Alcide De Gasperi was a founding father of Europe who dedicated his life to politics and helped shape the idea of a peaceful union of nations after the devastation of two world wars in Europe. He was an outspoken Catholic, former Vatican employee, and skilled politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Italy in 1946. Despite being hostile to fascists, he was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment, but was later released through Pope Pius XI’s intervention and became a librarian in the Vatican. De Gasperi’s path was marked by a continuous and profound relationship with God, matching his religious experience with his political choices. He understood that Europe needed to put an end to the 2000-year war and came to an agreement with other personalities from borders, including the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, to lay the foundations of a united and peaceful Europe. De Gasperi always understood politics as the highest form of charity, in the conviction that democracy can only be born on a sense of fraternity that had Christianity as its source.
Alcide De Gasperi: The Man Who Shaped a United and Peaceful Europe
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