The Agony of the non expedit

Summarizing the debate from 1860 within the Roman Curia about the participation of Italian Catholics in general elections, the paper proposes the reconstruction of the abolition of non expedit during the pontificate of Benedict XV. New elements, therefore, integrate the acquisitions of classical and recent historiography on this theme. They are drawn from a rich and unpublished documentary heritage that has not yet been systematically examined, in particular reports and the documentation of three of the most important ministries of the Holy See’s government: the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Holy Office and the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. Following this documentation, it is clear how the Vatican’s ‘closed’ position on the involvement of Italian Catholics in national political life was neither effective nor definitive, even after the Holy Office officially proclaimed the non expedit to be a prohibition, in 1886. The end to the policy of abstention in 1919, therefore, turns out to be the pre-arranged end to a long agony