Background

Among the modern Western countries where the issue of religiosity has been studied, the United States and Italy offer the only examples of empirically verified periods when religious practice was consolidated or even revived to some extent. A recent study, however, shows that the nature of religious exceptionalism in the United States does not constitute a real counterexample. This leaves Italy as the only country that might provide evidence of the falseness of the assumption that the secularization process is inescapable.

Purpose

This study seeks to enhance our knowledge about the case of Italy, where the many surveys conducted over the years have produced a wide variety of often divergent results, prompting a fervent debate among scholars. Several authors argue that the level of participation remained almost constant from 1980 to 1990. Others, on the contrary, claim that the level of participation increased between 1980 and 2000. This paper contributes to this path of study, aiming to shed light on the development of religiosity in Italy between 1910 and 2013.

Methods

Different data sets—time use surveys, ‘stylized surveys’, direct surveys and other kind of data—and an innovative method will be used to develop the reasoning and trace the trend of secularization.

Results

As will be shown, there are discontinuities in the pattern of religious practice over time. These fractures were due to attrition caused in turn by factors related to economic phenomena like migration and political/ideological subcultures, which temporarily changed the level of religious practice and, at least for a time, counterbalanced the long-term trend away from religious practice.

Conclusions and Implications

The trends presented suggest that secularization in Italy developed without any discontinuity, leading to confirmation that modernization and religious action ‘counteracted’ each other in an extremely regular manner. Therefore, according to the current state of knowledge, no documented modern Western country constitutes a counterexample to the secularization thesis. It can thus be claimed that modernization and secularization are inextricably linked processes.

中文翻译：

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世俗化论题真的有“另一个”反例吗？1910 年至 2013 年间意大利的宗教动态

背景

在研究宗教信仰问题的现代西方国家中，美国和意大利提供了唯一经过实证验证的宗教实践在某种程度上得到巩固甚至复兴的例子。然而，最近的一项研究表明，美国宗教例外论的性质并不构成真正的反例。这使得意大利成为唯一可以证明世俗化进程不可避免的假设是错误的国家。

目的

这项研究旨在增强我们对意大利案例的了解，多年来在意大利进行的许多调查产生了各种各样的往往不同的结果，引发了学者之间的激烈辩论。几位作者认为，从 1980 年到 1990 年，参与水平几乎保持不变。其他人则相反，声称参与水平在 1980 年至 2000 年之间有所增加。本文对这条研究路径做出了贡献，旨在阐明发展1910 年至 2013 年间意大利的宗教信仰。

方法

不同的数据集——时间使用调查、“程式化调查”、直接调查和其他类型的数据——以及一种创新的方法将被用来发展推理和追踪世俗化的趋势。

结果

正如将要显示的，随着时间的推移，宗教实践的模式存在不连续性。这些断裂是由于与移民和政治/意识形态亚文化等经济现象相关的因素造成的磨损，这些因素暂时改变了宗教实践的水平，至少在一段时间内抵消了远离宗教实践的长期趋势。

结论和意义

所呈现的趋势表明，意大利的世俗化发展没有任何间断，从而证实现代化和宗教活动以极其规律的方式相互“抵消”。因此，根据目前的知识状况，没有任何文献记载的现代西方国家构成世俗化论点的反例。因此可以说，现代化和世俗化是密不可分的过程。