PATTERNS OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM:

...among the others, murder came first to mind for 22%, theft for 5%, cursing and swearing for 5%, lust for 3%, envy for less than 3%, pride and greed for 2% each...

...Believing and practicing" characterized 54.4% of all the interviewed, 43% of the men, 65% of the women, 39% of those from 15-24 years, 49% of those from 25-34 years, 54% of those from 35-54 years, and 68% of those over 54 years of age...

...Patterns of Italian Catholicism The state of the Church in Italy baffles many Cath-olics and non-Catholics alike...

...In the industrial triangle of Milan-Turin-Genoa, despite gen-eralizations about industrialization and religion, approxi-mately the same percentage (57%) of the population declares itself "believing and practicing...

...The same poll investigated the degree of interest in the above personages and Mohammed, according to five categories...

...There was a marked difference according to sex among those who preferred Jesus: men (54%), women (74...

...The Doxa survey on Italian religious life and thought implies the tenacious hold of religious thought and values despite the presence of many secular ideologies which threaten and challenge its very right to survive...

...Believing and non-practicing characterizes the status of 33% of the inter-viewed, 40% of the men, 26% of the women, 39% of those from 15-24, 38% of those from 25-34, 35% of those from 35-54, and 23% of those over 54...

...After the Second World War the Church in Italy was forced to realize that it was steadily losing contact with the conscience of the working masses...

...From a geographical point of view, unbelief is low-est in Southern Italy (11%) where 58% of the popu-lation declares itself "believing and practicing...

...In Communist-controlled Bologna Cardinal Lercaro said, "The Church will be ruined if it does not go along a new path . . .," an utter-ance proleptic of Pope John's call for aggiornamento...

...Breaking links with this cultural origin, according to this professor of the sociology of knowledge, implies a real revolt against the social and historical "father," a radical change that also implies the greatest of conflicts and emotional difficulties...

...The poor (55%) tend to believe more than the wealthy (48...

...The weaknesses of the Church in Italy, like the shortcomings of democracy in America, underscore the fact that no society or culture ever realizes the aspira-tions of its greatest minds and leaders...

...For those who tend to believe that prac-ticing Italian Catholics do not have minds of their own, it would be surprising that all but two in a class of forty laymen catechism teachers (in Rome) voted for divorce because they were convinced it was the Christian thing to do...

...The seventh question of the Doxa poll, perhaps the most revealing, asked how the individual would classify himself...

...Just as the United States is regarded as a showcase for democracy, Italy is ex-pected to be a type of national exhibition ground for world Catholicism...

...Of eight dogmas listed, that of the Trinity came first to mind among those who thought of a particular dogma...

...The Italian Young Workers' Organ-ization (GIOC) said that the biggest problem of Italian Catholicism was to reestablish contact with the workers...

...Our society must be changed...

...Prof...

...Doxa, the Italian equivalent of the Gallup Poll, in-vestigated what Italians think of Christ...

...Belief in Hell: among all interviewed (47%), among practicing Catholics (67%), among non-practicing believers (31%), among the uncertain and non-believers (7...

...Catholicism is not only a religion, but also a real symbolic universe...

...There were 13 categories for the response: because I believe in him (38%), he is the God to whom we pray (16%), he is the God who created us (7%), because he is God, the Son of God (11%), because he is the most human, humble, good (4%), because of his teaching and religion (7%), be-cause he is always timely, modern (1%), because of his unique self-sacrifice and martyrdom (3%), because he is our Redeemer (6%), because of his mysterious, complex, interesting personage (6%), other replies (.4%), because I know him better than the others (4%), I do not know why (4...

...among them is a national survey of religious opinion undertaken by Doxa a few months ago...

...Belief that Jesus is the Son of God: among all interviewed (77%), among practicing Cath-olics (93%), among non-practicing believers (71%), among the uncertain and non-believers (23...

...Political power and control, however, are no satisfactory gauge of religious vitality in any country...

...A Dominican, Enrico di Rovane, writing in a Turin newspaper, asked for a regime of austerity to end "the scandalous differences in the standards of living which exist in the country...

...Churchmen and laymen in northern Italy insisted that "A Christian is always in revolt...

...But, alas, under the very shadow of the Vatican flourish the largest Communist party this side of the Iron Curtain, the scandals of La Dolce Vita and a widespread indifference to Sunday Mass attend-ance...

...The Church had to come out for reforms to help the poor in an Italy where the official Government survey listed 12 percent of the population as 'indigent' and another 11 percent as 'poor.' Much of the Church's soul-searching was carried out in the missionary spirit prevalent in Tuscany and Emilia...

...Asked which of the following personages they liked most, Italians responded as follows: Jesus (64%), Gandhi (2%), Garibaldi (12%), Martin Luther King (11%), Mao Tse-tung (2%), Marx (4%), no indica-tion (5...

...The sixth question of the Doxa poll concerned be-liefs...

...But if the Italian religious situation offers little grounds for complacency, it is undoubtedly far more hopeful and dynamic than the average English-speaking Catholic gen-erally assumes...

...Belief in the immortality of the soul among the same respective categories (62%, 80%, 51%, 18...

...The third category consists of those who do not believe or believe somewhat and are in both cases not contrary to religion: 8.6% of all, 12% of the men, 5.4% of the women, 15%, 9%, 8%, 5%, respectively in the age groups...

...Half of those asked replied that there was no first sin that came to mind...

...Asked what was the first dogma that came to their minds, three of four replied that they did not know...

...It is in central Italy that this category is lowest (49...

...In the most complete sense of the word, it is an interiorized system of representing reality, and also a pattern of behavior...

...Gustavo Guizzardi, of the University of Padua in his paper at the Eighth World Congress of Sociology in Toronto ("New Religious Phenomena in Italy: Towards a Post-Catholic Era...

...It was Italy's seemingly insoluble social problems which already had led to the political dead-end that started splitting the ranks of Catholics...

...There are many indices of the shape and vitality of religious life in Italy...

...Since the war the government has been continuously in Catholic hands, and the republican Constitution itself, which came into force in 1948, is in large measure the product of Catholic minds...

...Asked the first capital sin that came to mind, there was some confusion with commandments in the reply...

...Belief that Mary is a virgin: among all (58%), among prac-ticing Catholics (81%), among non-practicing believers (39%), among the uncertain and non-believers (9...

...With regard to Jesus: 43% were very in-terested, 37% considerably interested, 10% little in-terest, 4% not at all interested, 6% indifferent or non-committal...

...insists that it must be borne in mind that, in Italy, a Catholic socialization is extremely penetrating...

...These were the lands which had brought forth the Ren-aissance in the fourteenth century, and which in the postwar period were calling for a Catholic reawakening...

...Interestingly, Martin Luther King placed second...

...JOHNNAVONE...

...The findings of the Doxa study, reported in Famiglia Cristiana, reveal that, despite the present crisis in values and a so-called decline in religious awareness, Jesus remains the his-torical personage that the majority of Italians approach with the greatest love and hope, even when they describe themselves as non-practicing...

...The third question of the poll asked why Jesus was preferred to the others...