Italian Catholics and the Suez Crisis: Between Neo-Atlanticism, Pacifism, and Third Worldism

Abstract

The impact of the 1956 Suez crisis marked the Italian political debate in a significant way. A year after the Bandung Conference and days after the meeting of Brijuni, between Tito, Nasser, and Nehru, the Egyptian initiative and the consequent war opened up a totally unexpected scenario for the Mediterranean. The crisis generated political worries and tensions, even within the Segni government and among the Christian Democrats, but at the same time opened up original movements within the Western Alliance. In addition to neo-Atlanticism and the new dynamism impressed by Enrico Mattei on Ente nazionale idrocarburi (ENI)’s foreign policy toward post-colonial countries, a series of original proposals emerged within the Italian Catholicism. Particularly interesting was the attempt of the mayor of Florence, Giorgio La Pira, to foster new forms of dialogue along an East-West, North-South axis with the Middle Eastern leaders. In particular, the Suez crisis seemed to contribute to increasing the attention of the general public toward the major issues of development, non-alignment, and the concept of Third World—categories that shortly thereafter, during the papacy of John XXIII, would have taken on another dimension.