Politics | Christian democracy » Mark Donovan - Church and State in Italy, Beyond Christian Democracy

Source: http://www.doksinet ECPR00 Donovan.doc ECPR APRIL 2000 – COPENHAGEN WORKSHOP ON CHURCH AND STATE IN EUROPE: THE CHIMERA OF NEUTRALITY Workshop Directors: Stathis Kalyvas & John Madeley CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY: BEYOND CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY First draft Mark Donovan Mark Donovan Cardiff University School of European Studies PO Box 908 CARDIFF CF10 3YQ Donovan@cf.acuk 1 Source: http://www.doksinet Church and State in Italy: Beyond Christian Democracy The Church-state relationship has been a central theme of Italian historiography. The Italian state is widely identified as weak, with a series of political regimes having been established only to collapse: the Liberal, the Fascist and, most recently, the so-called ‘First Republic’. The role played by the Catholic Church is often identified as one of the keys to understanding the construction and/or failure of these regimes. Indeed, the most recent regime collapse ended the ‘soft’ hegemony (Tarrow 1990) of one of

the world’s most successful christian democratic parties, the ‘DC’. By describing the persistence, well in to the 1990s, of an ambiguous attitude among Catholic authorities to party political mobilisation on the basis of Christian inspiration, this paper suggests that Church self-interest will continue to predispose it to support such activism. It is true that since the electoral débâcle of 1994 and consequent split in 1995 of the DC’s successor party, the PPI, the Church has been forced to concede the end of the myth of Catholic political unity and that a substantially secularised party system may now be consoidating in which any continuing religious cleavage is submerged. In some senses, the end of the confessionally ambiguous ‘DC-state’ is thus seeing a ‘normalisation’ of Church-state relations on the basis of a revised Concordat and the Church’s role as a pressure group in a consolidated democratic state. Nevertheless, several factors push in the direction of

party politics continuing to be an issue with a religious dimension in Italy. These include the importance of political parties in defining the nature of the Italian state and its society, the continuing survival of Catholic parties, the mobilisational capacity of the Church and the challenge of a new religious pluralism as well as, more fundamentally, the competitive nature of the Church-state relationship given the impossibility of state neutrality with regard to religion. In particular, so long as a new party system structure is not consolidated, the relationship between Catholicism, party politics and the Italian state remains in flux 2 Source: http://www.doksinet An Overview of Church-State Relations in Italy from the Risorgimento to the Republic The relationship between Church and state in liberal Italy was profoundly antagonistic for most of the period 1860-1924. The kingdom of Piedmont which provided the core of the state-building process in unified Italy had pioneered the

reduction of Church privileges (Passerin d’Entrèves 1981: 2, cited in Kalyvas 1996: 215-6) and the construction of Italy brought the destruction of the papal states and then, in 1870, the military occupation of Rome. The Pope ‘retreated’, becoming a self-declared ‘prisoner’ in the Vatican, thus initiating the ‘Roman question’ with its profound impact on Catholic politics internationally. Guido Formigoni (1998) has argued that the ideological roots of Catholic understandings of the nation-state in Italy are to be found in the 1840s debate between Vincenzo Gioberti and Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio. According to Formigoni, this debate provided the two ideological poles and cultural template for debate over the next century. Gioberti symbolised Catholic liberal-nationalism, or ‘guelphism’. This fused national sentiment with religious ideals, locating the Italian nation’s identity in Catholicism, as guided by Rome and the papacy, thus providing the Italian state with the

mission of spreading Christian civilisation. Taparelli, by contrast, lamented modernity’s dissolution of the ties between states and its undermining of the juridical and moral status of the papacy, and whilst national identity formation in socio-cultural terms was not problematic, the conjunction of nationalism and liberalism in the process of state-formation violated natural and universal law. Despite this, Formigoni argues, the strength of nationalism was such that not even the most intransigent conservative analysis could frontally oppose the national idea (p.31), and the liberal and intransigent Catholic positions tended to interpenetrate each other over time. Formigoni’s conclusion is that the national idea was integral to Catholic thinking about modern politics and that the argument that Catholic anti-national universalism is one of the major causes of the weakness of national identity in Italy, as strongly propounded by conservative liberals in the 1990s, is unfounded

(p.155) That the Christian Democratic Party of the so-called First Republic was, for all its faults, a profoundly national party is argued by many Catholic historians (Lombardo 1981; Giovagnoli 1996). Indeed, it is often argued that whilst the dominant party elites, from De Gasperi onward, eschewed nationalist terminology for a varitey of reasons: to preserve what remained of anti-Fascist unity after the exclusion of the Left from the cabinet in 1947; to weaken the linkages between intransigent Catholicism and the Right; to contest the ethical Catholic nationalism of the Dossettiani on the DCLeft; the DC nevertheless became, in many respects, a statist social Catholic party from the 1950s (Baget-Bozzo 1994; Becchi 1994). Enzo Pace (1995) who has analysed the nature of the myth of Catholic political unity in the First Republic helps explain the liberal-reactionary symbiosis identified by Formigoni in the stances adopted by Catholics towards modern politics via another typology of

Catholic socio-political activity. This distinguishes between ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘pragmatism’ The former refuses any 3 Source: http://www.doksinet compromise with the mundane structures of the world and sees state institutions as permanently lacking legitimacy. All forms of the state need a superior ethical principle which must be a religious guarantee. By contrast, the pragmatic strand accepts the legitimacy of the state, identifies Church and state as two separate spheres, and sees the structures of the modern state as a means for promoting the common good. As such, the state is subordinate to society Since nineteenth century Catholic liberals sought to use the (as yet putative) democratic instruments of the modern state to reconquer society, bringing it back to the lost faith, Catholic liberalism could appear quite reactionary. On the other hand, even Taparelli’s fundamentalist distinction between the state and the religious sphere did provide the former with a

relative autonomy. It was not directly subordinate to the Church, and the Church would not seek to make it so (pp.27-8) Here lay the grounds for the distinction later drawn by the early Christian Democrats between obedient autonomy and mere subjection to papal views. Despite the Italian Church’s prominent support for the integrity of the Italian state in the 1990s crisis and its conspicuous and controversial role in the post-1948 Republic, the Vatican undoubtedly did much to undermine the new Italian state following its construction. The Vatican banned Catholics from voting and standing in national elections thus creating the potential for a mass, Catholic mobilisation if and when the suffrage was extended. Church influence throughout the peninsula thus made Catholicism a major subversive force undermining attempts to construct an Italian national identity founded on the state, thereby significantly contributing to the failure of the liberal state to embed itself, that is to

legitimise itself among the broad masses of the people whom it sought to construct as ‘Italians’. Towards the end of the century the combination of anti-clerical measures and Catholic non-participation in the parliamentary system led to Catholic social mobilisation and the creation, in the north-east of Italy in particular, of a sub-culture hostile to the (in any case weak) state. Some argue that this tradition endured throughout the Christian Democratic period and contributed to the rise of the anti-state Northern League in the 1990s (Gangemi & Riccamboni 1997; Messina 1997). The latent power of Catholic mobilisation began to show itself in the late nineteenth century when the rise of socialism made it expedient for the Church to ally with liberal politicians - whilst yet hoping to bend the state to Catholic ends. Nevertheless, the ‘paese reale’ with which the Vatican identified Catholicism and itself in juxtaposition to the new state (the ‘paese legale’), comprised

many realities and these had a certain spontaneous independence of the Vatican. Thus, the rise of mass politics challenged the authority of the Vatican as well as that of the liberal elites. In 1904, Pius X dissolved the so-called ‘first’ Christian Democracy because of its tendency to political autonomy. Moreover, when the Church attempted to avoid autonomous Catholic political organisation following the introduction of universal suffrage in 1912 via the Gentiloni pact (1913), Christian Democrats denounced the pact as a ‘prostitution’ of the catholic vote. The pact arranged the mobilisation of Catholic votes on behalf of conservative liberals who agreed to uphold seven points (Kalyvas 1996: 219-220).1 Christian Democrats saw the intransigents as wrongly ‘subject’ to papal authority, rather 4 Source: http://www.doksinet than merely ‘obedient’ to it, and when the Libyan and then First World wars accentuated the politicisation of Catholic mobilisation, it led to the

formation of the Italian Popular Party (PPI) in 1919. The PPI won 205 per cent of the vote and rapidly acquired a quarter of a million members The emergence of an autonomous political party was forced on the Vatican by its need to disentangle Catholic Action and itself from direct participation in Catholic-inspired political mobilisation which had become inevitable. The emergence of a Catholic-inspired party changed the nature of Catholicism itself which was significantly laicised and pluralised, the Church-state relationship also underwent change. Thus, the tendency to zero-sum ideological conflict between them was replaced, briefly as it turned out, by the promise of a more liberal, bargaining approach to disagreement as Catholicism became politically integrated and in some sense competitive with other political forces in a pluralist, democratic statebuilding architecture: the party system. This new development did not mature The post-WWI crisis of the nascent liberal-democracy saw

the PPI spurned by the Vatican which conspired in Mussolini’s destruction of Italy’s liberal regime. The Vatican went on to effect a rapprochement between the Church and the transformed Italian state via the so-called Lateran Pacts of 1929. These formally ended the ‘Roman Question’. By then, the new regime had already recognised Catholic school participation in national examinations and the degrees of the new Catholic university (Sacred Heart, Milan), restored the crucifix to school and court rooms, repaired churches, raised clerical salaries, closed down anti-clerical journals and banned free-masonry. Further to this, the Pacts: 1) established the sovereign Vatican city state; 2) gave financial compensation for the loss of papal territories; and 3) agreed a Concordat granting various privileges: a) religious instruction was extended to secondary schools; b) Church marriages were deemed legally sufficient; c) seminarists were exempted from military service; d) Catholic Action

associations were guaranteed operation (Clark 1996); e) modest state stipends were instituted for priests and bishops. Fascism repressed the Catholic political and social organisations that were developing autonomously of the Church, but the Church’s ecclesiastical organisation was reinforced and even developed as a rival to Fascism. A competitive, at times antagonistic, relationship between Catholicism and the state was created. When Fascism broke down in 1942-43, two popularly rooted forces were poised to govern Italy: the Catholic and the Marxist. Historically, both had tended to form anti-state, autonomous sub-cultures yet both also developed ‘ethical parties’ (Lepre 1993: 53-4) which demanded loyalty to the party as the incarnation of a set of values. These parties were flanked by an array of social, cultural and economic institutions each creating autonomous national dimensions, the so-called ‘institutionalised traditions’ (Barnes 1977), and international, universalist

ones. In the Catholic case, which came to hold state power, both dirigiste state-corporatist and anti-state ‘petty commodity production’ values, underpinned economic policies. The attitudes to the state of these traditions were thus complex and defy simple reductionism. 5 Source: http://www.doksinet Initially, 1944-47, the Catholic and Marxist traditions worked together alongside Italy’s other anti-Fascist forces in the CLN (the Committee for National Liberation), laying the foundations of the Republic and a basis for the unification of an Italian people with an Italian state. However, severe domestic tension (including localised civil war) plus the Cold War led to the formation of a state dominated by the Catholic inspired Christian Democrats (DC), whilst the Socio-Communist subculture was confined to the role of opposition. The ‘ethical party’ nature of these forces plus the presence of similarly inspired minority liberal and Fascist nostalgia sub-cultures tended to

undermine the construction of an Italian people owing allegiance to an imprtial state. Rather, the ‘First Republic’, as the period 1948-92/94 is now known, was largely synonymous with Christian Democratic domination of both the formal processes of government and the party penetration and dominance of civil society. This latter phenomenon came to be known as ‘partyocracy’ In the 1950s, the concept was used by liberals, rather as in Germany, as a critique of party democracy as such. By the 1960s and through the 1970s, the concept of the ‘DC-state’ dominated. From the late 1970s, however, the concept of partyocracy began to make headway again and the notion that the opposition PCI was a part of this as well as all the government parties began to gain a hold. The parties were seen as having supplanted the state, preventing the formation of a set of institutions broadly acknowledged by Italians as impartial and ‘above politics’. The ‘First Republic’: Christian

Democratic? If the Lateran Pacts had made Italy a constitutionally confessional state under an unconstitutional regime, the early years of the Republic apparently brought such ambiguity to an end: the new republic was widely identified as a confessional state (Jemolo 1960). This reflected the Lateran Pact’s incorporation into the 1948 constitution (Article 7); the Church’s dynamic and massive mobilisation on behalf of the DC (voting now became a moral duty) and in order to rechristianise Italy, Europe and, indeed, the world; and the apparent domination of Catholic and DC political and cultural preferences. The persistence of DC government through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s caused frustrated radicals to see the Church as keeping a steady grip on Italian state and society. In fact, the DC and the Catholic Church should be distinguished; the limits to the authority of both was significant; and the ambiguity of Italy’s confessional identity continued. Thus, the DC was one party

of many and indeed held only a plurality, not even a majority, of the vote. Concomitantly with this, the role of the other parties, not least the PCI in governing Italy, albeit it not via the cabinet (i.e ‘the’ government), was very great The ambiguity of Italy’s religious identity did not become clear to most observers until the 1970s, however (Formigoni 1998: 166; Riccardi 1999). Whilst Catholic political unity cemented by anti-communism was the core of the DC’s electoral triumph in 1948 - the party gained 48.5 per cent of the vote and over a half of the Chamber 6 Source: http://www.doksinet of Deputies seats - the party’s leadership was keen to avoid dependence on the Church. Above all, it wanted to avoid the vulnerability to papal dictat that the PPI had revealed despite its having been far less a ‘Catholic party’ than the DC. So, whilst the DC relied on the Pope’s authority to establish the principle of the political unity of Catholics and on the organisational

power of parish-based, nationwide electoral mobilisation, the party nevertheless sought to establish both its organisational independence and the autonomy of the political sphere. And in practice, the DC was not the ‘long-arm of the Church’ (Sassoon 1986: 143-5). Whereas the PPI’s dominant figure, Luigi Sturzo had been a priest, the leadership of the DC was lay, and in the 1940s it set about establishing mass organisations loyal to it, albeit religiously inspired. The Catholic Italian Workers’ Association (ACLI) was built thus, and when the Catholic trade union (CISL) was established it linked with the American AFL-CIO in ICFTU, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, rather than the Catholic International (IFCTU), whilst the farmers’ movement Coldiretti soon gave the party a mass rural base. In the 1950s Amintore Fanfani reinforced the party’s independence of the Church (and business interests) creating an interpenetration of party and state. For example, the

state monopoly of the new medium of television was put to effective party work, with DC party sections providing prompt popular access to the new communications medium. The DC’s autonomy of clerical and indeed papal influence was confirmed by its coalition strategies from the outset. First, the alliance with the marxist parties 1944-47 was maintained despite the opposition of the Catholic Right and the displeasure of Pius XII. Subsequently, from 1947-48, the party governed with the so-called ‘lay parties’ (Liberals, Republicans and Social Democrats) rather than with the monarchists and the MSI, again despite the alternative pursued by the Catholic Right. Then, from December 1963, the party formed a series of governments with the socialists (PSI). In 1949, Socialist party (or union) membership had been sufficient to warrant excommunication. This is not to say that the democratic pluralism of political Catholicism was unambiguous. Indeed, the DC’s centrism and the exclusionary

nature of the democracy it established was highly contradictory. Until 1963, when the Socialists (PSI) entered the so-called ‘Centre-Left’ governments, nearly half of the electorate supported parties excluded from government as a matter of principle, and political discrimination against individuals was rife even after the so-called ‘cold civil war’ of c.1948-50 (Lepre, 1993: 127-8). Moreoever, many saw Fanfani’s understanding of the alliance with the PSI as effecting a strategic shift of the DC to the left, thus enabling it to win the PSI’s more moderate electorate. This in turn would allow the DC to consolidate its hold over the median voting position and hence its domination of coalition formation and government. Despite these fears and the significant weakening of the PSI during the 1960s, including by unconstitutional means, the DC’s coalition strategy contributed to breaking down barriers between Catholics and non-Catholics, Catholics and socialists. The

transformation of the Catholic world itself was confirmed and accelerated by the Second Vatican Council, organised by John XXIII partly to free him of the 7 Source: http://www.doksinet influence of the still highly conservative cardinals of the Vatican Curia (Martina 1977; Riccardi 1983; Riccardi 1988). With the benefit of hindsight, other authors than Jemolo have depicted, rather, the semblance of Catholic authority in the 1950s (Riccardi 1998); and Scoppola (1985: 20, passim) sees the presence and power of the Church in Italian society as declining from 1948 - not least thanks to the nature of the DC (rooting its survival in consumerism) and the Church’s relation to it. Thus, as early as 1952 the Inter-Regional Bishops’ Conference (the fore-runner of the Italian Episcopal Council - CEI) identified support for the DC as a contingent necessity rather than a virtue in itself, and as a cause of problems for clerical recruitment and morale. The Conference proposed, simultaneously

and with some self-contradiction, to keep clear the distinction between the party and the Church, and to promote the popularity and effectiveness of the party by ‘renewing’ it internally (Riccardi 1983: 17784). The latter theme was repeated intermittently over the subsequent decades, with medium-term success (Arian & Barnes 1974). Membership crises in the late 1970s and early 1990s were also confronted in this fashion, but only on the first occasion with success (Anderlini 1989). To sum up, the reality was that what was built from the 1940s was not a confessional state but a DC-state. Nor did the DC state govern a DC-society, for this would be to ignore the role of the opposition(s), the country’s variegated political geography and, indeed, the growing pluralism of Catholicism itself. The ambiguity of Italy’s religious identity was ended by the divorce referendum of 1974 (Riccardi 1998: 54). The result was a massive shock to most Italians and international observers and the

unexpected revelation of Italy’s non-Catholic identity itself fuelled the process of change. In 1978, abortion was legislated for and it too confirmed by referendum in 1981. Recognition of these changes and Church recognition of the need to re-emphasise formal Church-state relations rather than relying on the DC led to the revision of the Concordat in 1984. Italy ceased to be even formally a Catholic state. Changes in expectations in the Catholic world after the Second Vatican Council and the social changes which led to legislation on divorce, the legality of giving advice on contraception, and then abortion, had made it increasingly clear that a revision of Article 7 was necessary. A delicate matter difficult for a DC-led government to handle, the Concordat was revised by a government led by Italy’s first Socialist Prime Minister, Bettino Craxi. Since 1984, Italy’s growing religious pluralism has found formal recognition:2 in 1987 an agreement was signed with Italy’s Jewish

community; in 1991 an Orthodox Christian metropolitan was established in Venice (Riccardi 1994c); in 1994, the Berlusconi government signed an agreement with the Baptists, partly under the pressure of an imminent visit by US President Bill Clinton, himself a baptist; and in March 2000 the D’Alema II government signed an agreement with both the Italian Buddhist Union and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both these latter remain subject to parliamentary ratification and there is some doubt that the second will pass this hurdle (Corriere della Sera, 18 March 2000). These agreements guarantee such matters as spiritual welfare in hospitals and in prison; 8 Source: http://www.doksinet the right to nominate ministers, recognition of funeral rights and religious festivals, and participation in the the ‘eight per thousand’ - see below). Pace (1995: 16) describes Church-state concordats generally as having an ‘exchange’ logic and the 1984 revision fits this pattern. It ended compulsory

religious teaching in schools but made it voluntary - and over 90 per cent of parents opt for their children to receive it. It placed the scandalridden Vatican bank (IOR) under legal regulation, made Church properties fully taxable and ended state stipends but introduced tax breaks on donations and enabled the payment of voluntary contributions via income tax. At a rate of 08% (ie ‘eight per thousand’) some 40-45 per cent of tax payers choose to make such contributions. From 1984 until at least 1994, the Church continued to play a direct role in the process of party system change and it has promoted public issues dear to it with renewed vigour since the state crisis of the 1990s. In particular, the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) has come to play a prominent role in Italian politics. The reasons for this include the symbolic importance of Italy as, in some sense, the ‘home’ of the Catholic Church on the one hand and, on the other, the opportunity to do so thanks to the

prominence of the DC and its crisis. The 1952 Inter-Regional Bishops’ conference cited above was the first step towards creating an autonomous national organisation of the Italian episcopacy. Hitherto, Italy’s national religious organisation had been pre-empted by the domination of the Vatican since the mid-nineteenth century and the enduring localism of Italy’s churches (Riccardi 1986). Preparations for the second Vatican Council reinforced the trend towards recognising a specifically Italian episcopal identity, and the CEI was formally instituted in 1972. A process of formal papal disengagement from Italian politics was underway, the core of which was the substantial disengagement of the Church itself from the DC. However, because of, variously, the centrality of Rome to Italy and to Catholicism, the Pope’s also being Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy and, finally, Paul VI’s (1964-79) intimate relationship with the DC, it was possible for John Paul II (1979-) to assert

his authority over the CEI and to re-engage the Church in Italian party politics, eventually even seeking to influence the restructuring of the party system in the 1990s. Since its inception, the CEI has organised three decennial assemblies of the Italian ‘Catholic world’, in 1976, 1985 and 1995. In the wake of Vatican II and the Church’s shift to reinforcing its autonomous presence in Italian society, independent of the DC, support for the DC had tended to become residual. However, Catholic inteventionism was reinvigorated by the events of 1974-6: the divorce referendum and the Communist electoral advance which threatened to make the PCI Italy’s largest party, overtaking the DC. In these circumstances, episcopal division and Papal caution caused the 1976 Assembly to fail definitively to confirm the break with the DC. At the 1985 assembly the ecclesiastic elite, led by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, was expected to overthrow the traditional model of partnership with the DC.

This, however, was blocked by the recently elected John Paul II The new pope confirmed the dogma of the political unity of Italian Catholics, restated the Church’s 9 Source: http://www.doksinet leading public role, and identified its mission in Italy as a ‘social force’ acting to save the nation (Magister 1996). Church, State and Party between the First and Second Republic John Paul was able to shape only the formal policies of the CEI. He was unable to guide Italy’s new multi-form Catholicism (Allum 1990) to anything like unity (Margiotta Broglio, 1996). Nevertheless, the pope’s stance was significant for the DC in the 1980s was seeking to renew its links with the Catholic world in order to restore its tarnished legitimacy. Moreover, when the DC went into crisis in the early 1990s, the Church continued to confirm the dogma of Catholic political unity. The Church was thus closely identified with the new Italian Popular Party (PPI) that, led by Martino Martinazzoli,

emerged from the ruins of the DC in 1993/94 (Accattoli, 1994; Brunelli 1995; Magister 1996). The emergent PPI sought to purge its delegitimised membership and to bolster it with Catholic activists. Complementing this support for the DC/PPI, the Church acted against two challengers to the DC. (See tables 1-3 for a list of ‘Catholic’ parties and their electoral strengths; and the proportions of ‘practising Catholics voting for these and other parties). On the one hand, the Jesuit father Ennio Pintacuda, was suspended from teaching in the movement’s school for political eduction in Palermo. Pintacuda was the adviser to Leoluca Orlando a DC reformist whose co-operation with the Left as mayor of Palermo in the late 1980s had seen him forced to found his own party, the Network, when the DC sought to marginalise him. Despite achieving national and some international prominence in and after the 1992 election, Orlando was an essentially local phenomenon, albeit a prominent challenge to

the DC for all that. Much more substantial a challenge was Mario Segni to whom the President of the CEI, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, was consistently hostile. A reform-minded DC back-bencher, Mario Segni became a national leadership figure by his chairing (1990-93) of COREL, the cross-party referendum Committee for Electoral Reform. In September 1992, as the Tangentopoli investigations in to party corruption gathered pace, Segni established the Popolari for Reform a movement which divided the DC and threatened to displace it with a more secular party should the DC collapse, as some were beginning to anticipate. Partly in response to Segni’s challenge, the discredited DC Secretary, Arnaldo Forlani resigned, being replaced in October 1992 by Mino Martinazzoli, a northerner noted for his honesty and integrity. In March 1993, on the eve of the key electoral reform referendum, Segni broke with the DC in order to maintain his credibility as a reformer. That summer he attempted to build a

cross-party national reform movement which focused on the PDS - perhaps inevitably given that it was the only credibly organised political force left. Politically, however, the move was suicidal for a conservative, albeit reformist, politician and the Church’s support for the DC, whose membereship Martinazzoli had meanwhile annulled as a sign of the party’s refoundation, regained some credibility. In the election of 10 Source: http://www.doksinet 1994 Segni was all but isolated and he was forced, ironically, in to an electoral alliance with the former DC, now PPI, in an attempt to survive the challenge of the new, largely majoritarian, electoral arena. The election result destroyed Segni The PPI fared only a little better The ‘Catholic’ centre was crushed by the process of bipolarisation focusing on the Progressives and the dual alliance (FI plus LN in the north, FI plus MSI-AN in the south) constructed by Berlusconi on the Right. The combination of grass-roots’ wishful

thinking with authoritative backing for the formation of the new PPI had led many Catholic militants to believe that the PPI, founded in January 1994, would be, at long last, the party they had never had. Its defeat in March 1994 was, thus, a major psychological blow to Catholic activists. Worse, the aim of creating a Catholic centrist party holding the balance of power between Left and Right enabling the PPI to become a quasi-permanent party of government, had failed. Had the attempt succeeded it would have been a strategic historical triumph exercising a long-term influence over the nature of Church-state relations. A period of great uncertainty followed the 1994 election. Ruini appeared to identify the victorious centre-right as the natural home for Catholics, large numbers of whom were identified as having switched their vote to Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Garelli 1994: 583). The PPI was invited to overcome the gap that separated the party from ‘its’ electorate. Poll evidence,

however, indicated that the party was likely to lose whichever way it went, left or right. Indeed, moving to the right would probably be slightly more damaging (Mannheimer Corriere della Sera 12/12/94; 23/1/95; 6/2/95). Most conservative voters had already shifted to supporting Forza Italia or the CCD (Centre Christian Democrats), a section of the DC which had not accepted Martinazzoli’s centrist strategy for the new PPI but opted instead for the formation of a splinter group allied with Forza Italia. In any event the formation of the CCD meant that the DC-Left was a strong component of the PPI and for it, the right was anathema. Not only was Berlusconi’s entry in to politics unwelcome in itself, but his party, Forza Italia, was allied to the Lega Nord (LN) and the neo-/post-fascist MSI-AN, both the subject of condemnation. Thus the CEI had signalled repeatedly and clearly its opposition to Italy’s dismemberment, promoted by the Northern League, whilst anti-fascism remained part

of the PPI’s genetic code. In the aftermath of Berlusconi’s 1994 victory, the CEI called for the country to give his putative government and the new electoral system a chance to work, but nevertheless also made clear its preoccupation regarding the threat Berlusconi’s government presented to both the constitution and social cohesion (Corriere della Sera, 23/4/94). In the event, Berlusconi’s government collapsed at the end of the year and in early 1995 the PPI split, forcing the CEI to acknowledge the end of Catholic political unity. Already in local elections in November 1994 the PPI had claimed a free hand between Left and Right, making alliances according to local circumstances. The real significance of this was the development of links with both the post-communist PDS and even the LN as a means of containing what became the core duopoly of the Right, Forza Italia and AN. Most notably Martino Martinazzoli, who had overseen the transformation of the DC into the PPI and

championed its centrist strategy, 11 Source: http://www.doksinet headed a joint centre-left list in his home city of Brescia. The CEI warned against PPI, PDS, LN cooperation in terms of the need to avoid the possibility of a ribaltone (‘flip-flop’) at the national level whereby the parties in parliament reversed the electoral decision (of March 1994). In fact, the formation of an alternative government including the LN was not a realistic option. What did hpapen was that the PPI co-operated with the LN and the Left to bring down Berlusconi’s government and then to support the technocratic government of Lamberto Dini which replaced it (from January 1995). The PPI’s split was precipitated in the spring of 1995 by the need to define a coherent national alliance strategy in the regional (and local) elections and in particular by the PPI-Left’s promotion of Romano Prodi as prime minister candidate for a future national centre-left alliance. Rocco Buttiglione, who had replaced

Martinazzoli after the 1994 election disaster, vetoed PPI support for Prodi. Grass-roots support, however, mushroomed throughout the country and opinion polls indicated two-thirds of the PPI’s electorate to support Prodi’s candidacy (Mannheimer, Corriere della Sera 13/3/95). The PPI split took place amidst intense dispute over rule application which led to two party secretaries (Buttiglione and Gerardo Bianco) being elected and the factions resorting to the courts to resolve the situation. The result was that the patrimony (including debts) of the DC were divided, the central property in Rome’s Piazza del Gesù, for example, being split between the two groups. Whilst the continuing PPI went ahead to ally with the Left in the 1995 and 1996 elections, and Buttiglione’s CDU (as it became) joined the Right (the Liberty Pole), the internal logic of the PPI’s split was only partly a left-right one. To a significant extent the split was between the traditional DC of left and right

which emphasised the autonomy of the political sphere, and the newcomers epitomised by Buttiglione - whose political culture was widely seen as clerico-conservative and hence extraneous to that of the traditional DC (Petracca, Corriere della Sera, 3/8/94). Clerico-conservatism was widely seen as resurgent in 1994 and it was feared that it could easily take on Catholic fundamentalist or integralist, anti-pluralist tones. Irene Pivetti, a member of the LN who sprang to national prominence via her election-cum-appointment as the (young and female) Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, 1994-96 was accused of this. Thus, whilst some defended her stance as not being anti-pluralist (Cardini, Corriere della Sera, 1/9/95), the CEI entertained concerns to the contrary (Corriere della Sera, 30/5/94) and did not support her either because of, or despite, her apparently strong grass-roots appeal. This popularity reflected a strong perception that ‘democratic’ Catholicism, in the shape of the DC,

had failed Catholics, that it was not Pivetti who erred in restating the absolute nature of Catholicism’s values, but the political elites and even the ecclesiastic hierarchy which seemed to deny this (Marzo, Corriere della Sera 24/9/94). Forced to recognise the new political pluralism both of the Catholic vote and of parties pretending explicitly Christian inspiration, the Church’s official position in the 1995 and 1996 elections was of non-alignment (not neutrality - see below). nevertheless, different organisations and prominent individuals (who have been recognised as playing an opinion-forming role as ‘new episcopal intellectuals’ by the philosopher Gianni Vattimo - Riccardi 1994a), were indicated by 12 Source: http://www.doksinet commentators as aligned. For Buttiglione-Berlusconi were: the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano; the Deputy Secretary of State responsible for Italian affairs, Archbishop Giovan Battista Re; Cardinal Camillo Ruini, President

of the CEI; Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, Archbishop of Palermo; and Cardinal Silvio Oddi. For Bianco-Prodi were: Cardinals Carlo Maria Martini, Archbishop of Milan; Alessandro Maggiolini, bishop of Como; Luigi Betttazzi; and Ersilio Tonini, Archbishop of Ravenna-Cervia, plus, more generally: ACLI, Catholic Action, the Jesuits and the ‘Paolini’ (Corriere della Sera, 29/3/95:7). The post-DC parties gained much greater representation in the sub-national elections of 1995 than their electoral weight justified, an outcome which reflected their bargaining power vis-à-vis their coalition allies rather than their continuing electoral strength. Thus, whereas the PPI’s national vote failed to reach double figures, five of the centre-left’s fifteen regional presidential candidates were from the PPI (Veneto, Liguria, Abruzzi, Basilicata and Calabria) and another two were PPI-associated Independents (Lazio & Apulia). Three (Abruzzi, Basilicata and Lazio) were elected In all, a

quarter of centre-left candidates were PPI or associated. The PPI’s prominence proved something of a lifeline to the party: in five regions (Veneto, Liguria, Molise, Basilicata and Calabria) the PPI vote did not drop compared to 1994 despite a national decline from 3.5m+ to just 15m votes In the Pole, the CCD had one presidential candidate and Buttiglione’s Popolari (later CDU) two. From the latter, Roberto Formigoni, co-founder in 1976 of the Popular Movement (the political arm of the ‘neointegralist’ movement Communion and Liberation), was elected President of the Lombardy Region. Just over a quarter of all centre-right regional candidates (28.8%) were from the CCD or CDU yet their vote share (in the regional, provincial and local elections) ranged from two to six per cent (Di Virgilio 1996). The consequent over-representation of the Catholic parties, which continued at the national level via the 1996 parliamentary election, encouraged a series of attempts through the late

1990s to reaggregate the fragmented Catholic parties in some broadly centrist position. This was one reason why, to jump to 1999, the election as President of the Republic of the lay figure Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, rather than a prominent Catholic politician, as sought by the PPI, was significant. Catholic ‘over-representation’, forced upon the lay parties as an electoral tactic when they competed against each other, could be cut out of the equation if they co-operated to make strategic state appointments. The third decennial assembly of the Catholic Italian ‘world’ took place in Palermo in November 1995 in the wake of the PPI’s epochal electoral defeat of 1994 and split of 1995. The location symbolised the Church’s new-found, anti-mafia pro-state position - and this in turn reflected the Church’s self-declared mission of ‘saving Italy’. The identification of an explicitly national strategy for the Catholic Church in Italy had already seen the Church strongly oppose

Bossi’s separatism. Now this stance was intended to provide a framework within which the Church could be politically super partes in the new post-political-unity era. In accordance with this, the emphasis shifted at the party level to the establishment of coordination between the Catholic parties (Corriere della Sera 19/12/95: 4). 13 Source: http://www.doksinet For the Catholic historian Giorgio Rumi, the Church’s position is not one of neutrality, but of impartial non-alignment. This permits a robust defence of autonomously defined supreme values What this amounts too was detailed (La Repubblica 3/4/96: 2) prior to the 1996 election - support for candidates sensitive to christian values who guarantee: 1 the primacy and centrality of the person 2 the defence of human life at all stages of its existence 3 the promotion of the family founded on marriage 4 the dignity of women and woman’s role in social life 5 the effective liberty of education and of schooling 6 a

correct equilibrium of powers within the state 7 support for local government and intermediate social structures in a context of national unity 8 the centrality of work, social justice, liberty and efficiency in the economic system and in the development of employment 9 prioritisation of attention to depressed geographical areas and the weaker social strata 10 international peace and solidarity and Italy’s consequent responsibilities in Europe and the world 11 respect for the environment and the safe-guarding of future generations. This formula may encourage some Catholics to abstain in the single member constituency ballot where the alliance candidate (of Left or Right) comes from a party unacceptable to them. For example, on the Left, PPI voters may not vote a Communist or Left-DS candidate; and on the Right, CCD voters may not vote for one of Forza Italia’s libertarian liberals or the ‘post-Fascist’ AN. In the PR ballot, of course, the voter is less constrained;

Catholics have had the opportunity to vote for Catholic parties of Left and Right according to their choice. Certainly, on an ideological plane, the Church’s value system is seen as creating a dilemma for devout Catholics when it comes to voting. It can seem as though the Church must choose between ethical suicide by participating in and colluding with a state whose values are antithetical to its own, or marginalisation if it adheres strictly to its own values in a fundamentally secularised and laicised society (Margiotta Broglio 1996). Turnout has declined dramatically in Italian elections, with Catholic voters in particular showing signs of disorientation and lack of clear partisan identification and there has been some concern that Catholics might turn away from participation in the political structures of the state, once again undermining its legitimacy. Inevitably the importance of the party list vote and the exiguous size of the Catholic parties makes them strenuous supporters

of PR. The PPI, for example, is bitterly critical of the alleged desire of the DS to establish its hegemony over the Left despited holding only c. 20 per cent of the vote. A very different indicator of the difficulties of adjusting to the Post-DC environment came in the aftermath of the Left’s victory in 1996. The so-called ‘black’ (Catholic) nobility in Rome threatened 14 Source: http://www.doksinet to stop the indication of the 0.8 per cent income tax payment to the Church precisely because the latter’s ‘neutrality’ had helped the Left win the election (Corriere della Sera, 14/5/96). Within the Liberty Pole, the two post-Christian Democratic parties (the CCD and CDU) remained distinct after the 1996 election despite their electoral alliance. Indeed, they both suffered further splits in 1998 when the CDU appeared to switch back to the left. This development took place when former President Cossiga created a new party, the UDR (Democratic Union for the Republic), which

at the end of that year backed the formation of the D’Alema government, i.e the first Italian government led by an ex-Communist. Apparently, Cossiga sought simultaneously to render the government independent of Communist Refoundation whilst on the Right Berlusconi’s Forza Italia was supposed to decouple from Fini’s National Alliance. These outcomes would have isolated the far Left and Right, perhaps eventually leading the centre-left and centre-right to form a centrist coalition. This would have amounted to a return to the tripolar structure of the party system which underpinned the politics of the First Republic: government coalitions formed permanently at the centre and almost inevitably as the result of parliamentary and party manoeuvring after elections rather than from voter choice. This was precisely the opposite of what the Second Republic was supposed to be about Berlusconi, however, avoided dividing the Right, whilst D’Alema proved equally unwilling to break entirely

with Communist Refoundation, despite its new opposition status. Consequently, Cossiga’s initiative caused further fragmentation rather than centrist reaggregation. Thus, whilst most of the CDU had followed Buttiglione in to the UDR, not all of it had. Formigoni, the President of the Lombardy Region, for example, maintained his alliance with the Freedom Pole, forming the CDL (Free CDs). The CCD also split, with Clemente Mastella, its President, joining the UDR and going on, after its disintegration, to form the UDeuR (European Democratic Union) as an integral part of the centre-left. The remanants of the CDU returned to the opposition but again remained distinct from the CCD - and the CDL. In the meantime, Forza Italia’s claim the DC’s inheritance, challenging the Catholic parties, was reinforced by the party’s admission, at the end of 1999, to the European People’s Party. This development was strenuously opposed by the PPI and former Prime Minister Dini’s strongly

religiously identified Italian Renewal quasi-party (RI). But with no fewer than four Italian parties in the EPP providing only eight MEPs between them, and these divided between Left (PPI and RI) and Right (CCD and CDU), the pressure to admit FI’s 22 MEPs was strong (Corriere della Sera, 3 Dec.99) The development was originally strongly promoted by ex-President Cossiga as part of his strategy of pulling FI to the centre and seeking to force a rupture with the right (National Alliance), and was given critical international support by Helmut Kohl and Jose Maria Aznar. Cossiga’s support for FI oscillated in accord with the perceived chances of success of his neo-centrist strategy, that is of Berlusconi breaking with Fini (the AN leader). On the Left, the formation of the Olive Tree electoral alliance and its victory in April 1996 had led to the formation of a 20-strong cabinet containing three PPI ministers. Intransigent in its 15 Source: http://www.doksinet opposition to

majoritarian reform and open to the idea of the consolidation of a broad Left (Olive Tree) confederation rather than the consolidation of an independent centre grouping in the centre-left, the PPI under Gerardo Bianco gained a reputation for radicalism rather than centrism. The third party congress of January 1997 saw a switch in PPI leadership which aimed to orientate the party to a more moderate centre-ground, building a distinct non-socialist bloc, albeit without immediately challenging its centre-left identity. The new leader, Franco Marini, was ex-leader (1985-91) of the TU confederation CISL and was backed by its president, Sergio D’Antoni, who has worked long and hard both to build an electoral force and to reinforce the PPI’s links with the Catholic social world. The improved relationship between the Marini leadership and the CCD-CDU on the Right, plus the propensity of the Marini leadership to maintain an identity separate from the socialist left, albeit with lay allies

(the Democratic Union of Antonio Maccanico and Dini’s RI), promoted the expectations of the possible recreation of a lay Catholic centre pole. As noted above, Cossiga’s formation of the UDR in 1998 and the subsequent formation of the D’Alema government (Nov.1998) pushed in that direction. In addition to the inability to persuade D’Alema and Berlusconi to break with Communist Refoundation and the National Alliance respectively, the established centrist groupings of the centreleft (the PPI, RI and UD) proved unable to unify, let alone to ally in turn with the itself fractious UDR. The PPI, moreover, refused to break with the Left despite pressures to do this over policy issues such as drugs, schooling and bio-ethics. Instead, ‘anomalous majorities’ were formed in parliament which were based on the extraneity of such issues to the logic of coalition formation. These issues, it was argued, were ones for MPs’ individual consciences, not party position-taking and alignment. To

the extent that this argument underpinned the survival of the core coalitions of Left and Right throughout the late 1990s despite attempts to break and restructure them, a substantially lay/secular party system seemed to be consolidating itself. On the other hand, in 1998-99, the PPI’s position as the second party of the government coalition was undermined and this led to growing speculation that the party might split, reinforcing the Catholic presence in the Right and perhaps substantially ending a visible party Catholic presence in the Left. Thus, first, at the end of 1998, Romano Prodi lost a government vote of confidence (by one vote) and was replaced as PM by the former communist Massimo D’Alema. Even though not a member of the PPI, Prodi was strongly identified with that party. Second, in early 1999, Prodi formed his own party, the Democrats for the Olive Tree, and did well in the European Parliament election, gaining almost double the PPI vote (7.7% compared to 42%) The

success of the Democrats, D’Alema’s refusal to break with Communist Refoundation and the withdrawal of the UDR’s support for the government at the end of 1999 led to a new government being formed (Dec.99) which included the Democrats as an apparently privileged partner of the DS. In these changing circumstances, the PPI had already elected a new party secretary (in October), Pierluigi Castagnetti, more sympathetic to the principle of bipolarism yet still rejecting DS ‘hegemony’ over the Left and the formation of a single party of the Left, the radical project proposed by Prodi’s Democrats. By the 16 Source: http://www.doksinet spring of 2000, the possibility that a distinct Catholic party other than Forza Italia might not survive was strong. Forza Italia all but hegemonised the splintered remnants of the DC on the Right (CCD, CDU and CDL). Indeed, since the 1999 EP election it had consolidated its dominant position vis-à-vis the AN also, to the dissatisfaction of the

conservative Catholics which had joined AN rather than FI. On the Left, the flagship successor party to the DC, the PPI, was in immense difficulty. About half its MP’s expected to be unable to regain a parliamentary seat in the 2001 election and the fear of a further split - to Forza Italia - was strong. Otherwise, Dini’s quasi-party RI had no extraparliamentary organisational infrastructure, the UDeuR was a purely parliamentary creation that had only been in existence for a matter of months, and the Christian Socials who had joined the PDS in 1994 were now all but fully integrated into it, or the DS as the party had become in February 1998. In terms of Church-state relations the situation was extremely ambiguous. On the one hand the fragmentation of the post-DC Catholic parties and their marginalisation implied that Catholic politics could no longer take place in and via a dominant party. Rather they would have to take place via pressure group activity under the umbrella of formal

Church-state relations. Some hoped that Catholic activism across the political spectrum would at last bring about the domination of an ethico-political myth of there being a democratic Italian nation-state (Pace, 1995: 172). On the other hand, with many predicting Berlusconi’s victory in the next parliamentary elections (due by April 2001) and the possibility that FI would be presented as Italy’s new party of christian inspiration, the possibility of Church influence having a privileged access channel to public policy via a dominant party was not entirely discounted. Currently (March 2000) it is argued that an attempt is underway to create a dominant aggregation of former Christian Democrats around Forza Italia, using the May 2000 referendum on electoral reform to re-introduce PR to do this. Berlusconi’s decision to champion the return of PR in particular has created the possibility that if the May referendum is defeated, PR would be reintroduced. Depending on the nature of any

further electoral reform, the imperfect but nevertheless rather strongly bipolar format of the current, unconsolidated party system could be undone leading to a return to processes of government formation taking place essentially after the elections. This could facilitate a return to government formation at the centre of the political spectrum and a re-aggregation of the splintered Catholic forces around Forza Italia. Such a situation would undoubtedly reinforce conservative interpretations of Catholic doctrine and hence have a major impact on several areas of public policy which are currently on the political agenda. Catholic Politics and Public Policy In recent years, the Church in Italy has consistently highlighted its national and pro-state identity, challenging the Northern League in the name of the Italian nation-state, for example, and supporting 17 Source: http://www.doksinet fundamental institutional reform proposals, e.g the proposal to introduce a French-style

semipresidential system of government in early 1996 (Corriere della Sera, 13 Feb 1996) and the formation of the Bicameral Committee for Constitutional Reform in 1997. Yet there may be price for this support, indeed, Cartocci (1994) has spoken of the Church seeking to substitute itself for the crisisridden state. Certainly, the Church has also vigorously promoted its own agenda, most notably with regard to state-funding for Catholic education, but also in the field of bio-ethics and homosexual rights. 1 Education Historically, one of the major issues of dispute between churches and state-building elites, education remains an issue in Italy today, specifically with regard to funding. This issue bites deep into the question of the Republic’s identity. Norberto Bobbio, for example, sometimes described, despite the oxymoron, as Italy’s ‘lay pope’, vigorously rejects any form of state support for Catholic education as subverting the constitution - Article 33 states that private

schools and institutes should have ‘no costs for the state’. Approximately seven per cent of the school population attends Catholic schools whilst the Catholic ‘Sacred Heart’ in Milan is one of Italy’s most prestigious universities and in 1995 an elite christian-socialist business management school was founded (Corriere della Sera, 8/7/95). The need for education reform at all levels is generally acknowledged and governments have undertaken several reforms in recent years including a major school reform in March 2000. In this context, a strand of liberal argument has developed which argues that public-private competition in a framework regulated by the state can only benefit the state, so that Bobbio’s position is unhelpful, fundamentalist, anti-pluralist and even illiberal. The dynamic of this legislative development stems partly from the new political environment. Thus, the short-lived 1994 Berlusconi government sought and gained cautious support from the Church for its

declared intention to ‘equalise’ conditions for public and private schools. Subsequently, successive left governments have moved cautiously in that direction under both internal pressure, that is the need to retain the support of the Catholic forces within the Left, and also the awareness that alienating the Church over this key issue could contribute to the Left losing power, perhaps on a very long-term basis. The legislation (Corriere della Sera 3 March 2000), passed by the government majority and opposed by the oppositions (the Freedom Pole, Communist Refoundation, the Northern League and the CDU) embraces public and private schools meeting the necessary conditions plus local authorities to create a ‘national education system’. The conditions leave syllabi and teaching with no further regulation beyond not infringing the norms of the 1948 constitution but stipulate requirements about access, infrastructure, management, national pay rates and bargaining as well as acceptance

of the state teaching audit system. In return, infant and elementary schools opting for parity will obtain state funding, all such schools will be treated as charities3 for tax purposes, and disadvantaged parents of parity private schools may access study awards or obtain tax benefits. The 18 Source: http://www.doksinet CEI was not satisfied with the legislation but the Association of Catholic Teachers (AIMC) and that of Catholic Infant Schools (FISM) welcomed it. 2 Bioethics and Abortion. When first established as a separate discipline in the 1970s, bioethics in Italy was initially perceived essentially as the reapplication of the unity of morality and religion according to official Catholic doctrine whilst a minority of lay forces turned to the internationally dominant Anglo-American paradigm. Only from the mid-1980s did an autonomous approach develop, recognising the immense differences either side of the religious cleavage. Until the late 1990s, a Catholic fundamentalist

veto resulted in complete stagnation in the regulation of this field since regulation itself was seen as state recognition of, and participation in, immoral practice (Berlinguer 1994). Since this regulatory vacuum has permitted highly controversial developments to take place, for example the artificial insemination of post-menopause women, the late 1990s did finally see attempts to legislate in this area. However, divisions within the Left and between the Left and Right continued to block the passage of legislation up until at least the spring of 2000. In this continuing legislative vacuum a judicial decision (Corriere della Sera 29 February 2000) that wombs may be ‘loaned’ for non-profit motives succeeded in uniting the majority of lay and Catholic forces, Left and Right, against the magistrate’s decision which, furthermore, challenged the 1995 Medical Code of Practice. At the time, the major bill which exists in this area was the subject of intense debate in the Senate, having

passed through the Chamber of Deputies (in May 1999) on an ‘anomalous majority’ which the Left regarded as too conservative: donor insemination for sterile couples is not permitted; freezing of embyos is not permitted; access to artificial insemination techniques requires documented proof of sterility; homosexuals are not allowed to make use of the technology and the Right as too permissive: it entitles non-married heterosexual couples to such access. Abortion, introduced in 1978 and subject ro referendum in 1981 has been presented by conservatives as a particularly testing topic for the PPI’s cooperation with the left, but the right has no less a problem in integrating Catholics over this sensitive issue. Preparation for the Cairo World Population Conference in September 1994 led to two of Berlusconi’s cabinet ministers, both from the MSI-AN (as it was still known until 1995), condemning the 1978 law despite abortion’s irrelevance to the summit. One of these ministers was

the MSI-AN’s only woman in the cabinet, Adriana Poli Bortone. The other, the Environment Minister Altero Matteoli, equated abortion with murder, thus ‘criminalising women’ according to his colleague Alessandra Mussolini. The Family Minister, Antonio Guidi (FI), then confirmed his intention to amend the law ‘whilst leaving the final decision to the woman concerned’. Two other ministers, the liberal (Centre Union) Health Minister, Raffaelle Costa and the Northern League’s senior cabinet figure, Francesco Speroni, leapt to the law’s defence (Corriere della Sera, 11 August 1994). In some respects a storm in a teacup, the affair established that abortion was not simply a left-right issue and therefore not one on which it was possible to use as a 19 Source: http://www.doksinet discriminant when making alliances. This was of some significance when the PPI split the following year. Indeed, in February 1995 on the eve of the split, the PDS/PPI axis was confirmed when the Dini

government’s family bill was passed whilst the resolution backed by the Liberty Pole, which included a resolution defending the rights of the embryo (as part of the family) was defeated. Nevertheless, Catholic mobilisation on this issue remains intense. In 1995, a popular initiative (requiring 50,000 signatures) proposing that the civil code be amended to include the sentence: ‘Every human being has a juridical capacity from the moment of conception’ was successfully campaigned for, although parliament is under no obligation to do more than consider such initiatives. Later in the year, the Catholic parties’ coordinating group set up in the wake of the Palermo assembly was enlarged to embrace, in addition to the parties, and quite anomalously, the Movement for Life. In early February 1997 the President of the Bioethics Committee publicly supported the petition, bringing his role in the committee into question while the Liberty Pole chair of the Family Group of the Equal

Opportunities Committee, Tina Lagostena Bassi, pointed out that in the USA a number of legal cases had brought recognition of foetal rights. The state’s new religious pluralism became relevant here, in that Anna Rollier, the Waldensian representative of the working group on ethicoscientific problems, challenged the equation of human life with conception and of ‘biology with biography’. Finally, it is worth noting two points. First, there is a broader European dimension to this debate in that the European Convention on Bioethics has undertaken consideration of the status to accord to the foetus so the issue may be Europeanised. Second, within Italy, poll evidence suggests that only a large minority of voters, a third or slightly more, are against the existing abortion law, suggesting that restrictive reform is unlikely. Moreover, whilst the Vatican’s moral position on this issue is uncompromising, enabling it to mobilise and consolidate its public following, its negotiating

position has been flexible in the past. For example, the conscience clause enabling medical staff not to carry out abortions, widely employed and making the actual securing of abortion rights in large parts of Italy extremely difficult, was sufficient to win papal acknowledgment of the 1978 law, the popular Catholic referendum against it notwithstanding. 3 Health Care A universal national health service was only introduced in Italy in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, the new system caused costs to soar, although generous pensions rather than health care are the major cause of public debt and high taxes (Ascoli 1994: 538). The new NHS also dramatically reinforced systemic political corruption, though local government reforms in and after 1990, plus the tangentopoli crisis, challenged the local party oligarchies and major cost-cutting reforms have been introduced since 1992. Still, the double blow of appallingly corrupt health care and then painful reform reinforced anti-universal and

anti-state sentiment to the benefit of the voluntary, essentially Catholic, sector (Ferrera 1996). 20 Source: http://www.doksinet A citizenship-based, universal, mixed (public-private) and plural (lay and Catholic) system has won broad elite acceptance in which the Church’s welfare role is extensive, not least, for example, in the care of drug-abusers, the young and the elderly, the handicapped and immigrants. This welfare role is also acknowledged and highly regarded by the public. By contrast, the public repeatedly affirms its dislike of the Church giving advice on political or even public welfare matters. This distinction, and the more general disinclination to follow Catholic moral teaching, has led prominent ecclesiastics to fear the reduction of the Church to being little more than a welfare agency. Still, as in education, the state’s inability to fund health care to the extent desired and the acceptance of the need to introduce markets and competition is likely to

benefit the voluntary sector and religious institutions. CONCLUSION Since the foundation of the modern Italian state, the Catholic Church in Italy has had a strongly political relationship with a succession of regimes. Until recently, in the absence of a national episcopal organisation, this has meant a particularly direct political role for the Vatican itself, as well as for the clergy and lay organisations. Church-state relations have undergone a series of transformations as both the state and ‘the Church’ themselves have changed. Initially a deposed territorial power itself, it reinforced its own internal authority structure and sought to organise society outside of the state and against it. Later, challenged both ideologically and organisationally by the rise of modern socialism it co-operated with the state whilst still hoping to subvert, or convert it to its own ends. Later still, via Mussolini, it allied with the state, yet maintained a certain competitive autonomy and

emerged strengthened as Fascism collapsed leaving a vacuum which, at first, the Church part filled but which came to be filled by the political parties. Next, the Church appeared to dominate the state, with the triumph of the Christian Democrats in 1948. Nevertheless, over the succeeding years it became increasingly clear that ‘the DC-state’ was not the Church’s state. Indeed, it became clear that ‘the state’ is too complex a phenomenon, and in a pluralist democracy its interprenetration with society too significant, to ignore the role of opposition parties and broader social forces in shaping a state formation’s and a society’s evolution. For the bulk of the period in which Italy has had a democratic political system, the Church (always with some internal variation) supported Italy’s dominant ‘state’ party, or better, simply formally ‘governing’ party: the Christian Democrats. Indeed, despite a substantial change in this ‘Church-state party’ relationship

from the 1970s, Church support for the DC continued until the mid1990s. Thus, at the same time that the Church-state concordat was revised (1984), John Paul II reaffirmed the Church’s close relationship with the DC, at Loreto (1985). Now, the DC is no more. The Church in Italy is having to come to terms with Catholic political pluralism, emergent religious pluralism (and religious syncretism) and the near 21 Source: http://www.doksinet disappearance of a privileged party channel in to the state. Indeed, the state is now actively supporting the pluralisation of religion in Italy. In its relationship with the state, ‘the Church’ is becoming more like a conglomerate of lobbies and interest groups whose activities variously takes place via the formal representation of recognised institutional figures in policy communities (an area that is only just beginning to be studied in Italy), or via petitions and referendums, most notably those of 1974 and 1981 (although Catholic

associations were also important in the electoral reform referendums of the 1990s). Given the failure of the 1974 and 1981 initiatives, the failure of the attempts to save the DC and the failure of the PPI to re-establish an effective Catholic party, it can not be said that there is a lack of will in the Catholic world to mobilise politically. The relationship between Catholicism and the democratic state thus continues to be an issue of debate within and without the ‘Catholic world’. Thus, Cardinal Archbishop Martini, one of Italy’s most prominent ‘episcopal intellectuals’ and tipped as a potential successor to John Paul II has warned that CEI President Ruini’s ‘christian cultural project’ which seeks to preserve the notion of Catholic unity in the aftermath of the PPI’s electoral failure and schism, risked undermining ‘the shared civil ethos at the basis of all democratic societies’ (xx??). On the other hand, the Pope has made the point that the Church has a

right to its own viewpoint, the defence and clear articulation of which could in no way be seen as integralism or disrespecting democracy. One way or another the combination of sheer organisational presence and moral authority will see ‘the Church’ continuing to have a complex relationship with ‘the state’ in Italy. Notes Accattolli, L. (1994) ‘Ruini: Cattolici al Centro, se potete’, Corriere della Sera, 15 March 1994, p6 Allum, P. (1990) ‘Uniformity Undone: Aspects of Catholic Culture in Postwar Italy’, pp79-96 in Z.GBaranski & RLumley (eds), Culture and Conflict in Postwar Italy, Basingstoke, Macmillan Anderlini, F. (1989) ‘La DC: iscritti e modello di partito’ Polis, No2, pp277-304 Arian, A. and SHBarnes (1974) ‘The Doninant party System - A neglected model of democratic stability’, Journal of Politics, pp.592-614 Ascoli, U. (1994) ‘Le prospettive dello stato sociale’, pp538-541 in PGinsborg (ed), Stato dell’Italia. Baget Bozzo, G. (1994) Cattolici

e Democristiani, Milan, Rizzoli 22 Source: http://www.doksinet Barnes, S.H (1977) Representation in Italy: Institutionalized Tradition and Electoral Choice, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Becchi, A. (1994) ‘Democrazia cristiana e idea nazionale: la memoria e il progetto’, Storia Contemporanea, XXV(6), Dec.1994, pp887-928 Berlinguer, G. (1994) ‘Bioetica all’avanguardia ma la legislazione é bloccata’, pp321-4 in PGinsborg (ed), Stato dellItalia. Brunelli, G. (1995) ‘La scommessa perduta sul partito cattolico’ Il Mulino, XLIV No358 (Mar/Apr 2/95), 237-243. Cartocci, R. (1994) Fra Lega e Chiesa L’Italia in cerca d’integrazione, Bologna, Il Mulino Clark, M. (1996) Modern Italy 1871-1995, Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Diamanti, I. (1997) ‘L’identità cattolica e comportamento di voto L’unità e la fedeltà non sono più virtù’, pp.317-360 in PCorbetta and AMLParisi (eds), A domande risponde, Bologna, Il Mulino. Di Virgilio, A. (1996) ‘The

Regional and Administrative Elections: Bipolarisation with riserve’, pp4168 in MCaciagli and DIKertzer (eds), Italian Politics The Stalled Transition, Oxford, Westview Press. Ferrera, M. (1996) `The partitocracy of health Towards a new welfare politics in Italy? Res Publica XXXVIII (1996:2), pp.447-459 Formigoni, G. (1998) L’Italia dei cattolici: Fede e nazione dal Risorgimento alla repubblica, Bologna, Il Mulino. Gangemi, G and Riccamboni G. (1997) ‘Introduzione’, ppvii-xxvi, in idem (eds), Le Elezioni della Transizione. Il sistema politico italiano alla prova del voto 1994-1996, Turin, UTET, 1997 Garelli, F. (1991) Religione e chiesa in Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino Garelli, F. (1994) ‘Una nuova stagione per la Chiesa e i cattolici in Italia?’, Il Mulino XLIII No354 (Jul/Aug 4/94) pp.581-594 Garelli, F. (1996a) ‘Cattolici senza partito’, il Mulino XLV No367 (Sept/Oct) pp888-898 Garelli, F. (1996b) Forza della religione e debolezza della fede, Bologna, Il Mulino Ginsborg,

P. (ed) (1994) Stato dell’Italia, Milan: Il Saggiatore Giovagnoli, A. (1996) Il partito italiano La democrazia cristiana dal 1942 al 1994, Rome, Laterza Jemolo, A.C (1960) Church and State in Italy, 1850-1950, Oxford: Blackwell Kalyvas, S.N (1996) The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press. Lepre. A (1993) Storia della prima Repubblica L’Italia dal 1942 al 1992, Bologna, Il Mulino Lombardo, A. (1981) DC e questione nazionale, Milan, SugarCo Magister, S. (1996) `La Chiesa e la fine del partito cattolico, pp237-256 in MCaciagli & DIKertzer (eds), Politica in Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino. 23 Source: http://www.doksinet Margiotta Broglio, F. (1996) ‘Laici e cattolici Ruini e gli “utili” steccati’, Corriere della Sera 4/1/96: 1/2. Martina, G. (1977) La chiesa in Italia negli ultimi trentanni, Rome: Studium Messina, P. (1997) ‘Persistenza e mutamento nelle subculture politiche territoriali’, pp 19-55 in G.Gangemi and

GRiccamboni (eds), Le Elezioni della Transizione Il sistema politico italiano alla prova del voto 1994-1996, Turin, UTET, 1997. Pace E. (1995) L’Unità dei cattolici in Italia Origini e decadenze di un mito colletive, Milan, Guerrini e Associati. Passerin d’Entrèves, E. (1981) ‘Cattolici liberali’ in FTraniello and GCampanini (eds), Dizionario stroico del movimento cattolico in Italia, 1860-1980, Vol.1, Turin, Marietti Riccardi, A. (1983) Il ‘partito romano’ nel secondo dopoguerra, 1945-54, Brescia: Morcelliana Riccardi, A. (1986) Le Chiese di Pio XII, Laterza: Rome-Bari Riccardi, A. (1988) Il potere del Papa: da Pio XII a Paolo VI, Rome: Laterza-Bari Riccardi, A. (1994a) La Chiesa di fronte a una società secolarizzata, pp338-343 in PGinsborg (ed) Riccardi, A. (1994b) Lapparato, le forze in campo, pp344-346 in PGinsborg (ed) Riccardi, A. (1994c) Culti nuovi e tradizionali, movimenti emergenti, pp347-349 in PGinsborg (ed) Riccardi, A. (1998) ‘La nazione cattolica’,

pp47-61 in AGiovagnoli (ed), Interpretazioni della Repubblica, Bologna, Il Mulino. Riccardi, A. (1999) ‘Il cattolicesimo della Repubblica’, pp233-319 in GSabbatucci & VVidotto (eds.), Storial d’Italia, vol 6: L’Italia Contemporanea, Rome, Laterza Sassoon, D. (1986) Contemporary Italy Politics, Economy and Society since 1945, Harlow, Longman. Scoppola, P. (1985) La ‘Nuova cristianità’ perduta, Rome, Studium Tarrow, S. (1990) ‘Maintaining Hegemony in Italy: The softer they rise, the slower they fall!’, pp.306-332 in TPempel (ed), Uncommon Democracies The One-Party Dominant Regimes, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press. 24 Source: http://www.doksinet TABLE 1 Parties, Quasi-Parties and Electoral Alliances Associated with Catholicism Chamber Chamber European Parliament PR Result PR Result Result 1994 1996 1999 Pact for Italy 15.9 - - Network 1.9 - With Democrats With PDS With PDS With DS Christian Socialists PPI See Pact for Italy See

For Prodi 4.2 For Prodi - 6.8 - Democrats (Prodi) - - 7.7 Dini / Italian Renewal - 4.3 1.1 CCD-CDU - 5.8 See separate entries CCD With FI With CDU 2.6 CDU - With CCD 2.2 UDeuR - - 1.6 Notes: Most of these groups/parties were too weak to field candidates independently in the parliamentary elections given the four per cent PR threshold. Pact for Italy comprised the PPI (which split in 1995), Segni’s Pact and the PRI. For Prodi: PPI for the most part, plus Maccanico’s Democratic Union, the South Tyrol Peoples’ Party (PPST/SVP) and the Italian Republican Party (PRI). Segni was allied with Dini (RI) in 1996 For all other references, see text. Formigoni’s CDL, formed when most of the CDU joined the UDR, is effectively part of FI 25 Source: http://www.doksinet TABLE 2 Proportion of ‘Practicing Catholics’ in party electorates, 1996 election PPI: CCD-CDU: Dini list: Forza Italia: PDS: National Alliance: Communist Refoundation: Northern League:

Weekly1 66 63 42 22 19 19 13 11 Regularly2 68.8 76.7 51.4 45.5 28.7 42.2 15.3 40.4 1. Garelli, 1996a, pp890, timing not precisely specified (‘spring’) The category comprised 27.5 per cent of the population 2. Diamanti, 1997, p348, based on a pre-electoral survey The category (defined as at least 2-3 times per month) comprised 46 per cent of the population. 26 Source: http://www.doksinet TABLE 3 Distribution of ‘Practising Catholics’ among parties Non or spoilt vote: PPI + CCD-CDU: Forza Italia: PDS: AN: Dini list: Communist Refoundation: Northern League: Other (Greens, Network etc.) Pannella list Other Weekly1 29 23 12 11 8 5 5 3 3 2 101 Regularly2 N/A 13 + 6 20 20 17 5 3 8 8 100 1. Garelli 1996a: 891 Definition as per Table 2 2. Diamanti, 1997: p348 Definition as per Table 2 27 Source: http://www.doksinet 1 1) Freedom of conscience and association, and therefore opposition to anti-clerical legislation; 2) Recognition of private (i.e Catholic) education’s role

in promoting national culture; 3) Recognition of parental rights regarding religious instruction in public schools; 4) Defence of the family and thus no possibility of divorce legislation; 5) Legal recognition of religiously and socially inspired socioeconomic associations; 6) Gradual, progressive fiscal reform; 7) Nurturing of, and international projection of, Italian economic and moral strength. 2 Catholicism has been so dominant in Italy that, notwithstanding the 1984 revision of the Concordat ending the claim that Catholicism was ‘the unique religion of the state’ (Article 1), it is only since the mid- to late-1990s that the beginnings of an awareness has emerged that religion is a significantly plural phenomenon in Italy. In particular, awareness of the growing significance of Islam in Italy is entirely new. The dominance of Catholicism is easily demonstrated In 1988, 979 per cent of (574m) Italians were baptised Catholics (Riccardi 1994a: 339). This near total homogeneity

was scarcely challenged by the roughly ten per cent of adults who did not profess any confessional identity, being atheist (3.2 per cent), indifferent (2 per cent) or agnostic (the remainder)2 Historically, the non-Christian but religiously identified population has been marginal., with just two other confessions having strongly articulated historical roots in Italy: the Jews and Waldensians. Both these groups are small and geographically circumscribed: the Jews (35,000) being concentrated in cities, especially Rome and Milan, and the Waldensians (30,000), especially in the Piedmont mountain valleys. The 1991 census of the total population indicated the non-Catholic, confessionally identified population thus: Protestantism in various forms had grown (and the Waldensians had integrated themselves with the Methodists) so that the total protestant population numbered some 200,000. To these were to be added some 350,000 other Christian believers, notably the circa 150,000 Jehovahs

Witnesses; as well as approximately 200,000 in new cults (Unification Church, Scientology, Hare Krisna etc.); and 300,000 Muslims, mostly recent immigrants concentrated in Rome and Milan. By 1996, of an adult (1874 years) population of c40 million, evangelical protestants numbered c300,000, Jehovah’s witnesses and Muslims c.240,000 each, Buddhists 120,000, Orthdox Christians c40,000 (Garelli 1996b) The Muslim population is only c. 06 per cent, but Islam has the highest faith growth rate in Italy - partly because of its small base line. However, given Italy’s extremely low birth-rate, one quarter to one-sixth of births ‘in some cities’ in the late 1990s were to immigrants (Il Manifesto, 5/2/97). This juxtaposition of low Italian birth-rates and higher immigrant ones was denounced recently by a Catholic priest prominent in the social field in the following terms: ‘Before long, Muslims will be 10 to 15 per cent of the population and they will put at risk the purity of our

values. Once they came to prey upon our cities, now they have the watchword: marry Catholic women to convert them to Islam. This germ has to be blocked’ (Corriere della Sera, 6 March, 2000, p.1) 3 ONLUS’s: non-profit, social utility organisations. 28