[2] On December 8, 1889, it was founded in Rome the Saint Sebastian Circle which published the La Vita Nova, a university cultural journal edited by Romolo Murri.
A column stated the program of the future FUCI, claiming the willingness to rebuild sciences and social life, to reconstruct the human community, but under the laws of the inspiring faith and under the bonds of the industrious Christian charity.
[4] The FUCI was founded during the 14th Italian Roman Catholics national congress which the Opera dei Congressi organized from the 1st to the 4th September 1896 in Fiesole.
Since its beginning the FUCI was involved in Italian political life and particularly engaged in the abolition of the Non Expedit ban of Roman Catholics, which had come into force since the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
[5] In 1925 the future Pope Paul VI succeeded Gian Domenico Pini as spiritual director, while the barrister Igino RIghetti was elected president of the association.