Contenuti per la categoria: Religione e società

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. Alle radici del pluralismo della disparità - 3. Le definizioni a contrario - 4. Le minoranze nel sentiero del principio di laicità - 5. Le minoranze religiose alle prese con il genus e la species della laicità - 6. La rilevanza legale delle minoranze religiose - 7. L’autonomia delle confessioni diverse - 8. Le diseconomie esterne del diritto comune delle intese - 9. Come ridurre le diseconomie esterne negative - 10. Conclusioni e prospettive.

The Legal Discipline of Minority Religions. The External Diseconomy of Italy’s Favor Religionis

ABSTRACT: This article analyses the State’s legal discipline regulating minority religions, which are part of the current religious pluralism in Italy. Pluralism is not new in the Italian context. Various minority religions have long been part of the national scene and often enjoyed a level of public consideration far superior compared to their numerical consistency. However, today in Italy there are religious organizations that, in the light of the traditional ex parte Ecclesiæ favor religionis and the method of state-church(es) relations, stress some difficulties of constitutional relevance. In particular, these difficulties have increasingly come to be seen in terms of “negative externalities”: while creating privileges for the Catholic Church and few minority denominations, it produces unreasonable discriminations against all other religions. That is particularly the case of legal status of “new” minority religious, made up mainly of immigrants.

SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive - 2. Minoranze religiose e costruzione della nazione - 3. Per una storia delle minoranze religiose.

Religious minorities in Italy: a historical-religious perspective

ABSTRACT: The history of religious minorities in unitary Italy has been deeply linked to the construction of the national state both in its formative phase (the Risorgimento) and in the period of liberal Italy. The responses ranged between a desire for integration, as in the Jewish case, and an occasional and missionary presence, as in the case of certain Evangelical communities. The Great War, first, the twenty years of Fascism, then, profoundly changed this situation, further marginalizing the religious minorities also as a consequence of the 1929 Concordat.

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. La libertà di espressione e la libertà di coscienza - 3. Le tematiche bioetiche - 4. I simboli e l’identità - 5. Considerazioni conclusive.

Religious minorities in Italy. New problems (?)

ABSTRACT: In the contest of a wider pluralism of the Italian society, legislation still struggles to guarantee an real equal treatment to all religious minorities. Religious denominations - who ratified an intesa with the Government - are for sure in a privileged position compared to those who are still regulated by the general law. Among the last ones, the Italian jurisprudence is playing an important role to find a balance especially on those issues that ask for a more decise government of religious diversity.

SOMMARIO: 1. Teismo/ateismo: l’eredità storica di una presunta dicotomia - 2. La polifonia “in crescendo” del nuovo panorama religioso - 3. Confessione religiosa, esser(lo) o non esser(lo): questo è il dilemma - 4. Associazioni ateiste: minoranze religiose escluse? Osservazioni conclusive.

Are atheists a religious minority? The legal status of atheism in Italy and in some countries of the European Union.

ABSTRACT: “Religion” and “confession” are terms without an established definition in sociology and the legal sciences. The absence of a definition allows us to consider the religious phenomenon in its complexity, including both belief and unbelief. The analysis tries to understand if a common legal discipline is possible for theistic and non-theistic phenomenon. The analysis focuses on the legal status of non-believers minority in Italy and in some countries of the European Union.

SOMMARIO: 1. Sulla nozione di religione, confessione, setta - 2. La Chiesa di Scientology e il suo inquadramento - 3. Problematiche giurisprudenziali nel riconoscimento di Scientology - 4. La configurazione del reati di associazione per delinquere - 5. Il plagio e l’abus de faiblesse - 6. I movimenti “anti-sette”. Considerazioni conclusive.

Scientology. Religious narrative and legal rules

ABSTRACT: Scientology is an exemplary case, in the definition of "religious confession", both because it is a movement of rupture with respect to the common religious feeling, and because its recognition as confession has taken place, in Italy, following a process that developed, with alternating events, for twenty years, until the final judgment of 2000. It is particularly interesting to reflect on the alleged crimes, which are anomalous if they relate to a religious context, but also on similar trials that have taken place in France and, more recently, in Belgium. In addition, it is important to stress that the three judicial procedures examined were also influenced by two important factors, which were not always explicitly stated in the course of the proceedings: the subject of mental manipulation and the action of anti-cult movements in public debate. If in Italy, plagiarism has been decriminalized by a ruling of the Constitutional Court, in France and Belgium laws have recently been introduced against the abuse of weakness in sectarian movements which, however, have not been recalled in the Scientology trials. Very dangerous is, moreover, the public action of the anti cult movements that can act as a sounding board of news not always reliable and that, often, are financed with public money. All these considerations offer interesting insights into the level of democratic secularism and the protection of religious freedom.

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. La confessione dei Testimoni di Geova e il nodo dei principi religiosi tra politica e diritto - 3. Il nodo dell’intesa. Le tappe del negoziato - 4. L’impasse e le difficili vie d’uscita.

On the State-Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses agreement

ABSTRACT: To date, the State-Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses agreement is waiting to complete the procedure within the meaning of article 8, paragraph 3, of the Italian Constitution. The latest statements by the government refer to the need for further information on health matters, evoking the issue of refusal of blood transfusion treatments. On a legal level, there are difficulties in overcoming the impasse in which the agreement is, also because there isn't a legislative discipline of the procedure prefigured in the article 8 of the Constitution; furthermore the statements made in 2016 by the Constitutional Court on the political nature of the government's choices regarding the agreements can be an obstacle. The paper deals with these points, also taking into account the application to the ECHR presented by the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses against the Italian Republic.

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. L’etica del lavoro - 3. I simboli identitari - 4. Il gurdwara come risorsa sociale - 5. Il kirpan - 6. Il valore di un riconoscimento.

Sikhs, Calvinists in the Po Valley

ABSTRACT: Sikhs are an important component of the New Religious Pluralism (NRP) that, especially due to the migratory flows of last decades, we record in Italy today. Many Sikh workers are employed in the dairy farming sector and, at least in the North of the country, they appear to be well integrated. This process has been facilitated by strict work ethics grounded in their theology. Nevertheless, to date the Sikh community has not been legally recognized as a religious body. Efforts by Sikh representatives to adopt a kirpan (ritual dagger) compatible with Italian law have not produced the desired results. However, there is still an urgent need for legal recognition of a faith community that has achieved important and successful integration processes in just a few decades.

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Il complesso mondo protestante in Italia - 3. Come pensano le istituzioni - 4. Conclusione.

The new Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches in Italy, homeless, exposed to reasonable discrimination

ABSTRACT: The religious geography in Italy is changing. It is not only Islam, and the growth of the parishes of the various Orthodox Churches, that makes the religious panorama more lively. The spread of many and different Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches represent a sign of renewed vitality for the historical minority Churches that refer to the Reformation present for a long time. These new Churches have been able to rely on the hospitality offered by the various Protestant Churches. Another part, perhaps the most substantial, had to wander from one place to another, more or less precarious or resulting, to be able to offer their faithful a religious service worthy of the name. The article focuses on these homeless Churches exposed to the double contingency of being, on the one hand, more easily the target of reasonable discrimination by Regions and local authorities and, for another, without sufficient voice of the many small communities of believers. The public institutions continue to represent the socio-religious reality following the Ptolemaic scheme that considers the existence of a majority religion, Catholicism, versus small religious minorities, without asking whether this perspective can manage the diversity of increasing religious diversities.

SOMMARIO: 1. Un simbolo religioso - 2. Una laicità pluralista - 3. Modelli di laicità e simboli religiosi - 4. Il crocifisso - 5. … e la sua “democratizzazione” - 6. Bilanciamento e non discriminazione - 7. Tutela e autotutela.

The Crucifix back to Supreme Court of Cassation. Notes by amicus curiae.

ABSTRACT: The display of a crucifix in the classrooms breaks the separatism principle and, although voted by the majority of the class, is discriminatory versus the unfavorable pupils and teacher. The protection of the freedom of consciency permits the teacher himself in case to displace  the icon throughout his lesson.
 

SUMMARY: 1. The Medieval Age - 2. Becoming Modern - 3. Anglophone and Civilian - 4. Empire and Nation - 5. Global and Postmodern.

ABSTRACT: There are many ways to understand the project of globalization as it unfolds in the twenty-first century. It is often viewed in terms of technological advance, finance and trade, or travel and communication. Each of these describe aspects of the project, yet none of its parts is more important than the legal basis upon which a regimen of global governance is being constructed. It is a legal regime of two parts, the coercive, or adjudicative and the persuasive, or educative. It involves the ordering of persons and things on a global scale as well as shaping the mind and thought of a global public. But the sources of this expansive framework of authority are neither recent nor modern. Instead, they are derived from two historic legal traditions, Anglophone and Civilian, as those traditions carry forward many accoutrements of the legal past. Among these are techniques and instruments for shaping human identity and human understanding in ways that fulfill the requirements of legal rule. In fact, the global project follows on a long tradition of employing religion as the educative instrument of governance. However, the new project of global rule is unprecedented in that it is intended to include all peoples in all regions of the earth. The project is also taking on a unique character, becoming Anglicized as the adaptability of Anglophone law subsumes many features of Civilian practice. But the great challenge is not only to impose judicial authority, it is also to instill attitudes of acceptance and habits of compliance among a global public. The purpose of what follows is to provide perspective on the project of globalization in both its adjudicative and educative aspects, with a special emphasis both on the use of technology to shape human understanding, and the use of religion as an instrument of legal rule. To do so this paper will focus on a broad historical context and on continuing historical themes in the development of a twenty-first century global law.