Religious freedom in Italy: the law is halfway across the ford

Rome (NEV), 21 May 2018 – Despite an unstable and substantially adverse political framework, the need for a general law on religious freedom in Italy continues to be a priority for the Country. This is what emerged from the seminar “Religious Freedom in Italy: halfway across the ford”, held on May 8, in Rome on the initiative of the Commission of the Evangelical Churches for the Relations with the State (CCERS).

The ford mentioned in the title is that of the passage from one legislature to another, which requires the starting anew of the parliamentary procedures. An event already occurred in the past and that contrasts with the evolution of the Italian society in respect to which the actual juridical instruments – in particular the law on Permitted Cults of 1929 – are inadequate.

If, according to the data of the 1931 census, religious pluralism in Italy, at that time, concerned small Protestant and Jewish diasporas concentrated mainly in northern Italy, “today, according to the statistical data collected by the Pew Forum, Italy has an average index of religious diversity, similar to Great Britain and United States”, said Paolo Naso of the Sapienza University of Rome.

According to the jurist Alessandro Ferrari – who was part of the Astrid Foundation group that drafted a general law on freedom of religion and conscience -, to continue to referring to the law on Permitted Cults, “is a sort of  therapeutic obstinacy on an instrument completely rusty”.

The last speaker of the morning session, moderated by the Adventist pastor Davide Romano, was the constitutionalist Stefano Ceccanti who brought the audience back to a level of realism. “From the current Parliament it is easier to expect a narrowing of religious freedom rather than an enlargement of it”, said Ceccanti. The reference is to political forces that tend to “overlap the religious question with the migratory question”.

Despite the difficulties, the Italian Protestants expressed their intention to keep up the attention on the problem, looking for interlocutors among all political forces, in a Parliament that presents many new faces.

In the afternoon the seminar continued with panel chaired by Ilaria Valenzi, CCERS legal consultant, on “Practical aspects of religious freedom and relapse on the life of faith communities”.