# Alleanza Cattolica

Alleanza Cattolica (English: Catholic Alliance), originally called Foedus Catholicum, is an Italian Catholic association.

## Activities

The association's aim is to study and disseminate the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. Since 1973, Alleanza Cattolica has published the bimonthly magazine Cristianità. The magazine is dedicated to "the dissemination of the Church's social doctrine and counter-revolutionary thought". Cristianità has presented a revisionist interpretation of the Italian Risorgimento, influenced by the thought of Brazilian intellectual Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, analyzing the role of revolutionary forces in the historical process. While accepting the concept of a unified state spanning the national territory, Alleanza Cattolica seeks to re-examine the legitimacy of the secular order established after the Risorgimento.

## History
### Catholic traditionalism, association with SSPX: 1960-1981

Founded informally in 1960 by Giovanni Cantoni and Agostino Sanfratello, Alleanza Cattolica gained a more formal structure starting in 1968, with a governing directory from 1977 and a statute from 1998.
An article in Charlie Hebdo described Alleanza Cattolica as "the Italian subsidiary" of the Brazilian group Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP). Historian Alessandro Capone characterizes Alleanza Cattolica as "among the most influential centres in the traditionalist galaxy, not least because of its connections with specific sectors of the centre-right".
In January 1971, Agostino Sanfratello (from Piacenza), Marco Tangheroni (from Pisa), and Franco Maestrelli (from Milan) were the first to request a referendum against Italy's divorce law at the Court of Cassation.
The Pisa unit of Alleanza Cattolica, dedicated to Saint Henry the Emperor, included pharmacologist Giulio Soldani, historian Marco Tangheroni, psychiatrist Mario Di Fiorino, and brothers Attilio and Renato Tamburrini.
Alleanza Cattolica had a strong relationship with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Agostino Sanfratello, one of Alleanza Cattolica's founders, and Don Pietro Cantoni, brother of the other founder Giovanni Cantoni, became seminarians at Écône, the seminary founded by Lefebvre. However, Sanfratello later left the seminary, and Don Pietro was ordained a priest in December 1978.
On June 6, 1977, many Alleanza Cattolica members, including Baron Roberto de Mattei, Giulio Soldani, Massimo Introvigne, Mario Di Fiorino, and Attilio and Renato Tamburrini, attended a conference in Rome on the Second Vatican Council given by Archbishop Lefebvre, at the invitation of Princess Elvina Pallavicini.

### Break with Lefebvre, rapprochement with Vatican: 1981-present

In 1981 the relationship between the Society of Saint Pius X and the Italian association ended. A group of young Italian seminarians left the Écône seminary and were later incardinated into the Diocese of Apuania by Bishop Aldo Forzoni. Massimo Introvigne, a leader of Alleanza Cattolica, believes the profound reason for the split between Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Alleanza Cattolica was doctrinal, not political. A point of friction with Archbishop Lefebvre was the interpretation of Joseph de Maistre's writings. Introvigne argued that Lefebvre focused solely on de Maistre's Du Pape, ignoring de Maistre's concept of the original unity of religions ("true religion is more than two thousand years old; it was born on the day in which the days were born").
The 1981 turning point for Alleanza Cattolica, involving the departure of seminarians and priests from Écône, stemmed from what Cantoni viewed as a schismatic act: "the decision of Msgr. Lefebvre to consider confirmations of the Conciliar Church invalid and to re-administer them." Mario Di Fiorino countered Introvigne's claim, saying the archbishop's "prudent doubt" predated the June 6, 1977 conference and Mass at Palazzo Pallavicini, which Alleanza Cattolica's leaders attended. On May 22, 1977, at the Church of Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris (occupied by traditionalists), Archbishop Lefebvre, confirming over one hundred boys, expressed prudent doubts about the validity of the sacrament officiated according to the new rite.
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (2005) wrote that Archbishop Lefebvre also questioned the validity of confirmation due to the new "form" of the sacrament, drawn on August 15, 1971, from an Eastern confirmation formula, which he believed expressed the special character of confirmation less clearly, especially in vernacular translations. This doubt was aggravated when, on November 30, 1972, Paul VI accepted any vegetable oil as a valid matter for the sacrament, not just olive oil, contrary to Catholic tradition. In 1975, Archbishop Lefebvre told cardinals who criticized him for confirming in dioceses without bishops' consent and for re-confirming conditionally: "The faithful have the right to receive the sacraments in a valid way. I have a prudent doubt."
Soon after the election of Pope John Paul II, the new Pope received Archbishop Lefebvre in a private audience in November 1978. Relations appeared to improve, with discussions hinting at an agreement on accepting the council when interpreted in light of Tradition and the Church's constant Magisterium. Archbishop Lefebvre stated, "Ours is an era in which natural and supernatural law come before positive ecclesiastical law when the latter opposes it instead of being its channel." Roberto de Mattei, a leading figure in Alleanza Cattolica, writing after Giovanni Cantoni's death, interpreted the 1981 shift as a change in political strategy, referencing the Trotskyist term "entryism". He wrote: "In 1978 John Paul II was elected and Cantoni, who had great faith in the new Polish Pope, believed that Alleanza Cattolica should change its strategy, moving from 'opposition' to what he defined as 'entryism', i.e. collaboration with the authorities and ecclesiastical movements."
Alleanza Cattolica's statute dates to 1998. In 2012, Bishop Gianni Ambrosio of Piacenza-Bobbio recognized Alleanza Cattolica as an association of the Christian faithful. Its motto, Ad maiorem Dei gloriam et socialem, echoes that of the Society of Jesus. Its symbol is the Sacred Heart superimposed on a black eagle representing John the Evangelist, signifying "the will to be children of Mary."