Vita religiosa (Religious Life)

Vita religiosa (Religious Life - ed. Cappelli, Bologna, 1985) is the second of Aldo Capitini's "antifascist tetralogy". It was published first in 1942. Capitini's original idea for the title was "Parole di un persuaso" (which can be more or less translated "Words of Persuasion"), which is very significant: 'persuaso' is one of the various words and expressions used, and often coined, by Capitini - some of which still today are a matter for discussion as to their interpretation. Hence a source of difficulty for the translator, who in this text suggests a possible, but by no means definitive, translation (alternative suggestions would be welcome). The book is divided not into chapters, but into 24 passages (or meditations) with a title. Over the months will appear some extracts in instalments. The translator has decided to leave the original title with a translation alongside.
Translator's introduction



Operare nel mondo - Being active in the world.

All people, in every part of the world, whatever they do, have within them the possibility of spiritual life. All are, more or less according to their development and their good faith, consciences. They can live and understand art, thought, human passions, moral and social problems. All humanity is part of history without limits. I see that moral endeavour can abide in each man, as it abides in me when I am active, sincerely looking for the best in each action - sometimes with personal sacrifice. That I cannot say, "the spirit reaches a certain point, and that's all", is wonderful. Indeed, on many occasions I go beyond Man and I cast my attention on non-human beings, animals, plants, always around me. And it appears to me that this life and historical development extends also to them that live and are active, and I hope this happens better and better. However, surely in Man there is much more, when I think of possible acts of Goodness, of Justice, of Beauty, of Thought; of noble feelings and social structures he can accomplish.

Life is a continual searching for and discovery of these values (which, indeed, are at times written in capitals: Beauty, Truth, Right). When one lives by these values and is interested in and keen on artistic beauty, goodness, social justice, a higher moral ideal, noble and impassioned impulse and feeling, truth and the most coherent mental organisation, one does not ask oneself what the purpose of these values is and why we live. They are like a grace that enters us, and that exerts force even on those who would like to close in on themselves. We act in order to put those values into effect, and when they appear they seem superior to our meanness; we feel humbled, as it were, before a gift. If it is we who have acted, we say, "it is God who inspired and upheld me". If it is others who have acted, we say, "those are men beloved of God": Dante, Mazzini, St. Francis, Leopardi, or even any ordinary person; but our expression is 'angel' of goodness. The more we love those values, the more the whys and wherefores of life disappear: lovers do not question themselves about the reasons for their love.

Are these values all together in a mass, like wheat in a silo? What would be total artistic Beauty in the abstract, and not in the concrete work of art? What would total abstract Goodness be, and not the single act of goodness in a material person at whom we gaze enraptured? So, activity is required - which is to produce and criticise, to create and revise, to speak and listen. The one without the other does not give rise to value. Even the governing body, if it does not meet with criticism, does not undergo any control with the capacity to correct it, becomes bad administration, as in the regime described in the "Promessi Sposi". Production and criticism, responsibility and freedom, here is the foundation of true human activity, that which comes from Man as conscience, as moral centre. A great deal of work over centuries and centuries of civilization takes shape right here; as one goes on in life's experiences one realizes better and better that it is right to make the focal point conscience, the interior decision with which in good faith we face up to life (many times abandoned by all as if we were in a desert). Those who relinquish conscience, that sacred whole of thought and feeling, leave themselves open readily to tyrants and vices.

These values, these ideals, do not derive from facts, but stretch out to them, to raise and modify them; and if the facts do not respond straight away or if they turn against us, the spirit holds true, even seeing that the realization of its own ideal and the results of so much work be postponed. No adverse circumstances exist in which there does not remain always something to be done. Is the guarantee of one's own ideal to be found perhaps in immediate success? History moves forward through those who go and imbue reality in a thousand ways with a profound ideal they have framed according to the best needs and the whole spirit. For instance, I am writing a poem, but it lacks in value? The more effort, life and love I have put into this activity, the more other good (be it also not artistic) will be generated in my spirit and also in those around me who have seen - almost felt - me work. I want to achieve an ideal of improvement in society, but there is no response from the civil ranks? They deride me, they arrest me? But if that ideal has really existed it produces - even though not immediately political victories and social institutions - in myself and in others moral acts, goodness and spiritual elevation, works of art, new thoughts and feelings, and can also pre-announce and pave the way for more complex and longer-lasting, if not forthcoming, social accomplishments.

Each decision I take, each reflection, establishes me as a responsible centre. It is an initiative that I establish, a contraposition in which I am committed, a cosmic cry that rents the fabric of events. When the others, the turn of events, the successes are at variance with the programme that my history, my considered decision give me in that moment, then I am the living spirit of that programme. 

If the affairs of heaven and earth were to mix for some reason that in scientific classification I would call astronomical or meteorological; or a man through his wondrous actions showed me real powers denied to my force, I could not submit absolutely to the law that, after such an unsettling of events, might be issued from the heavens or from the miraculous man. I would say, "You, flex your muscles! What I have to do, however, can proceed only from my conscience, from my decision. The proof of duty I find in my persuasion of good, not in your threats, not in your miraculous deeds. I found societies, I collaborate with institutions and I receive them from history in order that they might help me, powerfully as they can, to actuate good, which is liberation from evil". I will go even further: I love them, since if childlike I relish the sound of thunder, the bold flashes of lightning, and I keep a watchful eye joyously on the many wondrous aspects that by and by the pages of the book of events present, as a mature man I revere the societies, institutions, groups of human beings that checked a tradition, a desire, a programme and who gathered and aroused spirit and passion; and I know the pain and the effort that man puts into establishing them. But at times the regularity of Nature strikes me with its insensitivity, and a flood covers a stone or a child's head without distinction. Often it also happens that a human institution in my eyes appears to be at fault. Whatever the case I have but one duty: the initiative - become centre of humanity against the flood, in the face of the institution that disseminates actions I, with all my conscience, would not wish were such .

My decision presupposes that in the stance I take I see something positive, a value to defend, a responsibility. Even in keeping myself alive, in eating, in resting, I recognise, defend, assert that this is what I have to do, I take responsibility for it. At that point, in that moment that is the action to be done, the stance to be taken. Then I shall pass on to others, as in ten years' time I will have a different suit from my present one, but that does not alter the fact that now I wear this one, and that today I eat even though tomorrow I will eat again. An exhaustive act cannot be performed, does not exist; one has to perform act after act, that is where the absolute lies: that I have to perform this act here, straight away. Is this hard? Do you wish to renounce responsibility - which is, that here and now this act, and not another, must be performed? If so, you will lose the freedom of your decision, the infinity of conscience, all of which lies in this opportunity, joyous and hard at the same time, to decide.

L'orizzonte - The horizon

Where is my firmament? Until quite late in my life I felt that the sky of the air above me was something absolutely superior, abode of things divine. From the heavens of luminous air could come marvellous and long-awaited things. At night I thought that from between two distant stars might be about to appear something special and longed-for. But from the heavens does not come anything if not that which is similar to the earth; in that space there are celestial bodies, matter similar to this; between the heavens and the earth the difference is only one of perspective. As does the earth, the heavens look at me during my existence, and I love them both. The harmony of the earth, the countless stars also in groups above the towers and peaks, the silent dawns, the brightness of the long summer afternoons; wherever I go the sky and the earth go with me. I have an old habit of going up to look for the horizon. I love the windows from which one can see a portion of mountains. Towers and peaks thrill me, because I can see the whole line between the earth and the sky; but Jove and the angels have vanished.

This is how I have sought and seek always. I apply myself to many things, I do not allow my spirit to be sluggish, I take it to the field of action. I go over human history time and again and I find ever new, beautiful things of value. I am convinced of work, and just as the cult of the horizon, in me the cult of being active in human history is ancient and deep. Since I was a boy I have tended to see human epochs from above, looking for their meaning, asking myself, "And today?" I have developed a certain level of culture; I did not only learn facts, but I looked for something that would interest more the intimate part of my being, which had beauty, or which were acts of goodness as though stimulating me directly, as it were. I felt that a stimulus came to me from all culture. So, I have searched for and found always something. More and more I have felt all humanity and its historical life past and present as if it were accompanying me. Many times at night between one period of sleep and another I think of the city which surrounds me, of my land, of all humanity. This horizon is always with me, it is not lifeless; there is always something in movement, diverse, more alive. So I no more regard ancient state or the traditional church as something absolute, which sits steady on an eternal pivot. I see them rise, evolve and fall. The horizon of history and of continuous activity is much wider. History and everyone's activity is more inside my conscience. I feel better accompanied by history as by the horizon.

How I tormented myself as a boy because of these two terms: spirit and matter ! I felt I could not accept the separation, yet it was on the tongues of many. I dreamt of a life that took with it all matter instead of leaving it outside the door, as it were. Why not bring it into joy, into the élan of the spirit? If I look back on my boyhood and my youth, I see some objects, I mean inanimate objects, into which I put a great deal of my spirit: the vegetable garden of my schoolmistress when I was five, one of our windowsills, the countryside where I stayed on holiday, nooks in my town, a piece of furniture, an article of clothing - in my spirit they are so present and exalted that where is the difference between spirit and matter? As I have grown up and my life has unravelled, has become complex, this anguish has disappeared. No more have I said, "spirit and matter", but caught up in numerous problems I have tried to solve them singly, to study, to earn a living, to improve my body to make friends, to understand the beauty of art, to comprehend philosophy; and so in thought and in continuous feelings I saw that dualism of spirit and matter overcome. Living sincerely and passionately, where was that great contrast any more? I no longer suffered at seeing matter outside the normal life of the spirit, which I did feel when I was tempted almost to run and become matter with matter, to stay with her because I could not allow her to be excluded. Instead of doing this, it has happened that my life has caught me up in its activity, and I have found myself with matter close, a companion, inside the light and not outside. In the same way that as a boy I passed near villas, buildings, universities; I thought about newspapers, magazines and books; about associations and ranks of families; and I always dreamed of being able to enter and it seemed as if I had to stay over here, on one side, with all those things on the other; and on some occasions I would have entered straightaway, as it were, to ask to see, to stay; then, without thinking anymore about it, only following various matters in my life, I have entered, and that separation no longer exists; thus I no more see that great contrast; matter and spirit are obsolete in my daily life.

Come agire su di te - Ways of acting on you

Man as moral centre, having directives and ideals, moves to realize them in the world around him, and to this end uses the means he possesses or procures; among these strength: he chops down trees, for instance, to make himself a home, he founds iron and makes stronger beams from it. However, I can avoid the use of force in certain occasions when it might strike other beings similar to us. So, I will multiply the other activities, I will come up with thousands of other ways in which I do not use physical force on you. I want to come out only with arguments which appeal directly to your thought and feelings. Considering you as spirit and thought, I try not to act on you with deeds which strike your physical person painfully, aiming to change your spirit and thought. I do not try, for example, to make you understand Dante's poetry by punching you. Regarding what I think is good for you or for everyone universally, as a way of carrying out a certain action I choose these means:
1) my inner conviction which, being already deep and experienced, sets up in the spiritual world where inmost conscience listens to everything an interior force which sooner or later will count externally, even though it not be brought out straight away;
2) the incitation which example produces: that is, the exterior and public demonstration of what I believe to be good; 
3) direct expression to you through words.
And if I do not kill you, this does not mean I accept your dominion; indeed it is exactly because of this that I have the right (since I do not stifle your opportunity to change) and the duty (since he who does not kill has to do as those small animals who reproduce and become more numerous, and the gigantic animals disappear from the face of the earth!) to increase my activity and to prove your error in a thousand ways.
The more I use direct physical force, the more I make it difficult for the spirit and thought to reach a position, and even more, all told, I make it difficult for the life of the conscience to unfold. You may achieve a result in one part, but you lose in the others. If by beating him I make a son more servile, it could be that I suffocate in him a flourishing life which may have brought him to studies, friendship, respect for others, to an enthusiasm and lyrical abandon, which is a great value, a lofty quality.