LO STATO ITALIANO E LA CHIESA CATTOLICA, OGGI: IL CONSOLIDAMENTO DEL PRINCIPIO DELLA RECIPROCA COLLABORAZIONE (ART. 1 ACCORDO DI REVISIONE CONCORDATARIA). IL PARADIGMA DELLE FABBRICERIE

Abstract

The climate of peculiar "harmony" which marked the official visit of the Holy Father to the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, on 10 June 2017, did not go unnoticed to the political press:in order to have notice of it, after all, it would have been enough (even only) to glance through the transcripts of the speeches given by the two Authorities, where it is easily traceable a singular convergence of “tone”, register and -in some passages,even of -contents. Thus, with respect to the latter, for instance, various press organs have grasped the “consonant” JusOnline n. 1/2018ISSN 1827-794289highlighting of a "factual" (fundamental) data, such as the fruitfulness of the mutual support that State and Church continue to give themselves in the country, in the face of growing spiritual and material urgencies/requests, punctually exemplified. In this latter regard, few, however, have grasped the further consonance of the need, felt by both of them, to highlight the main legal reason for this fruitful mutual support, namely the Agreement of Villa Madama. Whatever the reason for the lacking annotation (perhaps an automatism, appropriate to the so-called "post-truth" era, promoting primarily the "emotional" data), what is important is the missed opportunity to register, immediately after this, a singular dissimilarity between the two texts. In fact, while Pope Francis sees also the need to specify that the Agreement expresslyrequires this mutual attitude, with a specific provision, i. e. the Art. 1, which commits the State and the Church to collaborate, in compliance with the "distinction of orders" referred to in Art. 7, par. 1, of the Constitution, for the «promotion of man» and the «good of the country»; conversely, President Mattarella, after a reference to the role of the Concordat, as a "precious framework for collaboration", moves directly to emphasize the importance of the presence of the Church "alongside the Institutions" (already -in general -in the most difficult times of national life, and in particular) on the occasion of the "earthquake emergencythat has hit” central Italy in 2016. A starting point (this one about the indicated dissimilarity between the texts) that, if grasped, would probably have guided to pay more attention not only to the issues arising from the clarification made by the Pontiff and the different emphasis “ad hoc” placed by President Mattarella, but also to other key topics, not explained but nevertheless perceptible -especially by the "experts" -underlying the theme of the growing collaboration between the two Orders, in view of the “common good”.