(Comment) The political divide between religion and secularism in Don Camillo is very much politically alive and happening in our times
Don Camillo (Italian: [ˈdɔŋ kaˈmillo]) is a character created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi, whose name, and some of his character, is based on an actual Roman Catholic priest, World War II partisan and detainee at the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen, named Don Camillo Valota (1912–1998).[1][2] Guareschi was also inspired by Don Alessandro Parenti, a priest of Trepalle,
near the Swiss border. The fictional Don Camillo is one of two main
protagonists of Guareschi's short stories, the other being the communist
mayor of the town, Peppone. The stories are set in what Guareschi
refers to as the "small world" of rural Italy after World War II.
Most of the Don Camillo stories came out in the weekly magazine Candido, founded by Guareschi with Giovanni Mosca. These "Little World" (Italian: Mondo piccolo) stories amounted to 347 in total and were put together and published in eight books, only the first three of which were published when Guareschi was still alive
Comment
I remember discovering the series while watching TV in a hotel in Venice .... it was raining hard and being exhausted from my travels i had switched on the TV . It was a God send to find this intelligent Commedy about how the church represented by Don Camillo was trying to keep it's stronghold over the people .... while Peppone and his politics tried to get a foot in the door by giving certain liberties ( for women and at times for their second class position in society relating to pregnancy before marriage and such age old issues) and introducing rational solutions to practical problems. Some one said it was about the Guelphs and Ghibellines as usual (Guelf and Ghibelline, Guelf also spelled Guelph, members of two opposing factions in German and Italian politics during the Middle Ages. The split between the Guelfs, who were sympathetic to the papacy, and the Ghibellines, who were sympathetic to the German (Holy Roman) emperors, contributed to chronic strife within the cities of northern Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries.).
After the second WW , the secular and communists won a lot of ground and Don Camillo is the expression of the church trying to hold on to age old traditions and beliefs ....
One of my Italian girlfriends had told me how her mother had a child out of matrimony in times when this was not accepted by the community , and how her father who was a communist had married her and had saved her from her social position.
Today , in our times hardly any one has to get married in church in europe and Secular has taken over. despite Don camillo's efferts.
Most of the Don Camillo stories came out in the weekly magazine Candido, founded by Guareschi with Giovanni Mosca. These "Little World" (Italian: Mondo piccolo) stories amounted to 347 in total and were put together and published in eight books, only the first three of which were published when Guareschi was still alive
Comment
I remember discovering the series while watching TV in a hotel in Venice .... it was raining hard and being exhausted from my travels i had switched on the TV . It was a God send to find this intelligent Commedy about how the church represented by Don Camillo was trying to keep it's stronghold over the people .... while Peppone and his politics tried to get a foot in the door by giving certain liberties ( for women and at times for their second class position in society relating to pregnancy before marriage and such age old issues) and introducing rational solutions to practical problems. Some one said it was about the Guelphs and Ghibellines as usual (Guelf and Ghibelline, Guelf also spelled Guelph, members of two opposing factions in German and Italian politics during the Middle Ages. The split between the Guelfs, who were sympathetic to the papacy, and the Ghibellines, who were sympathetic to the German (Holy Roman) emperors, contributed to chronic strife within the cities of northern Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries.).
After the second WW , the secular and communists won a lot of ground and Don Camillo is the expression of the church trying to hold on to age old traditions and beliefs ....
One of my Italian girlfriends had told me how her mother had a child out of matrimony in times when this was not accepted by the community , and how her father who was a communist had married her and had saved her from her social position.
Today , in our times hardly any one has to get married in church in europe and Secular has taken over. despite Don camillo's efferts.
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