The report, released just before Italy's first Synodal Assembly, highlights a shifting landscape in Italy's religious practices and challenges for the Catholic Church.

Growing individualism

Of those identifying as Catholic, only 15.3% attend church regularly, while 34.9% participate occasionally and 20.9% say they are "practising".

This trend is particularly stark among younger Italians, with just 10.9% of 18-34 year-olds practising their faith.

The report points to "religious individualism" as a key factor, with 56.1% of those disengaged from the Church and citing a preference for private, personal expressions of faith.

Giuseppe De Rita, president of Censis, says "The grey area in the Church of today is the result of the prevailing individualism of course, but also of a Church that struggles to indicate a beyond.

"The Church has always helped Italian society to go beyond.

"It must rediscover this capacity, because a Church which is only horizontal does not intercept those drunk with individualism. For them, it is not enough to replace ‘I' with a ‘we'. They need something beyond, something that takes them past the self.

"It is no coincidence—and this should concern us as Catholics—that extremisms are on the rise globally."

Old-fashioned Church needs to adapt

The report identifies disconnects between younger Catholics and traditional church practices.

Almost 58% of young Italians claim some connection to Catholicism, yet many express disinterest in conventional participation.

Among practising Catholics, 60.8% believe the Church needs to adapt to contemporary society, a sentiment reflecting broader cultural shifts.

Research also suggests concerns over the Church's relevance, with many viewing it as "too old-fashioned".

Among those who feel disconnected, 45.1% say the Church is outdated while 27.8% cite a lack of clear direction.

Additionally, 43.6% of Italians view the Church as male-dominated, with women's roles a noted point of contention.

Abuse scandals impact Church credibility

Abuse allegations within the Church have further affected public perception, with 7 in 10 Italians, including 6 in 10 practising Catholics, stating that these scandals undermine the Church's credibility.

Many see the Church's slow response to modern issues as another reason for disengagement.

"The desire for a more courageous Church is evident" the study notes, as 49.2% of Italians call for a stronger lay involvement. This finding aligns with a broader push for the Church to be more inclusive and transparent.

Faith remains integral to Italy's cultural identity

Despite these challenges, 79.8% of Italians say their cultural roots are Catholic. 66% pray and 61.4% consider Catholicism central to Italy's national identity.

Religious symbols like the cross and figures such as the Virgin Mary remain significant for many Italians, even among non-believers.

As the Italian Bishops' Conference prepares for the Synodal Assembly which will host delegates from across Italy, the study emphasises a crucial challenge: how to modernise the Church while preserving its role in Italy's spiritual and cultural life.

Source

• Avvenire

But in September 2019 he decided the time had come to leave the church behind. He filled out a form that he had found online, accompanying it with a long letter explaining his reasons, and sent everything to the parish in his hometown.

Two weeks later, a note was put next to his name in the parish baptism register, formalizing his abandonment of the Catholic Church, and Nanetti became one of an increasing, though hard to quantify, number of Italians who have been "de-baptized."

Every year in Italy, more and more people choose to go through the simple process, which became available two decades ago at the behest of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, abbreviated in Italian as UAAR.

A lack of data makes it difficult to establish how common the phenomenon is, but some dioceses are keeping track. The Diocese of Brescia, east of Milan, said in its diocesan newspaper in August that 75 people asked to be de-baptized in 2021, as opposed 27 in 2020.

Combining this partial data with activity on a website UAAR recently launched where people can register their de-baptisms, Roberto Grendene, national secretary of the UAAR, said the organization estimates that more than 100,000 people have been de-baptized in Italy.

De-baptism not possible. But...

The church quibbles with the word "de-baptism" — sbattezzo in Italian. Legally and theologically, experts say, this isn't an accurate term.

The Rev. Daniele Mombelli, vice-chancellor of the Diocese of Brescia and professor of religious sciences at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, said it's not possible to "erase the baptism because it's a fact that historically happened, and was therefore registered."

"What the procedure does is formalize the person's abandonment of the church," said Mombelli.

While agreeing that it is impossible to cancel a baptism, Italy's Personal Data Protection Authority now states that everyone has the right to abandon the church.

The de-baptism is finalized once an applicant declares the intention to abandon the church and the decision is registered by the church authorities, normally the local bishop.

But according to canon law, anyone who goes through the procedure is committing the crime of apostasy, which, Mombelli said, comes with "severe consequences."

An apostate immediately faces ex-communication from the church, without the need for a trial. This means that the person is excluded from the sacraments, may not become a godparent and will be deprived of a Catholic funeral.

"There's a substantial difference between the sin of apostasy and the crime of apostasy," Mombelli said. "An atheist commits the sin because it's an internal decision, and they can be forgiven if they repent. An apostate, instead, manifests their will to formally abandon the church externally, so they face legal consequences for their decision."

De-baptism is not exclusive to Italy, Grendene said, and the UAAR website includes a section monitoring how the procedure is being carried out abroad, but only very few countries regulate it. In the rest of the world, humanist and atheist organizations, such as Humanists International, pay more attention to apostasy than governments do.

The reasons behind de-baptism vary from person to person. But many of the de-baptized described their choice as a matter of "coherence."

Pietro Groppi, a 23-year-old from Piacenza who got de-baptized in May 2021, said that the first question he asked himself before sending his form was "Do I believe or not?" and the answer was simply, "No."

But for many, abandoning the church is a statement against its positions on LGBTQ rights, euthanasia and abortion.

Nanetti said that being de-baptized helped him affirm his own identity as bisexual. "I had to get distance from some of the church's positions on civil rights matters," he said.

The church's stance on sexuality helped push Groppi to seek out de-baptism as well, though he's not affected personally. He finds the Vatican's position on these matters "absurd," and he's unhappy with how the church meddles with Italian politics.

Francesco Faillace, 22, now going through the de-baptism procedure, said: "I've been an atheist since basically forever. For the church, being baptized means that you're a Catholic, but that's not the case. I've personally been baptized for cultural reasons more than religious because that's how it goes in Italy."

Faillace believes that if all the people who don't truly identify as Catholics were to be de-baptized, official percentages of Italian Catholics would be significantly lower.

The latest data seems to back him up.

In 2020, sociologist Francesco Garelli conducted a large study financed by the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference that concluded that 30% of the Italian population is atheist — around 18 million people.

The Rev. Alfredo Scaroni, pastor in a town of 9,000 in northern Italy, has noticed an increasing number of people distancing themselves from the church. If more than 15% of the population appear at Sunday Mass, he said, it is an achievement.

"The church is having a large conversation on atheism, and, from our side, we need to practice more acceptance and attention," Scaroni said.

Grendene, of the UAAR, said many Italians are still unaware of de-baptism as an option.

In the past, the association would organize "de-baptism days" to advertise it, he said, but it turns out that the church itself is de-baptism's best promoter.

"Whenever the Vatican is at the centre of a controversy, we see the access to our website grows dramatically," said Grendene, pointing out that on two days in June, traffic on the UAAR website went from a daily average of 120 visitors to more than 6,000.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, a few days earlier the Vatican sent a note to the Italian government, asking to change some of the language in a proposed law aimed at criminalizing discrimination based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

• Sara Badilini is an author at Religion News Service.

Fr. Roberto Malgesini (51) who was stabbed to death near Lake Como last month, was known for his care for the homeless and migrants in the northern Italian Diocese of Como.

He was killed near his parish by one of the migrants he helped.

Malgesini's charity to others was well known.

"With generous and tireless self-denial he always worked hard, as an authentic interpreter of the values of human solidarity, in caring for the least and their fragility, offering loving welcome and constant support," President Sergio Mattarella said when he signed the decree for the decree for the civil valour award.

Malgesini was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Valour.

The civil valour award was also bestowed on Willy Monteiro Duarte, an Italian whose parents are from the African island nation of Cape Verde. Duarte was beaten to death in a small town outside of Rome on last month after reportedly running into a fight to protect a friend.

Mattarella said both men's deaths provided "a shining example" of service "pushed to the point of extreme sacrifice."

The day after Malgesini died, Pope Francis said: "I praise God for the witness, that is, for the martyrdom, of this witness of charity towards the poorest."

Francis noted Malgesini was killed "by a person in need whom he himself helped, a person with a mental illness."

Papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski represented the pope at Malgesini's funeral.

Afterwards, Krajewski told Bishop Oscar Cantoni of Como: "I am sure that there are many priests and lay faithful who want to pick up Fr. Roberto's evangelical work because this path is the true Gospel in action."

"If by any chance no one comes forward, I will come to you."

A 53-year-old man who suffers from mental illness, initially admitted to the stabbing of Malgesini and gave himself up the police shortly afterward. He later reportedly retracted his confession.

Malgesini had let the man sleep in a room for the homeless run by the parish.

In the wake of Malgesini's death, Francis asked people to pray for "all the priests, sisters, lay people who work with people in need and rejected by society."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: GMA Network

In their 2020 annual report, Istat, Italy's national statistics institute, predicted that the climate of uncertainty and fear caused by the coronavirus may result in 10,000 fewer births in Italy over the course of the rest of 2020 and 2021.

The report also noted that if the predicted rise in unemployment is included in the calculating factors, it is predicted that in the worst case, births may drop to just around 396,000 in 2021 - a decrease of nearly 24,000 from 2019. Read more

After 137 days of trying to keep critically ill patients alive, staff gathered July 8 for a moment of silence to remember those who had passed away in their wards, followed by applause for the more than 400 hospital workers in the department.

Maria Beatrice Stasi, director general of the hospital, told reporters they had discharged the last patient to recover from COVID-19, marking "a moment of great emotion" and relief as the intensive care unit can now accommodate other patients and staff can return to their regular uniforms.

At the worst point of the crisis, which began with their first patient being admitted Feb. 23, the ICU had more than 100 patients intubated. Read more

A protocol allowing Catholic faithful to attend Mass was signed Thursday by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte; the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference (Cei), Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti; and the Italian minister of the Interior.

"The protocol is the fruit of a profound collaboration and synergy between the government, the Scientific and Technical Committee and Cei, in which each did his part responsibly," Bassetti said during a news conference after the signing of the document. Read more

On Sunday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a gradual resumption of normal life in Italy.

To date, COVID-19 has led over 26,000 deaths in Italy and infected almost 200,000.

For the meantime, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says up to 15 people will be allowed to attend funerals. These are likely to take place outside with attendees wearing masks and observing social distancing.

Gatherings for Masses and other larger liturgies such as weddings remain suspended.

"The Italian bishops cannot accept to see the exercise of freedom of worship compromised," the bishops' conference says.

"It should be clear to everyone that the commitment to serve to the poor, so significant during this emergency, arises from a faith that must be fed by its sources, in particular [the] sacramental life."

The bishops say their letter to the government included proposals for how Masses could be safely celebrated.

Soon after the bishops made their views public, news reports said the government is planning to study guidelines on how to "allow the faithful to participate in liturgical celebrations as soon as possible under conditions of maximum safety."

In recent decades, the Italian bishops and the government have had close working relationships.

Conte is likely to take the bishops' request seriously.

He attended the Villa Nazareth, a Catholic college where his teachers included Pietro Parolin, now Cardinal Secretary of State.

A columnist in La Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit-run journal where articles are vetted by the Holy See's Secretariat of State, offered support to Conte when he formed a new government.

The Vatican and the Italian bishops see Conte as a foil to Matteo Salvini's nationalist politics.

Salvini, who is the leader of the far-right Northern League party and former interior minister, has criticised Pope Francis for adopting a pro-migrant stance.

In August last year, Conte criticised Salvini for his habit of brandishing a rosary at political rallies saying it was "offensive to Catholics, and "undermined the principle of secularism of the modern state".

Source

• The Tablet
• US News
• Religion News Service
• The Christian Post
• Image: Politico EU

Clusters of coffins arrive every day and are laid on the floor of St. Joseph's Church in the northern Italian town of Seriate.

"Authorities didn't know where to put the coffins," Carminati says.

When enough have accumulated, he and others priests give them a hasty blessing. Then a forklift loads them on to army trucks to cemeteries and crematoria.

Gatherings have been banned throughout Italy because of a national lockdown. Church funerals cannot be held.

In Italy, over 9,000 people have died of the disease - almost twice as many deaths as any other nation.

Carminati says the saddest thing for him was that many of his parishioners died alone, without loved ones. Restrictions in place to stem the spread of the virus do not allow family members into hospitals.

"We often talk about the most needy and these are truly the most needy now," he says.

"They are the most needy even though they are no longer alive. No one has the time or opportunity to take care of them anymore so I decided to open the house of the Lord to them."

After he and another priest bless the latest batch of coffins, forty in total, army personnel in protective gear load them onto trucks covered by camouflaged tarps.

Bells toll as the trucks leave the church. Residents looking down from windows and balconies make the sign of the cross.

As the caravan crosses an intersection, a town policeman wearing a medical mask and white gloves stood at attention and salutes.

Source

• Reuters
• Image: Daily Mail

The Feb. 29-March 1 retreat held in a hotel in the small southern Italian town of Atena Lucana attracted roughly 20 participants, among them a 76-year-old man from the nearby town of Bellizzi, who later died on March 10 from the coronavirus. His wife reportedly has also tested positive for the disease and has been placed under quarantine.

Since then, 16 other cases of infection have cropped up in four towns where residents participated in that retreat, as well as another retreat with some of the same people held in a nearby location March 4. Read more

Instead of meeting thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square, Pope Francis held his general weekly audience and delivered his catechism via livestream from the privacy of his library.

Francis sent out special prayers for prisoners, the sick and hospital personnel caring for them.

These and other measures follow the Italian government's ruling suspending all public religious services, as the nation copes with over 7,300 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 366 deaths.

Although St Peter's Basilica is closed and guarded by the Pope's Swiss Guards, churches throughout Rome are open for private prayer.

Some parishes are also offering Eucharistic Adoration.

Religious communities in Rome say they have continued to attend private Masses in their residences.

Although the Vatican City State has its own legal order that is autonomous and separate from the Italian legal system, the Holy See is stressing that Vatican City's measures are being made in coordination with the Italian authorities.

Other measures the Vatican has implemented include cancelling meetings and conferences, limiting travel for its personnel and closing the Vatican Museums to the public.

Closing the museums will also close off the Vatican's main source of income for the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, the Vatican ts trying to mitigate the dramatic economic impact the COVID-19 virus is having on Italy's businesses.

These are showing a sharp drop-off in the commercial, retail and tourism sectors.

The Vatican is one of the biggest landlords in Rome, and has offered to consider rent reductions from businesses experiencing problems.

The nationwide quarantine in Italy restricts movement around the country and between regions. Restaurants and bars must close at 6pm and gathering in groups is forbidden.

People are encouraged to stay home, but may move around the city for work, to go to the grocery store or pharmacy, or for medical care. In public, people are asked to keep one meter of distance from each other.

Source

• Fox News
• Catholic News Agency
• US News
• Image: Wall Street Journal

But you'd be mistaken to think that the decline has to do with Archbishop Viganò's charge that Francis had covered-up for Cardinal McCarrick.

The poll was taken before that story broke.

According to the poll's author, much of the dissatisfaction with the pontiff has to do with his welcoming approach toward migrants.

Even before Viganò's bombshell accusation, Italians were already distancing themselves from the Vatican.

In a sense, the Catholic Church in Italy set itself up for rejection.

In the months leading up to the March election, it doubled down on its policy of greater openness to immigrants whether legal or illegal.

In a dozen different ways, Church leaders let it be known that refusal to welcome the migrant was, in effect, a rejection of Christ.

Yet voters ignored the Church and voted in large numbers for the anti-immigration parties. And there is no sign that they've regretted their choice.

According to recent polls, many practicing Catholics prefer the hardline immigration policies of the new Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, to those of Pope Francis.

As an Ipsos poll reveals, support for Salvini doubled in four months among Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week.

The director of the Ipsos Research Institute said, "There is a clear difference between a significant part of Catholic opinion and the hierarchy of the Church."

A moment's thought will reveal that Catholics are not only rejecting the hierarchy's policy on immigration, but also its policy on Islam.

Italians and other Europeans are not terribly concerned about immigrants from Poland, South America, India, and the Philippines.

They're worried about immigrants from Muslim countries.

With good reason.

Despite numerous attempts to keep it quiet, it's no secret anymore that the influx of Muslim migrants into Europe has resulted in a giant crime wave.

And the situation in Italy is not nearly as bad as it is in other countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, England, and Sweden.

In many parts of Europe, stabbings, rapes, acid attacks, and pitched battles between police and migrant gangs are daily occurrences.

One can surmise, therefore, that Italy is not the only country where respect for the Church has fallen sharply.Continue reading

• Image: Huffington Post

The Famiglia Cristiana cover shouts: "Vade retro Salvini" ("Get back, Salvini").

Evidently, the headline is a tweaked version of the medieval Latin formula used during exorcism. Read more

The law allows citizens to create advance directives about their treatment.

These directives express their final wishes for medical treatment in case they lose the ability to communicate their choice.

The Italian senate passed the bill into law with 180 voting for it, 71 against and six abstentions.

The law has been dubbed "euthanasia in disguise" by Father Massimo Angelelli.

He has given it this name because directives in their "living will" can include a person's preference as to whether they want to receive artificial nutrition and hydration.

"Providing a person food and drink is not [medical] treatment. It is the normal sustenance of human life," Angelelli says.

Angelelli, who is the head of the Italian bishops' conference's office for pastoral ministry in health care, says the law has "huge gaps".

In his view, it doesn't protect patients rights and "pits a patient's freedom against the freedom of conscience and professional expertise of medical doctors".

Doctors will have to comply with a law of the state that goes against the commandment of "thou shall not kill," Angelelli says.

The Church supports informed consent for patients as well as the right to avoid excessive treatments of a "therapeutically obstinate nature".

These treatments include medical and surgical treatment, including life-support equipment, when it does not offer reasonable hope for recovery.

Last month Pope Francis made the Church's views clear on the subject of what he called "over-zealous" medical treatment.

"From an ethical standpoint," Francis said withholding or withdrawing excessive treatment "is completely different from euthanasia, which is always wrong, in that the intent of euthanasia is to end life and cause death."

Source

• The Tablet
• RT
• New York Times
• ABC
• Image: fijns.net

When a Sicilian mobster known as the "boss of bosses" died in prison last month, a spokesman for the Italian conference of bishops said it would be "unthinkable" to give him a public funeral. Read more

Mussie Zerai was nominated for a Nobel prize in 2015 for his compassion to refugees.

For tens of thousands of desperate migrants, his cellphone number has meant the difference between life and death as their boats founder. He has been the lifeline who has relayed calls from refugees in distress to the Italian Coast Guard.

But as the public mood in Italy turns against migrants from Africa and the Mideast, he finds himself being investigated. Read more

Francis's encyclical Laudato Si denounces wasteful practices and highlights the importance of clean drinking water.

The prolonged drought has hit two-thirds of farmland and has so far cost Italian agriculture about two billion euros. Read more

As part of the reform, Pope Francis repealed aspects of a motu proprio from Pope Pius XI that set up regional tribunals in Italy.

In the wake of Francis's reforms, the Roman Rota required that 220 diocesan tribunals in Italy be established as soon as possible.

But the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's supreme tribunal, has maintained that the regional tribunals continue to function.

Many Italian bishops favour the continuation of the regional tribunals, which allows dioceses to share resources.

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The Diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo made the announcement on June 5 concerning the self-styled Universal Christian Church of the New Testament.

This followed an examination by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of what the diocese termed "very grave abuse".

Issuing the decree required the approval of the Pope.

A diocese statement noted the group obliged "the faithful not to receive sacraments, to disapprove of the Pope's teaching and authority, not to entertain relations with priests and their parish communities, and not to observe ecclesiastical discipline".

The diocese said the group is "committed to spreading false religious doctrines and teachings that distort the Bible and are outside the truth of the sacred text".

In 1947, Giuseppina Norcia reportedly saw an apparition of the child Jesus in the town of Gallinaro.

This was followed by subsequent apparitions in 1974, and her family built a chapel on the site the following year.

Samuele Morcia, the son-in-law of Giuseppina Norcia, took over the prayer groups dedicated to the "apparition" after Norcia's death in 2008.

He turned the groups into a sect based on a cult of personality.

He claimed that Norcia had transferred to him her capacity to receive messages and prophecies from Christ.

The group holds that Gallinaro is the "New Jerusalem," and it has attracted tens of thousands of worshippers from across Italy.

Many prayer groups have spread dedicated to the worship of the supposed apparition of the child Jesus.

In establishing themselves as the Universal Christian Church of the New Testament last year, the group committed an act of schism and thus incurred automatic excommunication, the diocese stated.

The diocese stressed that "all the faithful of the diocese must be informed" of the consequences of "this very grave abuse".

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Crux

A flyer on a door of San Martino church in Cigola near Brescia announced the move.

"We all know we need help," read the flyer.

"So with a smile and without making givers uncomfortable or inviting the moralising of theologians, we're willing to give this a shot."

The church's decision has been motivated by its need to find funds to maintain its nursery while repairing the church's roof and oratory.

Continue reading