I didn't know the history of the Italian Unification vis-a-vis Rome and the Vatican. I did have a strong sense of both the secularization of Italy and it's underlying Catholic morality and this video is quite informative about these complex issues.
Even though I'm American-Italian and over 70, I relate to the group of those who have become secularized.
2 comments:
Secularlism is the way to go. Freedom from one more authoritarian organization. Of course, don't just trade it in for another one!
I had World History in high school, so I knew about the unification of Italy and how in spite of the new government, the popes holed up in the Vatican for about 60 years and refused to set foot on "Italian" soil - until Mussolini negotiated I think it was the Lateran Treaty of 1929, was it not, giving them sovereignty over Vatican City and other perks.
But this was an interesting insight into the sociological aspects of church-state relations. I was disappointed that it ended so soon! I wanted to hear more about how ordinary Italians think and interact with the church today.
About 40 years ago (!) I was conversing with a colleague from New York state about Catholicism - he was of Irish and I think Lithuanian extraction. He said many American Catholics used birth control even though the Church forbid it. I said, why do they keep going to church if they don't do what they are told? He thought quietly for a minute, and finally said "It's an ethnicity."
That gave this Protestant Southerner a great insight.
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