Religion in Italy

1
Religion in Italy

• Carlo Ruzza
• University of Trento
• http//www.soc.unitn.it/users/carlo.ruzza/Presenta
  tions-EN.htm

2
Catholicism and its background

• The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see
  terminology below) is the Christian church in
  full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently
  Pope Benedict XVI.
• It traces its origins to the original Christian
  community founded by Jesus Christ and spread by
  the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter.
• The Catholic Church is the largest Christian
  church, representing around half of all
  Christians, and is the largest organized body of
  any world religion.
• The Catholic Church's worldwide recorded
  membership at the end of 2005 was 1,114,966,000,
  approximately one-sixth of the world's population.

3
Structure

• The worldwide Catholic Church is made up of one
  Western or Latin and 22 Eastern Catholic
  autonomous particular churches, all of which look
  to the Bishop of Rome, alone or along with the
  College of Bishops, as their highest authority on
  earth for matters of faith, morals and church
  governance.
• It is divided into jurisdictional areas, usually
  on a territorial basis. The standard territorial
  unit, each of which is headed by a bishop, is
  called a diocese in the Latin church and an
  eparchy in the Eastern churches.
• At the end of 2006, the total number of all these
  jurisdictional areas (or "Sees") was 2,782

4
History of the Church

• The Church traces its history to Jesus and the
  Twelve Apostles, and sees the bishops of the
  Church as the successors of the Apostles in
  general, and the Pope as the successor of Saint
  Peter, leader of the Apostles, in particular.
• After an initial period of sporadic but intense
  persecution, Christianity was legalized in the
  fourth century, when Constantine I issued the
  Edict of Milan in 313. Constantine was
  instrumental in the convocation of the First
  Council of Nicea in 325, which sought to address
  the Arian heresy and formulated the Nicene Creed
  which is used by the Catholic Church, Eastern
  Orthodoxy, and various Protestant churches.
• On 27 February 380, Emperor Theodosius I enacted
  a law establishing Catholic Christianity as the
  official religion of the Roman Empire and
  ordering others to be called heretics.

5
The Church in the Middle Ages

• Following the decline of the Roman Empire, the
  Church underwent a time of missionary activity
  and expansion. During the Middle Ages Catholicism
  eventually spread among the Germanic peoples
  (initially in competition with Arianism) the
  Vikings the Poles, Croats, Czechs, Slovaks,
  Hungarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns and
  Estonians. The success of monasticism gave rise
  to various centers of learning, most famously in
  Ireland and Gaul, and contributed to the
  Carolingian Renaissance.
• Later in the medieval period, cathedral schools
  developed into Universities (see University of
  Paris, University of Oxford, and University of
  Bologna), the direct ancestors of modern Western
  institutions of learning.

6
The Crusades

• Through a gradual process over a number of
  centuries, the church underwent a great schism
  that divided the church into a Western (Latin)
  branch, which has been known as the Catholic
  Church and an Eastern (Greek) branch, which has
  become known as the Orthodox Church. These two
  churches disagree on a number of administrative,
  liturgical, and doctrinal issues, most notably
  the Filioque clause and papal primacy of
  jurisdiction.
• Beginning in 1095 the Crusades, a series of
  military campaigns in the Holy Land and
  elsewhere, sanctioned by the Papacy, began under
  the pontificate of Urban II in response to pleas
  from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid
  against Arabic expansion. This and the subsequent
  crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic
  aggression and even contributed to Christian
  enmity with the sacking and occupation of
  Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

7
The Council of Trent

• Beginning around 1184, and continuing through the
  Protestant Reformation, a number of historical
  movementscitation needed involving the Catholic
  Church, broadly referred to as the Inquisition,
  were aimed at securing religious and doctrinal
  unity within Christianity through conversion, and
  sometimes prosecution, of alleged heretics.
• The second great rift in the history of
  Christianity began with the Protestant
  Reformation, beginning in Germany in the 16th
  century. During this period various groups, often
  supported by local rulers, repudiated the primacy
  of the pope, clerical celibacy, the seven
  sacraments and various other Catholic doctrines
  and practices, as well as abuses (such as simony
  or the sale of indulgences) that were common at
  the time. Reformers within the Catholic Church
  launched the Counter Reformation or Catholic
  Reformation, a period of doctrinal clarification,
  reform of the clergy and the liturgy, and
  re-evangelization begun by the Council of Trent.
• The Council of Trent and its reforms provided the
  central theme for the next 300 years of Catholic
  history. The period emphasized catechesis and
  missionary work. Catholicism spread worldwide, at
  pace with European colonialism to the Americas,
  Asia, Africa and Oceania.

8
The Doctrine

• In addition to all of the main points of orthodox
  trinitarian Christianity, Catholics place
  particular importance on the Church as an
  institution founded by Jesus and kept from
  doctrinal error by the presence and guidance of
  the Holy Spirit, and as the font of salvation for
  humanity. The seven sacraments, of which the most
  important is the Eucharist, are of prime
  importance in obtaining salvation.
• The principal sources for the teachings of the
  Catholic Church are the Sacred Scriptures.
  Catholicism is monotheistic it believes that God
  is one, eternal, all-powerful (omnipotent),
  all-knowing (omniscient), all-good
  (omnibenevolent), and omnipresent.
• The second of the three Persons of God, became
  incarnate as Jesus Christ, a human being, born of
  the Virgin Mary. He remained truly divine and was
  at the same time truly human. In what he said,
  and by how he lived, he taught all people how to
  live.
• After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, his
  followers, foremost among them the Apostles,
  spread more and more extensively their faith with
  a vigour that they attributed to the presence of
  the Holy Spirit, the third of the three Persons
  of God, sent upon them by Jesus.

9
Modernity

• Throughout the centuries, the Church has
  responded to people or groups attempting to
  change core beliefs. Some of these opponents were
  declared heretical. The 18th and 19th century
  church found itself facing not only the teachings
  of Protestantism, but also Enlightenment and
  Modernist teachings about the nature of the human
  person, the state, and morality.
• With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, and
  the increased concern about the conditions of
  urban workers, 19th and 20th century popes issued
  encyclicals (notably Rerum Novarum) explicating
  Catholic Social Teaching.
• Many of the challenges focus on a few issues,
  such as sex and gender themes. Joseph Ratzinger,
  a cardinal and theologian elected Pope (Benedict
  XVI) in 2005, responded to these in several
  statements prior to his election as pope the
  Church is ecclesia sua, "His God's Church", and
  not the laboratory of theologians.
• The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) affirmed
  the doctrine of papal infallibility which
  Catholics hold to be in continuity with the
  history of Petrine supremacy in the church.
• The Catholic Church undertook one of the most
  comprehensive reforms in its history during the
  Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the decade
  which followed.

10
Contemporary Italy

• Over the past three years, church leaders and
  their parliamentary allies have fought three big
  battles and lost none. In 2004 a cross-party
  group of lawmakers drastically restricted the
  scope of a law on fertility treatment. A year
  later, the head of the church in Rome, Cardinal
  Camillo Ruini, deftly foiled a bid to broaden the
  law in a referendum (he asked the faithful to
  abstain, robbing the vote of its quorum). And in
  February, when a former prime minister, Giulio
  Andreotti, now a life senator and ever the
  church's political man, nudged Romano Prodi's
  centre-left government close to defeat, the
  coalition dropped as a priority its plan to
  extend legal rights to unwed couples, including
  gays.
• Vatican officials say Pope Benedict is determined
  to stop Italy following Spain under the Zapatero
  government, which legalised gay marriage and made
  other social reforms at odds with Catholic
  teaching.
• The pope sees Italy as uniquely emblematic of
  Roman Catholicism and thus ideal ground for an
  attack against the creeping secularisation of
  Europe. Italy's contorted politics may make this
  easier.

11
The right-wing turn

• Several observers have argued that in recent
  years the church has moved to the right. The
  bishop Ruini has been the most passionate
  defender of right-wing catholicism in recent
  years. Also vocal has been a daily newspaper
  editor, Giuliano Ferrara of IL FOGLIO, a former
  Berlusconi minister.
• How far can the bishops go to impose Catholic
  views on society? Church leaders often behave as
  if Italy were still as homogeneously Catholic as
  in the days when every Italian home had a
  crucifix above the marital bed and a
  black-and-white television from which Pius XII
  would occasionally bestow a restrained wave.
• After church groups rallied several hundred
  thousand people to a family day in Rome on May
  12th, Archbishop Bagnasco Ruini successor -
  declared smugly that it was "society expressing
  itself in an unequivocal way".

12
Catholicism in Europe and Italy

• The number of Catholics in the world is around
  1.1 billionand continues to increase,
  particularly in Africa and Asia. Brazil is the
  country with the largest number of Catholics. The
  increase between 1978 and 2000 was 288 million.
• In most industrialized countries, church
  attendance has decreased since the 19th century,
  though it remains higher than that of other
  "mainline" churches.
• In Europe, Romance-speaking countries are
  historically Catholic, northern Germanic-speaking
  countries Protestant, and Slavic countries split
  between Orthodox and Catholic, although there are
  exceptions.
• Italy and specifically Rome - is the historical
  site of the Church. For this reason it has a
  special relevance to Catholics

13
Controversies

• Yet today's Italy has one of the world's lowest
  birth rates, thanks to near-universal defiance of
  Vatican teaching on contraception. A quarter of
  young cohabiting couples are unmarried.
• "The whole of society is not Roman Catholic,"
  says Marcello Vigli, a lay activist and veteran
  of the Christian Social movement. "So you cannot
  impose by law what the hierarchy considers to be
  right.
• Otherwise, you start to become a confessional
  society." To Giuliano Ferrara of IL FOGLIO, such
  a view is pure hypocrisy. "If the church has a
  right to say what it thinks, it also has a right
  to be on the political scene. What it does not
  have is a right to coerce." Many Italians would
  agree. But some argue that it does, in practice,
  coerce.
• In March Archbishop Bagnasco's office in effect
  told those politicians who consider themselves
  Catholic to vote against granting legal rights to
  unmarried couples.

14
Italians Religious Affiliation
15
Church Attendance
16
Importance of Religion
17
Role of religion in public discussion
18
Religion and Voting

• Religiosity by voting behaviour (column )

19
Catholicism in the Right
20
Italians and Populism

• N 136 Chart of respondents who agreed with
  statement indicating 1 or 2 on a scale from 1 to
  7 (17 of sample).

21
Religion and Voting

• Religion and Voting (raw percentages)

22
Religion and Max Weber

• Weber typology is based on the assumption that
  religion have been created by intellectuals and
  are therefore exposed to the imperative of
  consistency.
• A polar idealtype of religions is that of
  mysticism and asceticism. They induce
  contrasting types of abnegations of the world.
  The asceticists are Gods tools, hence they are
  active.
• The mystics are Gods possessions. Thus they are
  passive, or vessels of the divine. The mystic
  proves himself against the world, the asceticist
  through the world.

23
Religions of salvation

• To the inner-wordily asceticist the mystic
  indulges in indolent enjoyment of the self.
• To the mystic the asceticist is entangled in the
  godless ways of the world. Both escape the world.
  Asceticism has a Janus face. Abnegation and
  mastery of the world go together.
• The world is conquered through the energy that
  comes from its rejection.
• Religions of salvation have sought to extend
  these states permanently as a protection against
  suffering. In doing so they have promoted
  rationalization of life.

24
Religion and tension with the world

• The tension with the world originated in the
  tension between the prophet and the world (the
  established priests and magicians).
• This tension is stronger the more the religion is
  aimed inwardly, and the more rational the
  religion is.

25
Fragmentation of the Spheres

• As rationalization progresses the tension of
  religions with the world increases.
• Rationality, conscious endeavour and sublimation
  by knowledge are pushing this tension and
  revealing the internal and lawful autonomy of the
  spheres.
• Religions of salvation have extended the old
  ethic of neighbourhood to a general principle of
  brotherliness. This principle clashes with the
  individual spheres as they become more
  rationalized.

26
the economic sphere

• The tension between brotherly religion and the
  world has been most obvious in the economic
  sphere. Capital economy is incompatible with the
  ethic of brotherliness. It is possible to
  regulate ethically relationships between masters
  and slaves but not in the same way in the stock
  trade.
• The ascetic monk has fled from the world by
  denying himself individual property. The paradox
  is that rational asceticism as created everywhere
  the wealth it rejects (example the shakers)
• To escape the tensions the Puritans renounced the
  Universalism of love and routinized all work in
  the world. The other solutions mysticism. There
  is an objectless devotion to anybody and a
  disinterested benevolence.

27
The Political Sphere

• Salvation religions are in growing tension with
  the political orders of the world. The rational
  bureaucracy of the state is incompatible with
  brotherliness. The state is an association that
  claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of
  violence.
• The tension is stronger because there is direct
  competition with religious ethics. Politics,
  especially in war claims as much loyalty as
  religion. Solutions are for the asceticist the
  acceptance of violence in the interest of gods
  cause.
• For the mystic there is a radical antipolitical
  attitude. They recognize the autonomy of the
  world but infer its diabolic character. Render
  on to Caesar the things which are Caesars (for
  what is the relevance of those things for
  salvation.)
• As economic and rational political actions
  follows laws of their own, the clash with
  religion increases..

28
The intellectual sphere

• There is a relation between religion and purely
  metaphysical speculation, although the latter
  easily leads to scepticism.
• Intellectual knowledge works for the
  disenchantment of the world and its
  transformation into a mechanism. Every increase
  of rationalism in empirical science pushes
  religion from the rational into the irrational
  realm. But this only happens today. Book-religion
  have promoted rational thinking.
• But no salvation religion has not at some point
  asked to believe the absurd that is the
  sacrifice of the intellect.
• Religion defends itself from the attacks of the
  intellect by arguing that it deals with a
  different sphere. But as soon as region
  surrenders the incommunicability of religious
  experience (to influence the world) it encroaches
  on the intellectual sphere.
• The intellect has created an aristocracy based on
  the possession of rational culture, which is an
  unbrotherly one. But the cultivated man who
  strives for perfection cannot reach it because
  culture is endless. He will not be satiated with
  life. He cannot find in culture an ultimate
  meaning. Instead every step forward increases
  senselessness.
• Religion reacts to this need for salvation and
  the accompanied devaluation by becoming more
  other-wordily.

29
Conclusions

• The Church is trying to reassert its role in a
  secularised society
• There are revivalist Catholic movements
• However, the Church is no longer appealing to
  many sectors of Italian society

30
Sources

• Wikipedia
• The Economist Catholicism May 31st 2007
• Original elaborations on data Itanes (Thanks to
  the Istituto Cattaneo of Bologna for granting
  permission to use the data).
• Weber, M. Religious rejections of the world and
  their directions