By Jeff Israely, Globe Correspondent, 5/14/2000 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/135/nation/In_Catholic_Italy_Islam_makes_inroadsP.shtml PALERMO, Sicily - In this very Catholic country, there have always been other religions: a sprinkling of Waldensian Protestants in the north, traces of Islam in Sicily, well-established but small Jewish neighborhoods in Rome, Venice, and other big cities. But for the first time in centuries, a minority religion is set to become a major player in Italy's future. Fueled largely by immigration from North Africa, the Middle East, and Albania, Islam is now the second-largest faith in what is still a nation that is 94 percent Catholic. Italy's demographic changes provide a modern challenge, not only for these two world religions, but also for this nation positioned at the crossroads of continents, faith, and history. With the growth has come some tension, most recently when some Catholic-Muslim marriages ended in widely reported battles over custody and religious education of the children. The Italian Bishops Council responded by issuing a public warning against marriages between the two religions, citing ''too much distance in culture.'' But that reaction has drawn scorn from people like Amina Donatella Samina. Born in Rome, raised nominally Catholic, Samina has been a practicing Muslim since 1993, four years after marrying her Moroccan husband at city hall. ''The church has a history of trying to destroy all that is different from it,'' said Samina, who wore a white and blue scarf on her head as she sipped a cappuccino at Rome's Caffe Doria. Citing the eighth-century arrival of the first Muslims in Sicily, the mother of three said her newfound faith has only enhanced her connection to her native country. ''Being Muslim in Italy is going back to what it really means to be Italian,'' said Samina, who works for the Health Ministry. ''It is a true Mediterranean identity. We're in the middle of everything here: Arab, Spanish, French, Slav. We need to overcome these narrow views so many have about who is Italian.'' A walk around Palermo offers support for her views. Several Catholic churches look suspiciously like mosques, having been transformed into churches when Christians retook Sicily in the year 991, after two centuries of Tunisian rule left a lasting Islamic stamp on the island. Over the past millennium, however, the religious life of Italy and its islands has been the domain of the Catholic Church. ''For hundreds of years, Italy has been based around one dominant religion,'' said Maria Macioti, a sociology professor who has studied immigration in Italy for more than 20 years. ''We're not very accustomed to having another significant religious presence here.'' There are now nearly 1 million Muslims in this country of 57 million. Though still smaller than the Islamic presence in other Western European countries, the number has doubled in just 10 years. More to the point, Muslims account for 36.5 percent of the 1.5 million immigrants in Italy and Islam has overtaken Catholicism, at 27.4 percent, as the largest religious group among newcomers. Having trailed more than a decade behind its neighbors in the growth of immigration, Italy is moving into the second and more critical phase. In the first wave, in the 1970s and 1980s, when a woman from the Philippines or man from North Africa might come alone to Italy for temporary work, the current arrivals now include many families. ''Now the typical immigrant plans to stay,'' Macioti said. Perhaps here more than elsewhere, the crossover questions of immigration and religion are vexing a nation where St. Peter's Basilica and Europe's largest mosque are just a city bus ride apart. Magdi Allam, who covers immigration and Muslim issues for the newspaper La Repubblica, said Italy has a wide mix of Muslims that mirrors the diversity of the faith around the world: There are some 10,000 Italian-born converts, a largely moderate flock from Morocco, more devout and sometimes fundamentalist faithful from Iran and Saudi Arabia, and vast numbers of arrivals from Albania, who had been completely cut off from their religion under its former communist regime. ''A majority are moderate, even secular Muslims who want to integrate into Italian society,'' Allam said. ''They're mostly here in search of work.'' But some bureaucratic and legal housekeeping questions remain unresolved. The Muslim community has not received official government recognition - bestowed on an array of smaller faiths, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, and Buddhists - that would guarantee state-approved religious education, finance mosques and associations, and legalize Muslim marriage rites. The government grants official recognition to other religions under a 1984 modification of the Concordat, an agreement between the Italian state and the Vatican signed in 1929 to give special status to Roman Catholicism. Native-born converts, the foreign embassies of Morocco and Saudi Arabia - whose royal family largely financed the building of the mammoth mosque in Rome - and other Muslim groups have been bickering for more than two years over who will negotiate the terms of the agreement. Once these differences are resolved, the Italian brand of Islam can play a major role in the religion's future across the globe, said Hamza Roberto Piccardo, who has been a Muslim since 1984. ''In no country in Europe has there been such a rapid growth,'' said Piccardo, adding that the number of mosques and Islamic cultural centers has gone from 12 to 400 in the past 16 years. ''Italy is the bridge between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe that make for a particular kind of Islam here.'' But as the presence expands, so does the possibility for conflict. Piccardo said ''Islamaphobia'' is part of a Western penchant to find new enemies in the post-Cold War world. But Piccardo concedes that Italy's history raises the stakes. ''The idea of Christianity is dominant here,'' said Piccardo, who concurs with the church's effort to dissuade intermarriage. ''We are a family: Jews, Christians and Muslims. The problems within a family are always more difficult.'' |