It has been accepted as the platform, or even the gospel of the Christian Democrats.

Who are they?
They are a body of the younger generation of Italians, among them being a considerable number of religious, who yearn to put into practice the concrete exhortations of the Evangelists.

They are really carried forward by that ethical wave which has swept over Western Europe and America during the past generation, and has resulted in "slumming," in practical social service, in all kinds of efforts to improve the material and moral condition of the poor, quite irrespective of sectarian or even Christian initiative.

This great movement began, indeed, outside of the churches, among men and women who felt grievously the misery of their fellow-creatures and their own obligation to do what they could to relieve it.

From them, it has reached the churches, and, last of all, the Catholic Church in Italy.