This Friday marks the 100^th anniversary of one of the seminal moments in modern Catholic social action and political engagement, as it was on Jan. 18, 1919, that Don Luigi Sturzo founded Italy’s Popular Party. For Americans unfamiliar with Sturzo, he’s a bit like the John Courtney Murray of Italy, meaning the obligatory point of departure for any Catholic reflection on church/state relations.

His Popular Party was an effort to do two things at once: Insisting that Catholicism has something to say about public life, while at the same time respecting the essentially secular character of politics and democratic life. Sturzo’s famous appeal to the “free and strong,” issued on Jan. 18, 1919, still echoes in the Italian national memory.