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ITALY
The Constitution protects freedom of religion. The government subsidises the Catholic Church (for the support of the clergy) and the Lutheran Church. The state has also stipulated to a certain number of Intese (Treaties), mostly with Christian-based religious denominations and adherents may designate a fixed percentage of what they pay in tax to one of these denominations.
Roman Catholic religious instruction in schools is offered as optional.
The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion. However, violations of religious liberty are not infrequent. The Church of Scientology, though it has won dozens of court cases recognising its religious nature, has had to contend with sudden closures of its premises and raids on the homes of individual Scientologists.
In 1986, a Milano Judge of Investigation closed down twenty Churches and Missions of Scientology, forcing Church members to immediately open new premises. Court proceedings began. In 1991, the Church won at the Milano Trial Court, which acquitted nearly all the defendants and found the Church to be a non-profit organisation and guilty of no crimes. The government appealed, and the case went to the Supreme Court, with widely variant rulings issued by the lower courts. One of the criticisms made by the Supreme Court is that a lower court had failed to use the guidelines laid down by the Constitutional Court to establish what is a religion and had ignored the numerous documents and testimonials which showed the religious character of Scientology. In October 1997, the Italian Supreme Court issued a comprehensive ruling that found Scientology met all the requirements to be fully recognised as a religion.
Article 8 of the Italian Constitution states that:
“(1) All religious denominations are equally free before the law.
“(2) Religious denominations other than Catholic are entitled to organize themselves according to their own Creed provided that they are not in conflict with Italian juridical organisation.
“(3) Their relations with the States are regulated by law on the basis of agreements with their respective representatives.
Article 19:
“All are entitled to freely profess their religious convictions in any form, individually or in associations, to propagate them, and to celebrate them in public or in private, save in the case of rites contrary to morality.”
Article 20:
“The religious character and the religious or confessional aims of an association or institution shall not involve special legal limitations or special fiscal burdens for its constitution, legal status, or any of its activities.”
It is also a penal offense in Italy to incite hatred against another because of his religion.
Continued...
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