This essay analyzes the work of Paolo Prodi (1932–2016), which is characterised by a constant reflection on secularisation. As a democratic Catholic, he explored the relationship between the Roman Church and the modern world starting from the Council of Trent and from the dual figure of the pope as a temporal ruler and spiritual guide. His original contribution concerned the conflict between law and conscience: a problem that led him to design a triptych of books on the foundations of the (...) western world. He was influenced not only by Verfassungsgeschichte (German constitutional history), but also by Harold Berman. If for Weber the modern world was born from the Reformation, for Berman it was the ‘Gregorian revolution’ that changed the fate of Latin Europe. For Prodi, too, the medieval conflict between canon and civil law introduced a peculiar structure in Europe that would last until the triumph of the nation states and the so-called ‘political religions’. In his three books (the first dedicated to the oath, the second to justice, the last to economics), Prodi placed at the centre of his analysis the notion of forum; the history of moral theology and casuistry and the relationship between penitence and justice. (shrink)

1. Tra i propositi di riforma che Giustiniani e Querini caldeggiarono nella lettera al nuovo pontefice Leone X vi era l’intento non secondario di sradicare gli atti, i riti e le credenze che gli autori definirono con il termine di ‘superstizione.’1 Come si legge nel Libellus, si trattava di un flagello terribile che, associato con l’ignoranza, comportava gravi rischi di peccato mortale che avevano una precisa scaturigine: lo stato deplorevole del clero regolare e secolare, dal quale il popolo dei fedeli (...) traeva cattivi esempi come “da una fonte” o da una “radice”; dall’alto al basso, per così dire.2 La superstizione è “generatrice di tutti i mali,”3 avversaria della vera fede, peccato capitale contro la religione:.. (shrink)