Università Cattolica, the not-short century of the Faculty of Law

It was October 2, 1924, when the Faculty of Law of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore was established. Since then, a century has passed during which dialogue, confrontation and responsiveness to the challenges of the times have been the hallmarks of legal studies. To celebrate the momentous occasion, the University sponsored a full day of celebrations on Thursday, October 24, marked by moments of reflection on the future of law and the sharing of memories by professors, emeriti and former students.

“An anniversary to mark the identity of this Faculty, inherited from the past and constantly and skilfully renewed through a style and method that make it recognized and recognizable,” said the Rector of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Elena Beccalli, addressing the audience of professors, students, and graduates who gathered for the occasion in Milan in the Aula Magna of the Athenaeum. “An authority that history has confirmed on several occasions, well responding to the wish of Father Agostino Gemelli who had felt the need to establish, among the first, a Faculty capable both of ensuring a first-rate technical education with which to educate and train the future ruling classes,” she reiterated, “and of providing research to respond to the needs and challenges of the society of the time, without neglecting the contribution to affirming a presence of Catholic inspiration in the national cultural panorama.”

A contribution to the history of the country whose “point of synthesis” has been identified in the title of the volume “Cent’anni di dialogo” [tr. One Hundred Years of Dialogue], published by the University’s publishing house Vita e Pensiero on the occasion of the Faculty’s 100th birthday, and aimed at highlighting one of its characteristic traits: the ability to dialogue and open itself positively to confrontation. “We wanted to leave something tangible to remember our past and to think about our future, to enhance the Faculty’s tradition and at the same time to propose a guide for the future, identifying the issues that, even today, appear in our judgment to be the most qualifying, and with them the questions on which it remains important to solicit students’ reflection, even when it comes to preparing for new challenges,” noted the Dean of the Faculty of Law Stefano Solimano.

“During this not-short century, the Faculty has fulfilled its task by feeding off the vitality of Milan while at the same time connecting and circulating the suggestions of a student population from all parts of Italy, forming generations of jurists who have held important positions at the professional and institutional level,” added Dean Solimano, referring to Father Gemelli’s project to create a “hotbed of trained jurists”.

The numbers bear this out: from 51 students in 1924 to the current 3,014 (May 31, 2024) to 20,981 graduates since its establishment (data as of September 25, 2024). “The mission of a Faculty of Law today is to help students develop a sound legal mindset that is not one that flaunts a mnemonic list of norms, but is oriented toward argumentative knowledge that feels the need to substantiate its theses and is always open to new questions,” Dean Solimano continued. “In line with the vocation of the University itself, the Faculty takes up the challenge that asks it to conceive of itself as a centre of cultural elaboration and teaching where people can continue to cultivate human purposes and desires in the age of technology. Thus, remaining faithful to the idea that the jurist, who is a humanist technician, is a man who works with the law but also for the law to build a law that is more humanly close to justice.”

The Faculty is among the most authoritative and prestigious in Italy, for the care devoted to technical, cultural and human preparation, for the level of its scientific research, for the rigor of the teaching given, and for its ability to recognize, stimulate and enhance the merit of its students. An excellence that has been built up in this century of its life thanks to the presence of Masters who have always considered law “certainly a very refined technique, but a technique at the service of the person and society,” as argued by Giovanni D’Angelo, Pietro Franzina, Andrea Nicolussi, Gaetano Presti and Stefano Solimano himself in the foreword to the volume “Cent’anni di dialogo”.

That is why, Dean Beccalli echoed, “putting law at the service of the individual and society ‒ we might say the common good ‒ may appear to be a rhetorical formula. But it is not to the extent that in teaching, research and the third mission we succeed in demonstrating how law is not simply a set of norms, but precisely a highly refined technique that, however, must not forget that it is a tool at the service of those who live in a community, a right as the foundation for ever civil coexistence. Thus, the mission of the Faculty of Law professors is to develop increasingly effective argumentative knowledge, thus a study of legal facts accompanied by effective critical thinking. Never more than in this era do we need young people with a keen ‒ and genuine ‒ critical sense.”

An unbroken line between past, present and future confirmed by the debate that marked the first part of the celebrations, enlivened in the morning session by the speeches of distinguished jurists and legal scholars from all over Italy. Among them are Giuseppe Comotti, professor at the University of Verona, Patrizia Giunti, professor at the University of Florence, Attilio Gorassini, professor at Università Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Mariella Magnani, professor at the University of Pavia, Antonio Padoa Schioppa, emeritus at the University of Milan, Carlo Enrico Paliero, emeritus at the University of Milan, Lorenzo Sacconi, professor at the University of Milan, Giorgio Sacerdoti, emeritus at the University L. Bocconi Milan, Aldo Sandulli, professor at LUISS Rome, Alberto Scerbo, professor at Università Magna Graecia ‒ Catanzaro, Valerio Tavormina, former professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Lorenza Violini, professor at the Università of Milan.

To conclude the celebrations, the afternoon event sponsored in collaboration with the #AlumniUnicatt community with testimonies from professors emeriti, former students of the Faculty, professors and young graduates. An occasion to remember not only the Masters who have taught at the Faculty since 1924, but also to reflect on the future challenges of law, which, as Dean Solimano said, relying on the words of Father Gemelli, if it wants to be “integral” and “organic” cannot be reduced to commentary and analysis, but must be framed in history and conceived as a “product of the human spirit”.