Serafino Sordi

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Serafino Sordi

Serafino Sordi SJ (3 February 1793 – 17 May 1865) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, philosopher and writer.

Biography

Serafino Sordi was born in Ferriere, the third of eight children (7 boys and 1 girl) of Agostino Sordi and Giovanna Taschieri. He became a religious in the Society of Jesus and four of his brothers followed his example.[1]

In 1806, at the age of 13, he entered the seminary of Piacenza, where he attended the gymnasium classes. In 1811, he won the competition for admission to the Collegio Alberoni in Piacenza, where he remained until 1813, when he was forced to leave on acount of his health. In 1814, Serafino returned to the seminary and, under the guidance of Parmese Canon Vincenzo Buzzetti, deepened the thought of St. Thomas whose philosophy had fallen into disuse.[2]

Buzzetti set up in the seminary of Piacenza the first center consciously directed to a revival of Thomistic thought. His efforts were continued by a number of his students, most notably the brothers Serafino and Domenico Sordi (1790–1880), both members of the Society of Jesus. They, in turn, influenced through their teaching and writings such figures as Luigi Taparelli D'Azeglio (1793–1862), Matteo Liberatore (1810–1892), Carlo Maria Curci (1810–1891), and Gaetano Sanseverino (1811–1865).[3]

In 1816, at the age of 23, Serafino became a priest and entered the newly reconstituted Society of Jesus, did his novitiate in the House of Sant'Ambrogio in Genoa, where he met Father Taparelli D'Azeglio who through conversations with Sordi came to know and appreciate the philosophy of St. Thomas, of which he had previously heard with contempt and began to review his philosophical training.[4]

In 1819, he became a teacher of philosophy in the College of Ferrara and in 1823 he moved to Reggio Emilia as a teacher of logic, metaphysics and ethics and with the position of prefect of the civic library. In Reggio Emilia, he distinguished himself and gained esteem and fame so that the Father General of the Company Luigi Fortis proposed him to Father Pavani, Provincial of Italy, as a professor of logic in the Roman College. Pavani, however begged Father General to desist from his purpose for reasons of expediency, because "a strong opposition would rise among professors of the Roman College... so strong are the prejudices against Father Sordi because he is a Thomist."[5]

From 1829 to 1834, he was sent to Modena, at the college of San Bartolomeo, as a professor of logic, metaphysics and ethics. Inspired by the riots culminated with the capture of Ciro Menotti, he published the booklet "Catechism of revolutions". In these years he became friends with the Jesuit Giuseppe Pecci.[6] Through this friendship, Father Serafino was able to exert his influence on his brother, Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci, who later became Pope, with the Encyclical Aeterni Patris proposed to all Catholic schools the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas.

In 1834, he was sent to Forli and then to Spoleto where he taught moral theology. In 1836, he was appointed Rector of the College of Orvieto.

In 1840, he returned to Modena as Rector, a position he held for three years, and then remained again in Modena as Minister and Spiritual Father of the students.

In 1846, he was appointed Rector of St. Peter's College in Piacenza, where the Aloisianum — an institute of philosophical formation for young Jesuits from the Lombardy-Veneto area — had been opened in 1839. In 1848, Father Serafino was still in Piacenza, when the College was stormed by the revolutionaries: "Then burst out loud cries of — Down with the Jesuits. Death to the Jesuits. Death — and here they added the names of one or another Father of the college...". This is what we read in the account of Father Lombardini, an eyewitness to the events. In 1851, Father General Jan Roothaan called him to Rome, eager to see the completion of a philosophy text that Father Serafino was to produce together with Father Carminati.

In 1852, he was appointed Provost of the Roman Province until 1856.[7] Father Serafino governed that Province with rare prudence and a great spirit of goodness. In 1859, he moved to the College of Writers of Civiltà Cattolica as a writer and spiritual father of the community. He contributed in these three years to the flourishing of the magazine by composing with Father Taparelli a series of articles.

In 1863, he was called to the Aloisianum as Prefect of Studies for young religious who were studying philosophy there. He died in Verona of heart disease on May 17, 1865.

Influence

Serafino Sordi was one of the most distinguished representatives of Neo-Thomism. Father Serafino's work in favor of neo-Thomism was particularly effective because of the prestigious assignments entrusted to him, because of his teaching at numerous Colleges where his writings of philosophy, transcribed, were used as a text; moreover, many of the people initiated by him in the study of St. Thomas were the protagonists of the Thomistic renewal and direct collaborators in the preparation of the encyclical Aeterni Patris in which Pope Leo XIII exhorted to put back into use the sacred doctrine of St. Thomas and to propagate it as widely as possible.

Serafino's brother, Father Domenico Sordi, spread Thomism in the Neapolitan province, where he worked from 1822 to 1860 in various cities (Naples, Lecce, Maglie, Salerno, Sora, Arpino, Andria). At the Massimo College in Naples he was a collaborator of Fr. Luigi Taparelli D'Azeglio, promoting the philosophy of St. Thomas among the students, some of whom were protagonists of the renewal of Catholic culture in the 1800s. Carlo Maria Curci, co-founder of the magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, who describes his teacher in great detail in his Memoirs and Fr. Matteo Liberatore, co-founder of the periodical Scienza e Fede, editor of La Civiltà Cattolica and one of the authors of Leo XIII's Encyclical Rerum Novarum.

Writings

Published works

  • "Appendice al capitolo XII del Catechismo del senso comune del Rorbacher," L'Amico d'Italia, Vol. XI (1827)
  • Theses ex universa Philosophia (1829)
  • Catechismo delle Rivoluzioni (1832)
  • Lettere intorno al Nuovo saggio sull'origine delle idee dell'Abate Antonio Rosmini Serbati (1843)
  • I primi elementi del sistema di V. Gioberti dialogizzati tra lui e un lettore dell'opera sua (1849)
  • Allocuzione di N. S Papa Pio IX- del 20 aprile 1849, con in fine esposizione della materia a modo di catechismo, del prof S. S. (1850)
  • I misteri di Demofilo per S. S. Professore di filosofia (1850)
  • Circolare del R. P. Provinciale Serafino Sordi ai Superiori della Provincia Romana (1854)
  • De studio Theologiae in nostra societate (1854)
  • "Recensione all'opuscolo di Giacomo Oddo l'Indipendenza, il Cattolicesimo e l'Italia, Milano 1859," La Civiltà Cattolica (3 December 1859), pp. 587–96.
  • "La libertà al tribunale della ragione," La Civiltà Cattolica (21 July 1860), pp. 145–68.
  • "Se per essere indipendenti abbisogna che il Papa abbia il potere temporale. Di un sacerdote cattolico," La Civiltà Cattolica (21 July 1860), pp. 207–22.
  • Il movimento nazionale, istruzione popolare in occasione di un opuscolo pubblicato nell'Umbria da un preteso prete galantuomo (1861)

Posthumous publications

  • Il Sillabo di S. S. Pio Papa IX esposto in forma di catechismo dal P. Serafino Sordi della Compagnia di Gesù (1865)
  • Ontologia (1941)
  • Theologia naturalis (1945)
  • Manuale di logica classica (1967)

Unpublished works

  • Ethica generalis et specialis
  • Psicologia
  • Trattato sull'origine delle idee
  • Dissertazione sulla materia e sulla forma
  • Dissertazione sull'evidenza
  • Osservazioni intorno alla filosofia a noi prescritta da S. Ignazio
  • Esortazioni al clero

Works attributed to Serafino Sordi

  • Saggio intorno alla dialettica e alla religione di Vincenzo Gioberti (1849)
  • La scomunica: Nel Messaggero di Modena (1849)
  • Lettera sull'Austria (1849)
  • Dottrine di S. Alfonso dei Liquori difese contro le impugnazioni del Sig. Abate Rosmini (1850)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Dezza, Paolo (1940). Alle Origini del Neotomismo. Milano: Fratelli Bocca, p. 30.
  2. ↑ Even most religious institutions at the time taught the philosophy of the century: Sarti, Soave, Draghetti, Condillac, Wolff, Storchenau.
  3. ↑ Caponigri, A. Robert (1971). A History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 5. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, p. 121.
  4. ↑ Dezza, Paolo (1942). I Neotomisti Italiani del XIX Secolo. Milano: Fratelli Bocca, pp. 2–3.
  5. ↑ Weisheipl, James A. (1968). "The Revival of Thomism as a Christian Philosophy." In: Ralph McInerny, ed., New Themes in Christian Philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, p. 174.
  6. ↑ McCool, Gerald A. (1977). Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century. New York: The Seabury Press, p. 85.
  7. ↑ MacIntyre, Alasdair (1990). Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition: being Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh in 1988. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, p. 72.

Further reading

  • Dante, Francesco (1990). Storia della "Civiltà Cattolica" (1850-1891): Il Laboratorio del Papa. Roma: Ed. Studium.
  • Masnovo, Amato (1920). "Serafino Sordi, Antonio Rosmini e.... Qualche Moderno," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica, Vol. XII, No. 2, pp. 117–27.
  • Martina, Giacomo (2003). Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia (1814-1983). Brescia: Morcelliana.
  • Padovani, U.A. (1933). "L'Importanza della Critica Filosofica di Serafino Sordi a Vincenzo Gioberti," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica, Vol. XXV, pp. 171–81.
  • Schmidinger, Heinrich (1994). "I Centri Tomistici a Roma, Napoli, Perugia ecc.: S. Sordi, D. Sordi, L. Taparelli d'Azeglio, M. Liberatore, C.M. Curci, G.M. Cornoldi e Altri." In: E. Coreth, W.M. Neidl, G. Pfligersdorffer (eds.): La Filosofia Cristiana nei Secoli XIX e XX, Vol. II. Ritorno all'Eredità Scolastica. Roma: Città Nuova, pp. 154–77.
  • Volpe, Michele (1914–15). I Gesuiti nel Napoletano. Note ed Appunti di Storia Contemporanea da Documenti Inediti e con Larghe Illustrazioni (1814–1914). Naples: Tipografia Editrice Pontificia M. D'Auria.

External links

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