A state within a state: the role of the church in two Italian political transitions

Abstract

This article analyses the parallels between the role played by the Church, first during the Crisis of the Liberal State in the early twentieth century and then during the transition from the Christian Democratic regime to the ‘bi-polar’ Second Republic more than 70 years later. It explores both the particular, contingent forces at work in each, and the underlying explanations as to why the Church was able to successfully exploit these two processes of transition in the political history of Italy to its advantage. It concludes by arguing that the experience of these two crises demonstrates that the Church is not only a powerful force in Italian civil society but also effectively ‘a state within a state’ in relation to the functioning of Italy's political structures.

Keywords:

• Vatican
• Tangentopoli
• Fascism
• Christian Democratic regime
• Berlusconi

Notes

1. See Molony (1977, 45–73).

2. See Molony (1977, 139–58) for a more detailed account of the Vatican's interventions.

3. See Ginsborg (2003, 179–213; 249–85) for an account of the ‘Bribesville’ scandals.

4. See Magister (1996, 223–40).

5. See Maltese (2008).

6. See Clark and Kaiser (2003).

7. For analyses of the impact of the 1984 concordat, see de Franciscis (1989).

8. See Pollard (1997, 162–63).

9. Pinotti (with Viafora) (2010), offers an analysis of the extraordinary cultural, economic and political power of Comunione e Liberazione, one of whose members, Roberto Formigoni, governor of the Lombard region, is frequently tipped as Berlusconi's successor.

10. See Riccardi (1994a, 67–71) and Riccardi (1994b, 338–49) for a survey of the Church's presence in Italy in the mid-1990s.

11. See Luxmoore and Babiuch (1999, 203–96) for a discussion of the role of John Paul II.

12. See Graziano (2010) and L’Impero del Papa. Limes. Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica (2000) for assessments of the international role of the Roman Catholic Church.

13. See the text of the encyclical Quas Primas in Carlen (1990, 270–79).

14. For the text of Article 7, see Pollard (2008, 114).

15. See Pompei (1994, 362–63). In the diary entry for 3 May 1974, the Catholic historian Pietro Scoppola recounts a conversation at supper in his house with Mgr Giovanni Benelli, Substitute Secretary of State in the Vatican, in which the latter took an extremely hard line against Scoppola's campaign for divorce, almost to the point of threatening excommunication.

16. There is no ‘non-conformist’ tradition in Italy because the Counter-reformation papacy extirpated Protestant heresy from the peninsula. Hence, the hero worship on the part of anticlerical and secularist groups of Giordano Bruno, burned by the Inquisition in the sixteenth century.

17. See Cooney (1999).