Social Christian Party (Italy)

Not to be confused with Social Christians.

Social Christian Party Partito Cristiano Sociale
Leader	Gerardo Bruni
Founded	September 8, 1943 (1943-09-08)
Dissolved	April 18, 1948 (1948-04-18)
Merged into	Italian Socialist Party
Ideology	Christian socialism Christian left
Political position	Left-wing
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

The Social Christian Party (Italian: Partito Cristiano Sociale) was a political party founded and led by the Italian philosopher and librarian of the Vatican Library Gerardo Bruni.

History

Born at the beginning as a movement of Christians during the Resistance partisans participated with other groups to their initial meetings to help form Christian Democracy. The founder, however, occurred an irremediable conflict Bruni with other groups and Christian Democrats, too moderate and positions close to capitalism, and they separated. The movement was transformed into a party in elections for the Constituent Assembly on June 2, 1946. The party defended the Republic, came with its own symbol (formed by a book and a shovel over a cross), collected 51,088 votes equal to 0.22% nationally, and elected a representative, Gerard Bruni.

The manifesto of 1946 outlined the identity of the party in Christian socialism, putting stakes very clear and pointing the way of absolute autonomy, even in a clear place on the left:

We are not the Christian Democrats because we do not accept any compromise with the capitalist world unjust and oppressive, in a party where live rich and poor, capitalists and workers are always the poor to be worse. We are not Marxists or Communists, because we are not materialists, because we do not want dictatorship, nor a Member of our boss, why not admit foreign dependencies. We are not in the Socialist Party because despite new trends is not yet clearly free of the old materialistic mentality, because it has not yet found its way and independent living. We are social teaching. Christian socialism does not mean socialism "right" means the primacy of spirit, respect for the person and his natural and eternal, it means absolute loyalty to a radical program of political renewal and economic development. The Constituent Assembly we will defend vigorously, along with other Catholics, our Christian principles and will support our socialist cause, which is the cause of all workers.

The choice of autonomy than the other left parties, particularly with respect to Italian Communist Party (PCI) distinguished the Social Christian Party and the Christian Left Party (formerly the "Movement of Catholic Community") of Franco Rodano which merged in the PCI since 1945. Bruni at the Constituent Assembly, inter alia, as Nenni and unlike Togliatti, was against the inclusion of the Concordat in the Constitution and voted against. The party is standing in the elections of 1948 siding on the left, but refusing to enter the lists of the Popular Democratic Front. With the little strength which was available and the ostracism of the Church (Bruni in 1947 lost his job in the Vatican Library for its policy positions), the party picked up 72,854 votes equal to 0.28% but no seats in parliament. Following this defeat, the party broke up and the founder Bruni continued his activities in certain movements of the Christian Left and independent socialist groups (including the 1953-57 experience of the Independent Socialist).

Electoral results

Italian Parliament

Chamber of Deputies
Election year	# of overall votes	% of overall vote	# of overall seats won	+/–	Leader
1946	51,088 (#14)	0.22	1 / 556	-	Gerardo Bruni
1948	72,854 (#10)	0.28	0 / 574	1	Gerardo Bruni

Senate of the Republic
Election year	# of overall votes	% of overall vote	# of overall seats won	+/–	Leader
1948*	943,219 (#4)	4.16	0 / 237	–	Gerardo Bruni

Notes

• In 1948, for the Senate the PSC run under the Socialist Unity.

Books

• Antonio Parisella, Gerardo Bruni e i cristiano-sociali, Edizioni Lavoro, Rome 1984 (in Italian).