Engaging Post-Secularism: Rethinking Catholic Politics in Italy

The paper is divided in five sections: 1) The origin of the secular-religious cleavage from the Italian unitary state to the end of “Prima Repubblica”, where we will first try to set out the historical and genetic framework which characterized the evolution of the Italian political system, from the birth of the unitary Italian state to the end of the so-called First Republic. We will analyze the different phases about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Italian political system, paying particular attention to the dynamics of the Italian party system until the eve of so-called Second Re-public. From this analysis emerges as the unity of Catholics in politics, despite being a constant issue of the last century, has never been the only strategic option available to the Catholic Church to defend its values and interests. 2)Theoretical framework, where we explore the dimension of the solidarity concept in the main political traditions In this section, we will first try t...

Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2016

This editors' introduction opens a special issue of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies on the topic of 'Mapping Contemporary Catholic Politics in Italy'. It briefly identifies the political, sociological and ideational changes that have occurred in Catholic politics since the collapse of the Democrazia Cristiana party, and introduces the contributions to the special issue, highlighting the common threads and the important divergences in their analyses.

In this short paper we focus on how ‘religious pluralism’ is constructed by political actors by comparatively analyzing controversies around religion-related issues that took place in Italy between 2001 and 2013. The paper draws on the results of four years of research on the Italian ethical-religious debates, based on the analysis of a wide database of printed media. It pays particular attention to how the debates have been framed by the different actors and how their coalitions changed over time and according to the various issues. In relation to the meaning of religious pluralism in contemporary Italy, the research shows on the one hand that political actors have different views of issues related to pluralism according to the values founding their worldview; on the other, they are ready to shift their allegiances and seek a compromise or rather frame the debates as struggles between nonnegotiable values according to their perception of short-term political interests. In other words, it is clear that the setting influences the forms of political debates and their outcomes. In addition, we identify three meanings of religious pluralism that emerge in the Italian public sphere: pluralism within the majority religious tradition; pluralism in relation to the dichotomy religion v secular; and pluralism in relation to the growing pluralization and hybridization of the religious landscape.

Politics and religion, 2024

This article deals with the transformation of Catholic politics in Italy between 1942 and 1945 and the emergence of Christian Democracy as the dominant political party in the postwar years. It analyzes how Catholic politicians turned from reactionary critics of democracy to its champion. The article foregrounds a dimension that has not been given sufficient attention in scholarly works on political Catholicism and Christian Democracy, namely the religious content of thought. In the experiences of politicians and thinkers living through Fascism and war, transcendence and spirituality emerged as new markers of certainty that came to redirect and ground democracy. Our conceptual argument is that Christian Democracy can be understood as a distinct form of "political spirituality," pace Foucault. The article further shows how this political spirituality became "applied" in a series of ways in the immediate postwar period.

2017

Nell’esperienza italiana, il principio di laicita va misurato con gli altri principi e diritti della Carta Costituzionale, tenuto nel dovuto conto il relativo favore con il quale la Carta considera il fenomeno religioso nel suo complesso. In primo luogo, e agevole osservare che il motivo religioso allegato dall’autore di una determinata pratica non qualifica, di per se, la pratica in questione quale esercizio del suo diritto alla liberta religiosa. Inoltre, l’ampiezza del diritto all’esposizione dei simboli religiosi nell’ambiente o nell’abbigliamento dei fedeli – aspetto della liberta religiosa che forma oggetto del presente lavoro – varia in funzione delle circostanze del caso. Nell’interpretazione del principio di laicita, simboli quali il crocifisso e il velo femminile non sono del resto qualificati strettamente come “simboli religiosi” dall’ordinamento italiano. Adottando una prospettiva storica, si evidenzia come il loro significato trascenda la religione per esprimere un’ered...

Telos, 2019

Religion and Politics , 2018

For centuries, Rome and Istanbul have been representing and epitomizing two empires and two entities with both significant spiritual and temporal power: the Papacy and the Caliphate. During the 19th and the 20th centuries, these institutions underwent significant changes in a context of state secularization: in the case of the Papacy, there was a loss of temporal power and its “reduction” to a mainly moral authority; the Caliphate, on the other hand, was abolished after World War I, succeeded by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), a bureaucratic body under state control, founded in the era of Kemalist secularism. Despite these changes, today both institutions still play a significant role in the public life and public policies of the Italian and the Turkish republics. While the Vatican is able to influence the Italian public sphere and public discourse through both its influence on common people and its lobbying activities in relation to political decision-makers, in Turkey the Diyanet has become the main tool in the reshaping of Turkish society (both by the Kemalists and, later, by Erdoğan's AKP). This paper will analyze their influence on the two countries’ public policies in relation to religious pluralism and to family-related issues, to show how different ideas of secularism, institutional arrangements, and historical paths have led to a very different role of the two institutions in the Italian and Turkish political systems.

The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 2019

, on a sunny afternoon, the Lega Nord party (now renamed simply "Lega," after the recent nationalist turn) held one of its main pre-electoral rallies in front of the Milan cathedral. This had always been a common practice for the party, which always enjoyed a very strong support in the Lombardy region (which the party currently rules, at the head of a centre-right coalition). However, this rally was far from usual, and in the following days was the subject of a great deal of discussion in the Italian media and social networks. The reason for this ado was the unusual choice of the party leader, Matteo Salvini, to address the crowd with a Gospel and a rosary in his hands. Particularly, at the end of the speech, the Lega's leader lifted the Gospel and swore upon it "to be faithful to my people […], to implement what is foreseen by the Italian Constitution, which some neglect, and to do it by respecting the teachings included in this sacred Gospel." 1 After that, Salvini invited the Milan people to swear with him before closing the event. This use of Christian religious symbols for electoral purposes (which happened again in other events, such as the yearly Lega meeting in Pontida in July 2018 2) was deeply criticized not only by the centre-left, but also by members of the Church hierarchy, questioning Salvini's use of a religious text for electoral and partisan ends and challenging the alleged incongruence between the Gospel's message and the Lega's platformparticularly in terms of attitudes towards the migrants (whose rejection had always been a focus of the party). Salvini replied to the criticisms, saying that the Gospel does not prescribe to welcome anybody, in spite of the existence of alleged "five millions of poor Italians." He also was ironic about the criticisms from the left, whose representatives, in Salvini's words, "are angry because they'd rather swear on the Koran." 3 This event, and the following discussion, are quite remarkable if we consider that the Lega Nord party was once known, at least until the Abstract: The political science literature analyzing the genetic profile of European political parties has mainly focused on the salience, for the identity of today's parties, of four social cleavages rooted in European history: among them, a religious/secular cleavage created by the birth of the modern national state. However, in the past two decades, some contributions about new party types developed after the end of the Cold War have hypothesized the existence of new cleavages, based on materialist/post materialist sets of values and on the acceptance or rejection of globalization and Europeanization processes. This article will work on this latter hypothesis, by highlighting how some European parties, previously secular or focused on the 'traditional' religious cleavage, are increasingly using religion-related arguments in the context of a civilizational stance focused on anti-globalization and anti-EU discourses, but most of all on the idea of migrants and Muslims as a threatening other. The second section of the paper will focus on the Italian case and on the development of a right-wing populist discourse on religion by the Lega Nord party.

The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 2015