Giuseppe Federici Study Center – For a new onset
Press release no. 94/18 of the 7 December 2018, Saint Ambrose

A new volume of the Social History of the Church by Mons. Benign
The “Sodalitium Book Center” has published the fourth volume of the work Social History of the Church of Mons. Umberto Benigni. We recommend all readers to purchase this fundamental work by the founding prelate of the Sodalitium Pianum, which could be a beautiful Christmas present.
Mons. Umberto Benigni, Social History of the Church vol. 4, L’apogeo, 18,00 euro
https://www.sodalitiumshop.it/epages/106854.sf/it_IT/?ObjectPath=/Shops/106854/Products/066
Previous volumes:
https://www.sodalitiumshop.it/epages/106854.sf/it_IT/?ObjectPath=/Shops/106854/Products/099
Preface to the fourth volume
“miserably in ruins”
With these famous words Pope Leo XIII – Umberto Benigni's bishop in Perugia, the Pontiff who called him to Rome – described Christianity in the encyclical of 1 November 1885, Immortal Gods.
The program of Saint Pius. Benigni was a faithful collaborator – it was to restore this Christian civilization of which his predecessor spoke: “No, Venerable Brothers – we must remember this energetically in these times of social and intellectual anarchy, in which everyone poses as a doctor and legislator -, the city will not be built differently from how God built it; society will not be built, if the Church does not lay the foundations and direct its work; no, civilization no longer needs to be invented, nor the new city to be built on the clouds. It existed, it exists; it is Christian civilization, it is Catholic civilization. It is simply a matter of establishing it and restoring it relentlessly on its natural and divine foundations against the ever-reviving attacks of unhealthy utopia., of revolt and impiety: "establish all things in Christ" (Enciclica Our apostolic charge, 25 August 1910).
Christian civilization, Catholic civilization already existed: it only needs to be continually restored. In this volume, Mons. Benini describes its apogee, from the 9th to the 14th century. Right, the disenchanted and realist spirit of our Author does not even idealize the medieval period, that is, the apogee of Christianity: Indeed, it describes the pitfalls of the wicked and the weaknesses of the good, the continuous struggles of the Church with its enemies, he does not ignore the underground work of heresies and Israel, of the Byzantinism that it becomes, in the West, Ghibellinism, and the other factors that will lead to the crisis of the medieval model.
The two volumes that make up this volume, the fourth of a work that included nine, they were written a good seven years apart: the first volume, Indeed, it is from 1922 (when the previous volume was published, the third in the series), while the second volume is from 1929. Il 1922 Therefore (which we talked about in the introduction to volume III) it was a particularly fruitful year for the social history of the Church. A precious unsigned item (but of Father Boulin, the right arm, in France, del Sodalitium pianum) reveals to us the plans of the Umbrian Monsignor in that period, regarding the work we reprint: “Since the war and the Pontificate of Benedict XV had given events a very different course, Mons. Benigni took the opportunity to retreat into a studious semi-retreat. In it he strives to complete the monument promised to all those who were able to appreciate his teaching: this Social History of the Church which from the beginning manifests itself as a brilliant essay on the political history of Catholicism. The author seems to have condensed all the treasures of a long experience in contemporary affairs, of an immense reading ability, of a study of sources renewed by the originality of the points of view and the depth of the study. The most competent intelligences do not hesitate to say hello, in this historian so traditional in spirit and so daring in methods, a sort of ecclesiastical Macaulay, writer with acute verve, penetrating analyst of social figures and groups, who excels in evoking them on the world stage” (Jews and Catholicism according to the Social History of the Church by Mgr Umberto Benigni, in International Review of Secret Societies, 1922, year II, file VI, p. 735, with a biography of the author and extracts from the work concerning Israel). Unfortunately, the enthusiasms of 1922 they had no follow-up, and social history, as said, he completed the fourth volume only in 1929. Unfortunately… or fortunately! Fortunately, as Mons. Benigni soon emerged from the "scholarly semi-retirement" (if it ever existed in the life of the volcanic prelate) to reorganize the dissolved Sodalitium pianum under new guises: no longer an ecclesiastical body, needing the approval of the Church (it had now become impossible to hope for it) but a Roman Agreement for Social Defense (IRDS), founded in 1923 That, not being an established group but a simple means of information, was intended to connect and, precisely, information, all those who in some way could oppose the Revolution, although not necessarily Catholic. That's how the 1924 saw the creation of the Veritas bulletin, of the Urbs agency (that from 1928 became a publishing house) and the monthly Romana. Social Defense collaborated with the whole world: Mons. Benigni receives information and sometimes visits those fighting for "social defense" in England, in the United States, in France, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Québec and Romania, in Spain and Egypt... and takes care to inform the Italian Government itself (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dal 1923 al 1928, and that of the Interior starting from 1927). Especially since 1926 al 1929 controversy rages, which we could say is deadly, and not without low blows, among the Jesuits of Civiltà Cattolica (Father Rose) and Mons. Benign, against the backdrop of the Action Française affair and Fascism, controversy that did not escape the keen eye of Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks. Il 1929 it will mark a turning point for everyone: the Concordat between Italy and the Holy See will have its consequences in the integral Catholic world, with the rupture between the French (against the agreement) and the Italians, and closure, after ten years of publications, of the magazine Fede e Ragione by Don Paolo de Toth. Il 30 March 1930, Mons. Benign, I don't sleep, I don't throw (according to his motto assumed when he became apostolic prothonotary) he wrote: I finish today 68 years. What a Via Crucis!
He will have less than four years left to live (and a final volume of the Social History to be published).
source: http://www.centrostudifederici.org/un-volume-della-storia-sociale-della-chiesa-mons-benigni/