Contributi di Claudio Luzzati

Legal secularism and political participation

ABSTRACT: As is well known, the Italian term ‘laicità’ is polysemic and cannot be adequately translated into English. The word ‘secularism’, in fact, only captures certain senses of ‘laicità’. Ultimately, we are dealing with a very complex phenomenon that surely cannot be analyzed with a dichotomic black and white concept. In this paper we are mainly interested in highlighting legal secularism, understood as neutrality. However, we must pay attention to the fact that liberal neutrality, understood as mutual tolerance and impartiality of institutions, is a “committed neutrality” which deeply differs from Max Weber’s uncommitted neutrality to which scientists aspire. On the other hand, the ideal of legal secularism comes into harsh conflict with the partisan spirit that characterizes political life. Democracy is not only respect for rules, but must come to terms with the citizens’ variegated senses of belonging to this or that community. As they say: “My country, right or wrong”. Precisely because of these limits to rational discourse, we believe that legal secularism, in a broad sense, is not fully achievable even in an open society.

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Revisionismo storico involontario - 3. Altri tempi - 4. L’art. 5 del Concordato - 5. La vicenda di Ernesto Buonaiuti - 6. La sua intransigenza morale - 7. Passato e presente - 8. Favor religionis - 9. Il sistema delle intese - 10. Il risveglio delle vecchie intolleranze.

1929: Freedom denied

ABSTRACT: This paper turns around the case and the figure of Ernesto Buonaiuti. We would like to show how the Lateran Pacts of 1929 had been signed in an atmosphere in which both sides, fascism and the  Catholic Church, denied freedom of conscience.

Sommario: 1. Una volta la certezza era un dogma – 2. La prospettiva dinamica – 3. La certezza come valore ideale e la realtà del diritto – 4. L’orizzonte odierno: il tramonto dello scienziato. – 5. Regole vs. princìpi: una contrapposizione sviante – 6. Gli argomenti dell’interprete – 7. La necessità di dotarsi di strumenti nuovi sullo sfondo di una rappresentanza politica in crisi.

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Post-confessionismo e laicità - 3. Religioni, morale e istituzioni - 4. La situazione odierna. La sentenza della Corte costituzionale n. 52 del 2016 - 5. Pluralismo buono (o, forse, anche cattivo) e frammentazione sociale. È la fine della politica?

Pluralism, Secular Society and the Crisis of Political Representation

ABSTRACT: How can the value pluralism deal with the problems rising from a split society where many comprehensive doctrines, belongings and religious identities can no more find something in common? This paper tries to focus such a question taking a closer look at Italy.

SOMMARIO: 1 – Premessa – 2. Le origini della laicità dicotomica – 3. La svalutazione dei ‘laici’ nell’Età di Mezzo – 4. La ‘laicità’ cambia di segno – 5. La crisi del concetto – 6. Il veleno della tribalizzazione e il suo antidoto – 7. Il linguaggio ci viene in soccorso – 8. Alcune indispensabili precisazioni – 9. La laicità del futuro.

SOMMARIO: 1. La posta in gioco - 2. La vana ricerca delle radici - 3. Una via d’uscita dall’ossessione simbolica.