Catholic Parishes and Immigrants in Italy: Insights from the Congregations Study in Three Italian Cities

IF 1.7 Q2 SOCIOLOGY
Societies Pub Date : 2024-05-29 DOI:10.3390/soc14060077
Marco Guglielmi, Olga Breskaya, Stefano Sbalchiero
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Abstract

As shown by sociological studies, the Catholic Church in Italy is very active in conducting advocacy and providing political representation to immigrants. It is also highly effective in carrying out services for immigrants, as well as fairly receptive to sharing places of worship with them. However, these sociological observations have been mainly conducted at the national level rather than by exploring the life of parishes through an empirical lens. This article aims, by applying the congregations study methodology, to fill this gap by detecting faith communities as the basic social units of religious life at the city/country level. In doing that, we discuss quantitative data collected in 377 Catholic parishes in the cities of Bologna, Milan, and Brescia. The findings suggest that Catholic parishes: (i) illustrate a low proportion of immigrants in their communities; (ii) show high activity in providing services for immigrants; (iii) are not politically engaged in advocacy for foreign persons at the local level; and (iv) similarly position themselves as politically conservative and liberal while expressing commitments to immigrants. This study confirms the sociological argument regarding the solidarity approach of the Catholic Church in Italy toward immigrants, while highlighting some ambivalent aspects related to cultural diversity and grass-roots political engagement within parishes’ life.
意大利的天主教堂区与移民:意大利三大城市会堂研究的启示
社会学研究表明,意大利天主教会在为移民进行宣传和提供政治代表方面非常积极。它在为移民提供服务方面也非常有效,而且相当乐于与移民共用礼拜场所。然而,这些社会学观察主要是在国家层面进行的,而不是通过实证视角探索堂区的生活。本文旨在运用会众研究方法,通过发现作为城市/国家层面宗教生活基本社会单位的信仰团体,填补这一空白。为此,我们讨论了在博洛尼亚、米兰和布雷西亚等城市的 377 个天主教教区收集到的定量数据。研究结果表明,天主教教区:(i) 在其社区中移民比例较低;(ii) 在为移民提供服务方面表现出较高的积极性;(iii) 在地方层面没有参与为外籍人士辩护的政治活动;(iv) 在表达对移民的承诺时,同样将自己定位为政治保守派和自由派。这项研究证实了意大利天主教会对移民采取团结互助态度的社会学论点,同时强调了教区生活中与文化多样性和基层政治参与有关的一些矛盾方面。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Societies
Societies SOCIOLOGY-
CiteScore
3.10
自引率
9.50%
发文量
150
审稿时长
11 weeks
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