Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies

The figure and work of don Franzoni in the post-conciliar period

The research intends to focus, in its genesis and development, on the story of Dom Giovanni Battista Franzoni, abbot of San Paolo Fuori le Mura (Rome), Council father and theologian. Franzoni’s experience fits into a classic paradigm of 20th-century Catholicism, namely that of the politicization of faith, characterizing itself with its own receptions and interpretations of the Second Vatican Council. For this reason the research work will be developed in the direction of a contextualization of the figure and work of Franzoni in relation both to the field of tension between updating and tradition within the Church in the post-conciliar period, and in relation to the political, cultural and social Italian contemporary events, from the explosion of ’68 to the movements for civil rights. The goal is to decipher the path of Giovanni Franzoni not exclusively on a biographical level but in the particular context of the reception of the Second Vatican Council and, in general, in that of Italy’s struggles, social movements and dissent.