To avert dangers such as “irrelevance”, “insignificance” or the presumed “liquidation” of the Catholic movement in Italy, all Christians must feel as an “urgent appeal” and an “indispensable task” the need to “serve the cause of man in his entirety, recognizing that this cause, for a believer, cannot but be identified with the ‘catholic cause'”. So declares the document: “Towards a revival of the Catholic movement in Italy”, presented in Rome on 26 March. “Starting out anew from the contents of the social doctrine of the Church, to restore substance to the cultural horizon and guide the normal work in social apostolate and civilian life”: this is the basic objective of the campaign, promoted and signed by 94 believers, variously involved in ecclesial associations, trades unions, volunteer service, cooperation and other social, civil and economic institutions. The “Catholic cause”, the document points out, “is not a new form of fundamentalism” but “the will and the capacity of Catholics” to tackle the cultural and social changes of our time through “exchange and dialogue with all men of good will, without silencing their own convictions”.
