Rome (NEV), February 7, 2020 – “All religious denominations are equally free before the law. Religious denominations other than Catholic have the right to organize themselves according to their own statutes, insofar as they do not conflict with the Italian legal system”. Thus reads Art. 8 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic.
We are talking about the exercise of religious freedom, and it is precisely to provide concrete tools for religious confessions and the public administration that the Baptist Evangelical Christian Union of Italy (UCEBI) decided to finance, with the Baptist Eight per thousand funds, a second research thesis on this topic.
“The project is aimed at drafting a second handbook – guide for public leaders and operators of religious denominations in Italy, with or without agreements with the State, in order to facilitate the exercise of religious freedoms – explains UCEBI’s President Giovanni Arcidiacono in a circular letter sent to the churches -. There are in fact further areas of investigation, such as that of the organic reform of the third sector, religious practices and symbols in public places (schools, hospitals, prisons, cemeteries, etc.), the religion teaching (IRC) in the public school, acts of worship in public institutions, end-of-life issues, the social security aspect of religious ministers and other issues related to religious freedom in our country”.
The first volume of this line, published by Claudiana in 2019, is titled “Religious Confessions and Public Administration”. Simona Attollino, scholar of ecclesiastical law and Church-State relations, edited the first part of the research that was about issues related to religious buildings, bodies and tributes, financing and privacy. It is a practical legal aid addressed to all minority religious denominations, based on the constitutional principle of equal freedom of all religious expressions. Inside there are indications on religious buildings, on national and regional laws, with examples and cases, on constitutional rules, special laws, decrees, circulars, jurisprudential interpretations.
The scientific manager of the new research thesis, as for the previous one, is Francesco Alicino, professor of public law of religions at the Free Mediterranean University Jean Monnet of Casamassima (Bari). The purpose of the initiative, among other things, is to stimulate the technical-legal debate and the dialogue on secularism.
, February 7, 2020 - “All religious denominations are equally free before the law. Religious denominations other than Catholic){kind=link}