi, in which, as his daughter attests, her father’s emotional voice expressed his feelings towards the “precious friend” (page 195).Zecchino's long and informed survey concludes with the convincing observation that Croce's essay "cannot be read in isolation, but in a continuum with others from the same period" (page 196); that is, "the essay, for the time in which it was written and for the high profile it had, was intended to be an appeal to the world... but it also wanted to constitute... a strong ideological motivation to coagulate a political alliance in Italy between forces sincerely sensitive to the defense of freedom" (page 201).This is the context in which we must understand the disputes that Croce's writing will raise and, periodically, still raises. Zecchino examines almost all of them, offering the reader a lesson in method. In fact, on the one hand, the writing must be explored in depth, taking into account Croce's state of mind and the things already manifested since the Philosophy of Practice of 1908 (page 70) - the philosopher had already mentioned some aspects in the Soliloquy of an Old Philosopher of 1942 (page 66), and had set them as premises in his essay of 1940, entitled The Benefit of Christ (page 68). In short, Croce "felt burdened by the duty of not remaining silent and of making his voice heard" (page 13). On the other hand, Zecchino notes and realizes, it is necessary to make a meticulous reconstruction of all the interpretative interventions, even critical ones, that were aroused by the great uproar generated by Croce's essay (page 15), starting from the examination of the «main argument of the Catholic side». In this part, it was hypothesized «that behind Croce's openness there was hidden – something obvious – a historicist and immanentistic vision, in irreconcilable contrast with the transcendent vision proper to Christianity» (page 15); but even on the secular side, there was no lack of reservations, such as the ...
![Ortensio Zecchino, why we cannot but call ourselves Christians, readings and disputes on the essay by B. Croce-[P. Giustiniani] Podcast By cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41WRDd6DgwL._SL500_.jpg)
