Antonio Rosmini-Serbati IC | |
|---|---|
_Ritratto_di_Antonio_Rosmini_(1853-1856)_Galleria_d%2527Arte_Moderna_di_Milano.jpg) Portrait byFrancesco Hayez | |
| Born | (1797-03-25)25 March 1797 |
| Died | 1 July 1855(1855-07-01) (aged 58) |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Alma mater | University of Padua |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
Main interests | Philosophy of Mind,Moral Philosophy,Metaphysics,Epistemology,Theodicy,Natural Theology,Political Philosophy,Education |
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Antonio Francesco Davide Ambrogio Rosmini-Serbati, IC (Italian pronunciation:[anˈtɔːnjoroˈzmiːniserˈbaːti]; 25 March 1797 – 1 July 1855) was an ItalianCatholic priest and philosopher. He founded theRosminians, officially the Institute of Charity, and pioneered the concept of social justice and ItalianLiberal Catholicism.[1]
Alessandro Manzoni considered Rosmini the only contemporary Italian author worth reading.[2] Rosmini has been beatified in the Catholic Church.
Antonio Rosmini Serbati was born on 24 March 1797, at Rovereto, in the Austrian Tyrol. HIs brotherCarlo Rosmini 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.[3]
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.[4]
In 1828 he founded at Monte Calvario near Domodossola, a new religious community, the Institute of Charity, known generally since as theRosminians. 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 toPope Gregory XVI on 20 December 1838. The institute spread rapidly in England and Italy, and requests for foundations came from various countries.[3]
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 inItaly,England,Ireland,France, Wales, New Zealand, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Venezuela, and theUnited States. In London they were attached to the historicalChurch of St Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn.[5] In 1962,Rosmini College School for Boys was founded in Auckland, New Zealand by Father Catcheside.[6]
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.[3] Rosmini was invited to serve in the Roman Curia ofPope Pius IX as prime minister of thePapal States. He participated in the intellectual struggle which had for its object emancipation fromAustria, 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.[5] Upon establishment of theRoman Republic, 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.[citation needed]
Rosmini's works,Of the five wounds of the Holy Church andThe Constitution of Social Justice (seeWorks below), aroused great opposition, especially among theJesuits, and in 1849 they were placed upon theIndex.[7] Rosmini at once declared his submission and retired toStresa onLago Maggiore, 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.[5] Vincenzo Maria Gatti, the Dominican professor of theology at the College of Saint Thomas, the forerunner of thePontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas andMaster of the Sacred Palace, was instrumental in partially rehabilitating the works of Rosmini. In an article published inL'Osservatore Romano on 16 June 1876, Gatti made clear that Pius IX did not intend the "dimittantur" as amounting to wholesale condemnation.[8]
The controversy continued until 1887, whenPope Leo XIII 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."[9]
In 1998 Rosmini was named byPope John Paul II in the encyclicalFides et Ratio as one of the greater Christian thinkers.
The most comprehensive view of Rosmini's philosophical standpoint is to be found in hisSistema filosofico, 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 fromJohn Locke toGeorg Hegel, 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:
According to FatherBattista Mondin, Rosmini's philosophy cannot be defined asThomism because it lacks the fundamental real distinction betweenessence andexistence (Actus essendi), as well as the conception of God asEsse ut Actus.[10]
On 26 June 2006,Pope Benedict XVI signed a Decree of theheroic virtues, and hence declared Rosmini to beVenerable.[11] On 3 June 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the promulgation of a decree approving Rosmini's beatification. On 18 November 2007, he was beatified inNovara, Italy.
Of his numerous works, of which a collected edition in 17 volumes was issued in Milan (1842–44), supplemented byOpere postume in 5 volumes (Turin, 1859–74), the most important are:
The following have also been translated into English:
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 738–739. This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Rosmini and Rosminianism".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
