Communion and Liberation: a Catholic movement in a multilevel governance perspective

Abstract

In this article we focus on how changes in political structure influence religion. Communion and Liberation (CL) is widely known in Italy as a very important Catholic movement whose political power has been significantly increasing in the last 15 years. It is an example of a movement deeply rooted at the local level, where its activities range from grassroots meetings to business activities and service provision. In the sociological literature, CL has been studied either by focusing on its political ideology, or as a religious movement. Introducing a specific focus on the political system allows us to highlight the close relationships between the recent changes in the Italian political system and the reasons for the local success of CL. Indeed, it has been a process of mutual adaptation and influence. The political success of a Catholic movement in a Western democracy is relevant to understanding the changing role of religion in the political arena. Christian movements can play a role of substitution for traditional political movements in countries where traditional parties have become particularly weak and not capable of inspiring enthusiasm among citizens. But the story of CL in Lombardy suggests also that something is changing in the relationship between national and local politics. CL is able to play on different territorial horizons by using local, regional and national political spheres to promote its policies, mainly in the welfare sector. This is an important signal of a capacity both to adapt to a changing political system and to influence these changes. In this paper we focus on the relationships between CL and Italian politics in the Second Republic (1993 to the present day) by analysing CL representation of its political role as well as by pointing out the political opportunity structure in which its success has taken place.

Keywords:

• religion
• governance
• politics
• social movements
• secularism

Acknowledgments

The authors thank, for their useful comments and criticisms on earlier versions of this paper, Giovanni Cominelli, Xabier Itçaina, Luca Ozzano, Marco Marzano, Tommaso Vitale, the journal editor and the anonymous reviewers.

ORCID

Alberta Giorgi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2188-2682

Notes

1. The literature on CL is usually focused on its internal structure and ideology. Some authors define CL a fundamentalist actor (Guolo and Pace 1998; Pace 1998; Zadra 1994), because of its ideological and organisational characteristics, particularly its selectivity, the presence of a charismatic and infallible leader and the strict boundaries of the community (see Almond, Appleby, and Sivan 2003). This classification is disputable, however, and in any case it is not relevant for our analysis.

2. Specifically, the changing role of political elites in medium and small cities (Giorgi and Polizzi 2011b); profiles and practices of civil society in Lombardy (Giorgi 2012; Forno and Polizzi 2012); subsidiarisation and localisation of policies, with a specific focus on Lombardy’s voucher system (Giorgi and Polizzi 2007). Sources: interviews; discourse analysis; document analysis.

3. Bianca Passera told Famiglia Cristiana (the most widespread Catholic weekly magazine) that she was upset by the food waste in her children’s school and therefore she decided to turn to a suitable expert, Ciaccia, for writing and presenting the law (see Galimberti 2009).

4. Last Minute Market, associated with Bologna University (http://www.lastminutemarket.it/). See also the parliamentary report on food waste and alimentary emergency (http://documenti.camera.it/leg17/resoconti/assemblea/html/sed0063/leg.17.sed0063.allegato_b.pdf)

5. In Italy there is a system of state (public) education (from nurseries to universities) and education is compulsory to the age of 16 years. Since 1998/1999, some private schools have been placed on a footing with public schools (they can benefit from public funds, as a result of their ‘public’ function). In the years since then, various measures have been implemented, progressively increasing funds for private schools. At the national level, the school voucher was introduced in 2000.

6. See its manifesto, in English at http://english.clonline.org/whatiscl/default.asp?id=532.

7. It may be that only in some local contexts in central Italy it is possible to find a similar capacity in the successors of the old Communist Party (now the Democratic Party).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [grant number SFRH/BPD/77552/2011].

Notes on contributors

Alberta Giorgi

Alberta Giorgi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centro de Estudos Sociais, University of Coimbra and an associated member of GSRL (CNRS), and collaborates with the project GRASSROOTSMOBILISE. Her research interests include political secularism and secularisation, religious associations and political participation. Her recent publications include European Culture Wars and the Italian Case: Which Side Are You On? with L. Ozzano (Routledge 2015) and ‘Ahab and the White Whale: The Contemporary Debate around the Forms of Catholic Political Commitment in Italy’, Democratization 20(5), 2013. She was guest editor (with E. Polizzi) of the special issue ‘Paths of Research in Religion and Politics’ of the open journal of sociopolitical studies Partecipazione e Conflitto 7(1), 2014.

Emanuele Polizzi

Emanuele Polizzi is an assistant professor at the eCampus University School of Law and a member of the ‘Sui Generis’ Laboratorio di Sociologia dell’Azzione Pubblica. His studies deal with social policies and the political engagement of civil society groups. His recent publications include the guest editorship of the special issue ‘Paths of Research in Religion and Politics’ of the open journal of socio-political studies Partecipazione e conflitto 7(1) 2014 (with A. Giorgi) and ‘Local Welfare Systems: A Challenge for Social Cohesion’, with E. Mingione and A. Andreotti, Urban Studies 49(9) 2012.