La battaglia dei costumi. «Famiglia Cristiana» e morale cattolica in un ventennio tempestoso (1960-1980)

In the early 1970s, the Catholic weekly «Famiglia Cristiana» became the most widely read illustrated magazine in Italy – the third in Europe – and the most widely circulated Catholic periodical in the world, with a print run exceeding 1,700,000 copies and an estimated readership of nearly eight million people. These remarkable figures made the publication, produced by the Società San Paolo under Don Giacomo Alberione, a powerful vehicle for the dissemination, mediation, and negotiation of the profound social, political, and cultural transformations that were reshaping Italy during those decades. This pivotal role, however, compelled its editors to navigate a highly delicate position, marked by the search for difficult compromises capable of reconciling commercial success with «non-negotiable» values of faith. The article specifically examines these dynamics, with particular attention to issues of morality and social customs, drawing on extensive – and entirely unpublished – archival documentation.