Gramsci and the issue of religion: Catholic modernism and the Italian Partito Popolare

Gramsci's interest in Italian politics led him to tackle a key issue in the present-day discourse: the relationship between the Holy See and the national State. Additionally, he paid close attention to internal issues of Christianity, from its origins to his own times and - similar to many other socialist thinkers - he believed that there were several echoes between the early Christian experiences and contemporary socialism. From this arose his concern with the religious crisis of the early twentieth century - so-called 'Modernism' - as well as the story of the Partito Popolare (Popular Party, PPI), the organization founded by the priest Luigi Sturzo after the First World War, which was marked - especially amongst its left-wing components - by its anti-fascist positions.