Francesco Maria Raiti (1864-1932) e il suo episcopato nella Trapani del modernismo

Abstract

The Carmelite, Francesco Maria Raiti, elected bishop of Trapani in early 1900, acted as a pastor within a somewhat complex and  challenging historical and social set of events. The emergence of modernist conceptions and lifestyles, in some parts of the Church  and specifically in the papacy, gave rise to extreme positions of rigidity and closure. Among these positions, Monsignor Raiti was a  spokesman since the beginning of his Episcopate, fighting modernism and socialism with all possible means. Even using innovative  tools, such as printing, for his pastoral activity, he still held onto very harsh positions both from the point of view of practice and of  theology. At the advent of fascism in Italy, Bishop Raiti was very much in favour, showing a position unfortunately far removed from  the dramatic reality that Sicilian society was facing in the post-war crisis. His 26-year-long episcopate came to an end while there still  tension between the impossibility of curbing the strengthening of a Catholicism that was happy to connive with local powers and the  inability to oppose the spread of an ever more conscious and mature modernity.