Abstract

The article presents seven unpublished letters exchanged between two very active figures on the twentieth-century Italian religious scene: Giuseppe Dossetti and David Maria Turoldo. The letters bear witness to the constant interest they expressed for each other's views over the years. In 1950 Turoldo wrote to Dossetti, then Deputy Secretary of the Christian Democrat party, to express his disappointment at the ruling party's lack of a social policy, urging more decisive reform. The subsequent letters reveal both men's disillusionment with the Italian ecclesiastical scene's conservatism, in contrast with the Second Vatican Council that both had seen as the promise of a pastoral, theological, and spiritual renewal. The correspondence also reveals exchanges aimed at helping some people in difficulty, as well as meeting and collaborating together.