Despite common clichés and travel guide introductions, Italy has long since ceased to be a catholic country, according to Stefano Allievi. Whilst figures for baptism remain high, the number of ‘active’ Catholics has diminished and the gradual removal of religion from the public sphere has had as big an impact in the ‘country of the pope’ as elsewhere in Europe. Whilst previously, if your parents were Catholic, you too were Catholic, religion has become pluralised and people are able to both pick and choose aspects of different religions to suit them, which Allievi describes as ‘the supermarket of religion’. Religion is no longer part of society, and accordingly where lack of belief was a private matter, now faith is often left unmentioned. It is now possible to believe, but not to belong and to include beliefs that are extraneous to your chosen religion, for example a Christian believing in reincarnation. Conversion is also now a more acceptable and frequent phenomenon, with ‘church-hoppers’ converting and re-converting, think Alex Pettyfer becoming a Buddhist or Busta Rhymes converting to Islam. Allievi sees these developments as reflective of the pluralisation of society.
As well as changing individual attitudes to belief and spirituality, Allievi traces a significant decline in the influence of the Church. Whereas previously the Christian Democrats often held the balance of power, the Catholic vote has now lost its influence, and the Church has become somewhat tainted by the overly pragmatic relationship it has had with politicians, for example Berlusconi’s party during his twenty year reign.
Indeed the Church lost considerable popularity under Pope Benedict XVI and whilst the ‘pope of the poor’ may be starting to pick up the pieces, the Church also suffers severe internal divisions. The numerous Catholic movements have an enormous influence, yet run counter to the Vatican, accepting priests that are deemed unready by the Church, and those entering these quasi-churches often leave their parishes. There is also a void between official and popular Catholicism, between official Church teaching and what people really believe. Some of the most popular pilgrimage sites, flocked to by millions of ‘believers’ a year have never been legitimized by the Church.
The tension created by the loss of a one-state, one-religion society has led to Islam becoming a platform from which to interrogate Italy’s modern identity. Whilst in the 70s society was more concerned about the threat of Marxism than the arrival of a few Muslims, now it seems to be all about Islam. Allievi explains the very pure secular activism that is directed against the building of Mosques, against Muslim immigrants as a result of reactive identities: certain Italians discovering their own identity thanks to the presence of another. He sees the ‘Black September’ of 2000 as the point when the wind changed in terms of an anti-Islam hysteria, with the Northern League starting its campaign against mosques, Cardinal Biffi becoming the head of an anti-Muslim catholic movement and a series of prominent figures in the media making heavy statements such as ‘muslims have a different anthropology’. Whilst these sorts of ignorance-induced remarks must be ridiculed, and the exceptional case mentality with which islam is treated by law must be addressed, Allievi believes that, fundamentally, the problem stems from Europe’s inability to find a way to regulate cultural conflict. Europe’s constitutions were written with a definitive notion of the nation state: one people, one territory, one law, one religion and all of these elements are changing completely. Time to catch up.
Ali Wynter
On Thursday 6th February, Stefano Allievi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Padua gave an engaging and thought-provoking talk on the changing religious landscape of contemporary Italy. He argued that Italy is no longer a catholic country and that Islamophobia has become a problem due to an Italian identity crisis.
ON