ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the interconnections between Italy and the European Union. It briefly reconstructs the Italian history by paying attention to the role of religion. The chapter presents a short history of the relations between religion and politics in Italy and a description of the contemporary political and discursive contexts. In the new political landscape, the Catholic world reshaped its configuration and its political presence. During the first phase of Italian Republican history, a religiously inspired political party hegemonized the government, and the electoral constituency was mainly divided in two political subcultures: the Catholic and the Communist. The Catholic commitment within Italian society took the following shapes: spiritual groups and movements, associations addressing specific social groups, political-religious groups and volunteer work. Recent studies show that Italian society is increasingly secularized, even though religion still maintains a wide cultural importance and the religious landscape is increasingly pluralized.
