Religion and politics, beyond secularization

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Until recently it had seemed that the all-pervasive secularization had completely swept away the old ties between religion and politics, with the end of sectarian political parties and the civil autonomy of the masses of citizens, not only in Italy. And instead we realize that the scenarios have changed but some common interests between the religious and political spheres re-emerge with force and sometimes stronger and more evident than in the past. The blatant use of some political leaders to religious symbols to legitimize their credibility is not a novelty of today and indeed repeats obsolete schemes, which however were thought to have been definitively put aside.

What appears and is perceived on a popular and widespread level actually has a very different and motivated weight. The common thread is a tendential distrust towards any mixture between religion and politics, between religious and political leadership, between confessional values ​​and the rights / duties of the citizen.

The facts

Sociological research also serves to refute some gratuitous, unfounded, yet current and taken for granted assertion. To better outline the overall picture of the relationship between religion and politics, reference can be made to the results of the double survey (3238 questionnaires and 164 in-depth interviews) on religiosity in Italy (carried out in 2017), the results of which were disclosed in 2020 in various publications (mainly in Franco Garelli, You of little faith. Religious sentiment in God’s uncertain Italyil Mulino, Bologna, 2020 and Roberto Cipriani, Uncertain faith. Quantitative-qualitative survey on religiosity in ItalyFranco Angeli, Milan, 2020).

Sociology has often been interested in the distinction between public and private, contrasting the world of work, politics and citizenship with the universe of everyday life centered on family, affections, sexuality, relationality.

Already starting from the conception of the holidays, a clear connection between the religious and political dimensions overflows, as can be deduced from the statement of an interviewee from the media culture: “Christian holidays are … the continuation of the holidays already, how to say, institutionalized by … in short, for millennia of the Roman Empire, so what do I think of the holidays? Which are necessary for the political, religious and economic institution of the Church, have an economic reason “.

Above all, the appearance of the concept of state, in qualitative interviews, precisely in relation to the Church is not without significance: here it is evident that the relationship between institutionalized politics and institutional religion is a problem (as underlined by the very presence of the concept of Church in the negative feelings about the God-Church couple). As William James wrote (in The various forms of religious consciousness. Nature study, Bocca, Milan, 1945, pp. 291-292), “the spirit of politics and the taste for rules can then pervade and contaminate the originally innocent thing; so that today, when we hear the word “religion”, we necessarily think of some “church” or similar; and to some people the word “church” suggests so much the idea of ​​hypocrisy, tyranny, baseness and the tenacity of every superstition, that, in a general and indeterminate way, they boast saying that “they are absolutely against any religion “”.

Even when we consider the influence of the Church on Italian politics (in Franco Garelli, op. cit., p. 111) the prevailing orientation is quite critical, even though it is a simple affirmation (“Religion in Italy has a great influence on politics”, with only one possibility of answer), which however gives rise to a factual observation: the 71.5% believe that in Italy religion influences politics a lot or quite a lot. Quite small is the number of those (21.2%) who deny that there is an ecclesiastical influence on politics. There is no shortage of the usual abstentions that this time amount to 7.3%.

Sometimes the position taken by the interviewee (a graduate, in this case) is quite clear even if generic and not very detailed: “a thousand years ago, the Catholic Church promoted war, let’s remember the Crusades, which is still reproached by Islamic culture. Because in the end the religious institution is only a … a political institution that looks after economic interests. I repeat, everyone finds religiosity within themselves, there is no need for filters that are precisely religious institutions … religious institutions are a politics, a para-politics, a mixture with politics, with the economy, with all the structures that govern societies whether they are Western, whether they are Eastern cultures or Arab cultures, so what to say … the religious institution is political … they are interests and … that have nothing to do with the spirituality that is in each of us … the paradox is this … projects towards a God, a religion, but at the same time detaches from it ».

A less harsh but substantially convergent tone is the opinion of a lady with an average level of education: “I do not believe in the Church at the institutional level, therefore I do not believe in their, in their good intentions, also because I think that … nowadays also, in addition to politics, however, and the corruption that is said to be widespread in other environments, I think it also includes the Church ».

Another interviewee is even more explicit and direct, who says: “if you need a job and you know someone within an ecclesiastical order, tomorrow you are already in … for me they have a power, they are in the same line as politics”. Yet another expresses itself as follows: “I do not believe in the Church at the institutional level, therefore I do not believe in theirs, in their good intentions, also because I think that … nowadays also, in addition to politics in any case and to the corruption that is said to be widespread in other circles, I think it also includes the Church ».

Church and politics: critical orientation

With reference to the figure of Pope Francis, there are many who hope that there will be a decisive turning point in the Catholic Church and who wish for an effective role for the bishop of Rome, who treats everyone in the same way and does not privilege the powerful of politics and who ” it gave a sign to all this wretched team of politicians, politicians, embezzlers, who happily don’t care about nature ».

Furthermore, “Pope Francis was a character wanted by a political area of ​​the Church … to find consensus in Christianity, because they are losing … They are losing [tono basso]they are losing, no one becomes a priest anymore, no one, er, then he has to find a poor, quiet, humble figure, with a great charisma, but who gives you the possibility of, so much so that he also talked about gays ».

In short, for the influence of the Church on politics, the orientation is quite critical. It should also be noted that it is difficult to understand the political function of religion and of the Church in particular (emblematic is the case of the Vatican which is at the same time a state in the full sense and the most symbolically representative place of a religious confession). It remains difficult to understand the political function of religion and the Church. The judgments on Pope Francis almost always concern external aspects.

In particular, it is young people who manifest a marked dissent towards the Church as a political dimension. The detachment of the new generation no longer takes place, as probably happened in the past, almost as a consequence of the non-sharing of the sexual morality taught by the Church, but rather as a choice of a broader and more generalized order, which also sees believers and practitioners take sides on positions which do not take into account the Church as such (to the extent of 65.4%).

And this also explains the various no to the influence of the Church on politics (71.5%), the power of the Church (68.6%), the figures of priests (43.7%). In short, in about half of the sample interviewed by questionnaire, there is no trust in the Church. In the meantime, however, 60.4% are asked to keep its principles firmly in place.

Finally, it should be remembered that in the 164 qualitative interviews politics (or a content related to it) is cited 242 times while religion registers 1109 occurrences and religiosity 149.

Conclusion

Certainly the link between religion and politics is problematic in Italy, as it is not widely accepted, but on the other hand greater firmness is called for on the part of the Church in keeping faith with its basic values.

In the Italian context, unlike other situations on the international scene, the interface between religion and political violence, widely present elsewhere, is not underlined at all, as Bryan S. Turner underlines in his volume Religion and politics. A comparative sociology of religion (Armando, Rome, 2018), which identifies the numerous national cases in which there is complete separation between religion and politics while in other cultural and territorial spheres the union is very solid.

Turner focuses in particular on the weight of secularization in matters of democratic regime, marriage, legislation and conversions and in particular on the liberal theory of freedom of worship.

Roberto Cipriani he is emeritus professor of Sociology at Roma Tre University, where he was director of the Department of Educational Sciences from 2001 to 2012. He is Past President of the Italian Association of Sociology. He has to his credit numerous theoretical and empirical investigations.

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Religion and politics, beyond secularization – WeekNews