Catholics persecuting in Italy?

[Dan_Goebel]

Good morning and God’s blessings to you all.

I received an e-mail from a friend yesterday talking about what the Catholic church is supposedly doing in Italy. I tried searching the net to find out if this is true or not, but was unsuccessful. Can anyone shed some light on the following excerpt (esp. the highlighted part) so I can respond in an educated manner?
“Some quick stats about southern Italy. 50% unemployment rate. The “smart” people head north so there is a bit of a “brain drain” in the southern sections. Men aged 15-55 don’t go to church as that’d be a sign of weakness in their culture. Men and women don’t talk to each other, again cultural. The Catholic church has a very strong hold on Italy and as recent as 1978 the local Catholic churches went to burn down the Protestant church. The size of the second largest protestant church in Italy is one of Dave’s (pastor) churches and numbers 78 members. No one gives of their time to simply help someone else out, so our being there and helping will be a cultural shock to them.”

Thank you in advance and have a great day.

 

[RandA]

I don’t know whether any church was burned down in 1978 (anything is possible - there were all sorts of “terroristic” acts going on in Italy in the 1970s), but to say the Catholic Church has a strong hold on Italy would be totally erroneous. Although most Italians are Catholic by birth, they don’t practice and are nominally Catholic (like many of the other European countries). I lived in Italy several times when I was younger, and never saw any friends going into church, ever, unless for a wedding or funeral!

Here is info from a website I just looked up:

"Italy is united linguistically and religiously although it is diverse culturally.

Roman Catholicism is the majority religion with 85 percent of native-born citizens Catholic, if only nominally, and only 20 percent participate regularly in services of worship.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government is thought to generally respect this right in practice, not tolerating its abuse, either by government or private action. Thus, there is no state religion and the constitution prohibits state support for private schools but the Catholic Church enjoys some privileges, stemming from its sovereign status and its historical political authority, not available to other faiths.

The Church is allowed to select Catholic teachers, paid by the State, to provide instruction in “hour of religion” courses taught in the public schools although this class is optional, and students who do not wish to attend are free to study other subjects. While in the past this instruction involved Catholic priests teaching Catechism, church-selected instructors now may be either lay or religious, and their instruction should include material relevant to non-Catholic faiths. Problems may arise in small communities where information about other faiths and numbers of non-Catholic communicants are limited.

The status of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy has been determined (since its temporal powers ended in 1870) by a series of accords with the Italian government. The Lateran Pacts of 1929, which were confirmed by the present Constitution, confirms that the State of Vatican City is recognised by Italy as an independent, sovereign entity. While preserving that recognition, in 1984 Italy and the Vatican updated several provisions of the 1929 Pacts, which included the end of Roman Catholicism as Italy’s formal state religion.

While most of the population is Roman Catholic there are also significant minorities, which include Protestants and Jews, although the Jehovah’s Witnesses form the second largest denomination among native-born citizens, numbering approximately 400,000. Increasing immigration has led to some anti-immigrant sentiment to be directed towards the country’s many Muslim immigrants as religion has served as an additional factor differentiating them from native-born citizens.

Immigration, both legal and illegal, continues to add large groups of non-Christian residents, mainly Muslims from North Africa, South Asia, Albania, and the Middle East, who number an estimated one million. Buddhists number some 40,000 of European origin and 20,000 of Asian origin. Scientologists claim to have approximately 100,000 members, Waldensians estimate approximately 30,000 members (concentrated mainly in the north-west), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has approximately 20,000 members. A Jewish community of approximately 30,000 persons maintains synagogues in 21 cities. Other significant religious communities include Orthodox churches, small Protestant groups, Japanese Buddhists, the Baha’i Faith, and South Asian Hindus. Recent polls show that approximately 14% of the population consider themselves to be either atheists or agnostics.

The generally good relations among religions has contributed to religious freedom although the influential role played by the Catholic Church in Italian society has led to controversy when church teachings have appeared to influence Catholic legislators on matters of public policy."

seeitalia.com/essentials/religion/

 

[Cristiano]

Good morning and God’s blessings to you all.

I received an e-mail from a friend yesterday talking about what the Catholic church is supposedly doing in Italy. I tried searching the net to find out if this is true or not, but was unsuccessful. Can anyone shed some light on the following excerpt (esp. the highlighted part) so I can respond in an educated manner?
“Some quick stats about southern Italy. 50% unemployment rate. The “smart” people head north so there is a bit of a “brain drain” in the southern sections. Men aged 15-55 don’t go to church as that’d be a sign of weakness in their culture. Men and women don’t talk to each other, again cultural. The Catholic church has a very strong hold on Italy and as recent as 1978 the local Catholic churches went to burn down the Protestant church. The size of the second largest protestant church in Italy is one of Dave’s (pastor) churches and numbers 78 members. No one gives of their time to simply help someone else out, so our being there and helping will be a cultural shock to them.”

Thank you in advance and have a great day.

They guy that sent you the email is a misinformed moron! Ask him for evidence of his statements…

 

[Sepharad]

Anything is possible, I suppose, but coming as I do from a family that is part Italian, with family members still in Italy, I can tell you that Italians are one of the most tolerant of all European peoples.

I cannot imagine Italian Catholics banding together to burn down a church of any religion, they are just not usually religious anyway, usually just the women are religious.

Italy does have a sizeable population of Italian Jews and Italian Protestants, but I have never heard of them having trouble except in medieval times.

America might be a little different. At the turn of the 20th century, an Italian Baptist pastor named Rev Angelo Di Domenica started a church in my former neighborhood that used to missionize Catholics. That church used to have tomatoes thrown at it, etc by local Catholic kids, but I think it was not so much because the church was trying to take their religion away, but the missionary efforts were seen more as an attempt to Americanize the Italians.

There was a big dislike and distrust for the 'Medigan (Americano), by which was meant Anglo-Saxon Protestants. To Italians, the Protestant religion symbolized assimilation.

 

[1ke]

Good morning and God’s blessings to you all.

I received an e-mail from a friend yesterday talking about what the Catholic church is supposedly doing in Italy. I tried searching the net to find out if this is true or not, but was unsuccessful. Can anyone shed some light on the following excerpt (esp. the highlighted part) so I can respond in an educated manner?
“Some quick stats about southern Italy. 50% unemployment rate. The “smart” people head north so there is a bit of a “brain drain” in the southern sections. Men aged 15-55 don’t go to church as that’d be a sign of weakness in their culture. Men and women don’t talk to each other, again cultural. The Catholic church has a very strong hold on Italy and as recent as 1978 the local Catholic churches went to burn down the Protestant church. The size of the second largest protestant church in Italy is one of Dave’s (pastor) churches and numbers 78 members. No one gives of their time to simply help someone else out, so our being there and helping will be a cultural shock to them.”

Thank you in advance and have a great day.

I’d ask him to provide sources for these inflammatory statements. The back of a cracker jack box does not count as a “source”. Neither does “I heard it somewhere”.

 

[Kaninchen]

The Catholic church has a very strong hold on Italy and as recent as 1978 the local Catholic churches went to burn down the Protestant church.

Quizzing Google in Italian didn’t bring up anything (I went through about 10 'o’s in “Gooo … gle” in several combinations of ‘headline’ words).

While I may be a (possibly certifiable) italophile, it’s mixed with not a little cynicism about Italy and Italians but if some ‘chiesa evangelica’ was burnt down, there’s a lot more to the story than suggested.

 

[teancum79]

Dominate groups pick on others whither it is official or not it happens with every group I’ve ever run into so having catholics in Italy picking on others would not be a surprise.

I would however want to see a little substance to any particular claim.

 

[Dan_Goebel]

Thanks to all of you who have provided feedback thus far - it is greatly appreciated. I will ask for some sort of credible source (what a concept, eh?) and see what I get.

Luke 1:46-49

 

[Dan_Goebel]

Well, here is the response I received:

The source I have is Dave Z. (I deleted his last name), a missionary in southern Italy/Sicily. Parishioners of his told him that in 1978 the local bishop riled up his congregations. They went to the Protestant church to burn it down. The elders of the church heard of this and surrounded the church in hopes of stopping it from happening. They locked arms and started saying the Lords Prayer. When they did this the group dispersed.

 

[LDNCatholic]

They went to the Protestant church to burn it down. The elders of the church heard of this and surrounded the church in hopes of stopping it from happening. They locked arms and started saying the Lords Prayer. When they did this the group dispersed.

Didn’t that happen in reverse in the movie ‘‘Gangs of New York’’?

 

[Cristiano]

Well, here is the response I received:

The source I have is Dave Z. (I deleted his last name), a missionary in southern Italy/Sicily. Parishioners of his told him that in 1978 the local bishop riled up his congregations. They went to the Protestant church to burn it down. The elders of the church heard of this and surrounded the church in hopes of stopping it from happening. They locked arms and started saying the Lords Prayer. When they did this the group dispersed.

As you can see you friend is making stories up. First he said that the Catholics burned the church and now he says that it did not happen.

I think that he (or his group) is trying to build a scenario where they can say that the Lord saved them from the whore of Babylon.

Depending on the protest organization I can tell the following:

Italians (especially in poor areas of the south) do not like when one of their family members converts and donates all the family properties to a new “American” church. If that where the case I would not be surprised if the family members would try to burn the church down.

When I grew up in Italy I heard cases of families that had this kind of issues because of conversion and complete donation of the family possessions. I thing to remember that it was the case of the Jeowah witnesses, but I can be completely wrong.

Again it is about the family possessions and not conversions.

Finally I want to ask you. You say to be a Catholic and you post undocumented factoids like this one that could bring scandal to the Church but you choose not to post the name of the protestant denomination and of the supposedly missionary in Italy. Why do you that?

 

[Dan_Goebel]

Finally I want to ask you. You say to be a Catholic and you post undocumented factoids like this one that could bring scandal to the Church but you choose not to post the name of the protestant denomination and of the supposedly missionary in Italy. Why do you that?

Thanks for your response. I am Catholic and the reason I did not post his name was for security reasons and I didn’t think it would add any value. If you want to research the name for some reason I can give you the rest of it offline.
I agree as well, I think this type of non-sense story can bring scandal to the Church and that is why I posted it and asked if any one had any hard facts about it.
Peace and blessings.

 

[Sepharad]

My grandmother’s family was from Satriano diLucania, in (southern) Italy. Not long after they came to this country (USA), her brother Vincenzo was snagged by some sort of Pentecostal church (grandmom always called them “holy rollers”, which was what Pentecostals were called back then).

Anyway, Vincenzo (calling himself “Vincent” now), joined the church because they had given him a job as church caretaker. He married a (non-Italian) woman of the church, and the family basically disowned him.

I don’t think it was because he left the Catholic faith though, because my mom’s family was not all that religious (they were actually descendants of converso Jews from Spain)…I think they cut him off because he married a non-Italian and assimilated! That always seemed to matter much more to them than the religious change.