Freedom of Religion in the Italian Constitution

Abstract

In Italy, Catholicism was the dominant faith for about two thousand years and until recently almost the only one. This has meant that it has taken root in the country as a primary socio-cultural element also for the laity and non-believers. Every legal system in a democratic state must find the normative mechanisms to guarantee and protect the religious phenomenon. With the advent of the Republican Constitution, the religious phenomenon is foreseen and regulated in four articles: Articles 7, 8, 19, 20 of the Constitution, to which we must add the guarantees deriving from articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. These Articles sanction the principle of equality of all confessions and non-discrimination on a religious basis, the freedom to profess one's beliefs both individually and collectively, in public or private, ect. The analysis aims to understand the capacity of these provisions to guarantee all dimensions of the religious phenomenon. In this regard, the question arose whether these articles protect freedom of conscience, conscientious objection and atheism. It is also important to analyze those are the limits that this freedom encounters.