LUCIANO MUSSELLI

I  rapporti Chiesa-Stato e la questione del Concordato dalla Liberazione alla Costituente.

Uno studio sulle origini remote degli articoli 7 e 8 della Costituzione

N. 4/1987

Summary — During the period from 1943 to 1946 and particularly in the years 1945-1946 the revived Italian political parties, in elaborating their programmes, give their attention also to the problem of the relations between the State and the Catholic Church and to the future of the Lateran Concordat of 1929. In this regard there comes to light an almost general agreement not only on the part of the mass catholic party (namely the Christian Democracy) but also of the Left (communists and socialists) and of some conservatives on the maintenance of the Concordat and the Lateran Pacts as a whole. A firm opposition to this solution was to come only from the Partito d’Azione, of very strong laic inspiration, which places itself as successor to the separatist tradition of the nineteenth century liberalism.

As regards then the religious world, the Catholic Church asks not only for the reconfirmation of the Concordat, but also the advent of a new State inspired to the moral and social vision of the Roman Catholicism, whilst the protestant minorities fight for religious freedom and parity among the Churches since they too exercise, although in a very small measure in respect of the Catholic Church, a certain influence on the laic parties and in particular on the Partito d’Azione. Having outlined this context, the reconfirmation that occurred within the Constituent Assembly, with the approval of art. 7, of the Lateran Pacts as an instrument to regulate the relations between the Catholic Church and the Italian State, does not arouse astonishment, just as cannot astonish the ample guarantee of freedom given to the religious minorities by art. 8 of the Constitution.