SIMONA BRICCOLA

Il potere della Chiesa in ambito temporale esiste ancora?

208

Gennaio-Aprile 2005

Anno LXX    n. 1

Summary - The object of research in this article is the nature of the power of the Catholic Church in legal, political and social spheres within countries with a Catholic majority. There has been a decline in the old idea of “potestas  Ecclesiae in temporalibus” since the conceptual revisions brought in by Vatican Council II and the teachings of the last Pope. Today, canon law doctrine tends to focus more on questions of the freedom of the Church and on religious freedom. Such freedom rights have come to constitute an undeniable, although legally ambiguous, means of intervention for the Catholic Church in politics and law. In this article, some important examples are given of this intervention and of its effects - examples that concern the legal institutions and the production of norms in Italy today. The analysis presented would seem to be particularly interesting at the present time, in light of the increasing predominance in public life of the concept of the sacred, and thus of religions in general, in the political and social spheres. This calls for reflection on the above questions from a multi-religious and multicultural perspective.