Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Vallerani, “Medieval Public Justice”

Harold Berman famously argued that Western legal culture originated in the papal reforms of the High Middle Ages, which unleashed a torrent of law making throughout society. Catholic University Press has just released an English-language translation of University of Turin historian Massimo Vallerani’s work on the evolution of criminal trials in medieval Italy, Medieval Public Justice (2012), which includes statistical analyses of surviving court records. The publisher’s description follows.

In a series of essays based on surviving documents of actual court practices from Perugia and Bologna, as well as laws, statutes, and theoretical works from the 12th and 13th centuries, Massimo Vallerani offers important historical insights into the establishment of a trial-based public justice system. Challenging the long-standing evolutionary paradigm of medieval Read more

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Italy Enters into “Intese” with Mormon, Pentecostal, and Orthodox Churches

This story reports that the Italian Senate has approved various “intese” (literally, “understandings”) or official agreements with three new religious institutions: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; the Italian Apostolic Church (a Pentecostal church); and the Orthodox Church loyal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.  The intese remain to be signed into law by the President of the Republic.

Italy’s church-state arrangements are quite different than those in the United States.  The story is useful because it also explains a bit about the nature and benefits of obtaining intese:

Italy has a system of concordates called “Intese” regulating the State’s relations with a number of religious bodies. Concordates provide inter alia for spiritual assistance in the military forces, hospitals, public schools and jails, and legal recognition of marriages performed by a priest or minister. An important feature is the possible entrance of the religious bodies with an “intesa” which so elects (they can, in fact, refuse this benefit) with a concordate into the 0,8% system. This is a peculiar Italian system where each taxpayer should devote 0,8% of his or her taxes either to a religious body or to the national public charity system by crossing the preferred institution’s case on the tax form. Unlike in Germany, if the taxpayer fails to cross a case he or she does not keep the money, that is divided between the different bodies according to their national percentage scores (unless they explicitly declare that they want to keep only the 0,8% of those crossing their name, and some religious bodies do just this). For example, if one does not cross any case and the Catholic Church case is crossed by 90% of those who crossed a case, and the Baptist Church by 2%, 90% of 0,8% of taxes paid by the non-crosser will go to the Catholic Church, 2% of 0,8% to the Baptist Church, and so on. Most Churches advertise through TV and other campaigns to capture the unchurched’s 0,8%.

This practice would violate the Establishment Clause in this country, but there is no such constitutional provision in Italy.  Religions which already have intese include: the Waldensians and Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists, Assemblies of God, the Jewish Communities, and the Baptists.  The Catholic Church has something more than an intesa: a concordat conferring on it additional status.

Posted on by

Storrow on Religion, Feminism and Abortion

Richard F. Storrow (City U. of N.Y. School of Law) has posted Religion, Feminism and Abortion: The Regulation of Assisted Reproduction in Two Catholic Countries. The abstract follows.

Perspectives on abortion and religious values have been two primary influences on the development of the various regulatory regimes that govern assisted reproduction around the world. This article examines why two countries with similar histories of allegiance to Roman Catholicism have developed highly divergent legal regimes to regulate assisted reproduction. Italy has enacted one of the most restrictive regimes known, Spain one of the most permissive. The comparative analysis employed here will afford insight into how the development of legislative responses to assisted reproduction correlate with religious commitments, feminist sentiment and the regulation of abortion. This article concludes with a discussion of what implications its analysis might have for the regulation of the infertility industry in the United States.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The Vatican Secret Archives

Yesterday, Mark, our dean Michael Simons, and I went to the Capitoline Museums in Rome.  The Capitoline is one of the most famous of Rome’s museums, but we actually spent most of our time at the absolutely incredible exhibition of the Vatican Secret Archives (there was an amusing note explaining that in Italian “segreto” just means “private,” not “secret”…but they felt pretty secret to me).  For those interested in law and religion, you really couldn’t ask for a more exciting exhibit.

Among the many highlights:

  • The Dictatus Papae of Pope Gregory VII
  • A petition from many members of the House of Lords asking Pope Clement VII to grant Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, to which they attached their individual seals
  • Leo X’s papal bull excommunicating Luther, and Charles V’s corresponding imperial edict divesting Luther of any civil protection
  • A surprisingly obsequious letter by Voltaire to Pope Benedict XIV telling him in ornate terms how great he was (in fact, he was pretty great)

I surreptitiously (‘segretamente’) took a few pictures of some additional documents of special relevance, which I’ll put up when I get back.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

More on Taxing the Church in Italy

Following up on an item we covered in December, a law clarifying the Catholic Church’s responsibility for property taxes is making its way through the Italian Parliament. Although media reports describe the law as controversial, it actually breaks little new ground, Time Magazine reports. Since 2005, the Church has had to pay tax on property it uses for commercial purposes; the Church does not object to that. Property used for non-commercial (religious and non-profit) purposes remains exempt; no one, except perhaps the Radical Party, seems to object to that. The only controversy is what to do with mixed-use property: property that is used for religious and commercial purposes, like a convent that contains a chapel as well as a few rooms for tourists. Under the new law, only those parts of mixed-use property that are used for commercial purposes would be subject to tax. Religious entities would be required to account for which parts of their property are in fact used for commercial purposes. The law’s opponents argue that this arrangement is susceptible to abuse; in a country where tax enforcement is so lax, they argue, no one is likely to check the accounting.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Italy’s Catholic Church flexible on property tax

That’s the headline of an AP story over the weekend, here. Italian law has traditionally granted a tax exemption on real property owned by non-profits, including the Catholic Church. The exemption extends not only to property used for religious reasons, but more broadly to any property that is not “exclusively commercial” in nature — for example, guest houses for pilgrims and medical clinics. Critics argue that the exemption allows the Church (and other non-profits, presumably) to conduct commercial activities  without paying tax. Given Italy’s fiscal crisis, the new government is signaling that it will reconsider the breadth of the exemption, and the Church is signaling that it may go along:

One of Monti’s Cabinet ministers, Andrea Riccardi, is one of the most prominent lay Catholics in Italy, the founder of the Sant’Egidio Community with close ties to the Vatican.

He said this week that the church should pay the property tax if commercial activity is being carried out on the property. “I think that all the all the religious and cultural activities of the church are a richness for the country and the tax shouldn’t be paid,” he told RAI state television.

But if individual cases are discovered where commercial activity is being carried out, “necessary measures should be taken.”

 

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Catholicism and the Risorgimento

Also from the Vatican Insider page of La Stampa mentioned by Mark below (the picture at right is of Garibaldi, not Mark) is this piece about a conference at the Pontifical Lateran University about the Christian roots of Italy as nation-state.  The aim of the conference was to study “the contribution of Christianity to the formation of Italian identity through the work of the Church[.]”  It may be somewhat revisionist to claim that the Roman Catholic Church was truly in support of Italian unification.  Pope Pius IX was in fact rather hostile to the idea, and not without understandable political reasons given the fortunes of the Papal State after 1861.

Be that as it may, I found the following paraphrased statement by historian Msgr. Cosimo Semeraro (as reported in the story) to be a nuanced and sensible characterization:

Undoubtedly unity took place in the wake of a bitter dispute between Savoy and the Papal State, and was achieved against the interests of the Church itself, Msgr. Semeraro acknowledged   Nevertheless (Piedmontese prime minister) Cavour “also began to become aware of the universal value of Rome and the papacy”. Therefore, “The insistence of Cavour for the proclamation of Rome as the capital in 1861 reflects his awareness that the future of the new state had to necessarily pass through a reconciliation with the Holy See”.

To sum it up all, he is convinced that the contribution of Catholics was actually crucial, both in terms of “social and political initiatives of Italian Catholicism to address economic imbalances and social inequalities” and in historical circumstances like World War I, when “large masses, especially peasants” were made more familiar with “a state still suffering from the markedly elitist dimension of its beginnings”. 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Church Funding in Europe and America

Sociologist Grace Davie has famously described churches in Europe as “public utilities,” state-supported institutions that people assume will be there for them when the occasion demands — weddings and funerals, for example. She contrasts this with the American idea of churches as “firms,” that is, private associations that members support through voluntary contributions. From La Stampa this week, a fascinating piece addressing attempts by the Catholic Church in Europe to move to the American model, so far without success. State budgetary shortfalls and church scandals have made public funding much less certain, and the Church is encouraging European Catholics to see themselves as “stewards” who must support their local parishes financially. The long tradition of state funding makes Europeans reluctant to accept this new responsibility, however.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The Vatican Apostolic Library

In September 2010, the magnificent and extremely ancient Vatican Apostolic Library reopened after a period of renovation.  First opened by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 (the Pope wished to share his books and manuscripts), the library contains centuries of undiscovered and unknown works.  It is not open to the general public — one needs to be an academic or a student to gain entry. 

In this story, Paolo Vian, chief of the manuscript division, talks a little about an early work of Spinoza which was recently discovered in the library (he notes that one of the reasons it was not discovered earlier was that it was not signed by the author, or otherwise so designated).  There are other discoveries waiting to be made in this vast repository.  Vian mentions about 200 verses of a comedy by the Greek dramatist Menander which were recently found, as well as a seminal 1615 work by Tommaso Campanella, “L’ateismo trionfato” (“Atheism Defeated”).   

An elegant quote by Vian, when asked why so many initially sought entry but went away somewhat disappointed:

The treasures, the real ‘secrets’ of a library or of an archive are not discovered by pushing a button.  One requires a long and burdensome patience which, as in the case of [Spinoza’s] Ethics, puts together separate elements, re-knots shredded strands, sees value in minute and almost invisible clues.  One needs the patience and tenacity of someone in love and only then can one reach one’s goal. 

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 3 Comments

Pera, “Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians”

Here is a provocative book by former Italian Senator Marcello Pera (who now teaches philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University), Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies (Encounter Books 2011) (first published in Italian by Mondadori in 2008 under the title, Perchè Dobbiamo Dirci Cristiani).  Among other reasons, this is an interesting contribution as a piece of cultural anthropology.  Pera is a non-believer, and yet he argues for the importance and continuing relevance of Christianity as a social and cultural force in Europe.  The language about societal “collapse” was reminiscent (to me) of some of the writing of Sir Patrick Devlin in the famous Hart-Devlin debates.  A nice window on some of the writing in Italy on questions of interest to CLR Forum readers.  The publisher’s description follows.

The intellectual and political elites of the West take for granted that religion, in particular Christianity, is a cultural vestige, a primitive form of knowledge, a consolation for the weak minded, and an obstacle to peaceful coexistence. We are told that politics must take a neutral stance on religious values, and that societies must hold together without any reference to religious bonds. Liberalism is considered to be “free-standing,” and the Western, liberal, open society is taken to be “self-sufficient.”

In Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, Marcello Pera reveals that not only is this wrong, it is also dangerous. The very ideas on which liberal societies are based and by which they can be justified—the dignity of the human person, the moral priority of the individual, the view that man is a “crooked timber” inclined to prevarication, the limited confidence in the power of the state to render him virtuous—are distinctively Christian or, more precisely, Judeo-Christian ideas. Take them away and the open society will collapse.

Anti-Christian secularism jeopardizes the identity of the West, leaving it with no conscience. The Founding Fathers of America, as well as major European intellectual figures such as Locke, Kant, and Tocqueville, knew how much our civilization depends on Christianity. “The challenges of our particular historical moment,” as Pope Benedict XVI calls them in the preface to the book, can be faced only if we stress the historical and conceptual link between Christianity and a free society.