50(3), 2003, 311±320

Roberto CIPRIANI

Invisible Religion or Di€used Religion

in Italy?

The publication of The Invisible Religion by Thomas Luckmann inspired con-

¯icting judgements. It was hard to accept the idea of religion in terms of modern

approaches, thus overturning a series of de®ning schemas of religion. It has

really not been subjected to a screening by speci®c ®eld research. When this

has occurred in a partial sense, there has been evidence of a certain gap between

the abstractness of the theory and the concreteness of empirical data. Actually

historically organized and consolidated religions are still active and dominant.

Luckmann's thesis is very useful at the methodological level provided we do

not force the terms of his concluding argument so as to make it universally

and aprioristically valid. Probably at the root of the resistance of visible, or

more exactly, di€used, religion is the fact that in Italy there is a situation

di€erent from that where religion is not generally and successfully transmitted

through the basic socialization procedures.

La publication du livre The Invisible Religion, de Thomas Luckmann, a donneÂ

lieu aÁ des appreÂciations contradictoires. Il eÂtait dicile d'accepter que la reli-

gion soit rameneÂe aÁ une seÂrie d'approches modernes, remettant ainsi en cause

les scheÂmas traditionnels caracteÂrisant la religion. Au deÂpart, cette theÁse n'eÂtait

pas soutenue par des eÂtudes concreÁtes sur le terrain. Lorsque ce lien avec la

reÂalite a eÂte partiellement eÂtabli, il s'est aveÂre qu'il subsistait un fosse entre le

coÃte abstrait de la theÂorie et le caracteÁre concret des donneÂes empiriques. En

fait, on s'apercËoit que les religions organiseÂes qui se sont consolideÂes au cours

de l'histoire sont toujours actives et preÂdominantes. La theÁse de Luckmann

est treÁs utile du point de vue meÂthodologique, aÁ condition que l'on ne force pas

les termes de son argumentation au point de la rendre a priori et universellement

applicable. En Italie, la reÂsistance de la religion ``visible'', ou, plus justement,

``di€use'', s'explique sans doute du fait que la situation y est di€eÂrente par

rapport aÁ des pays ouÁ la religion n'est pas transmise aussi geÂneÂralement et

avec autant de succeÁs au travers des processus de socialisation de base.

Usuallyan author is regarded as a classic onlyafter his scienti®c activity

is concluded. Thomas Luckmann became a classic at once. His book on

invisible religion was immediatelynumbered among the classic texts of the

sociologyof religion. In short, The Invisible Religion was from the start on

the list of masterworks of sociological thought which includes Weber's

essayon the Protestant ethic and Durkheim's on the elementaryforms of

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& 2003 Social Compass

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religion. It was not bychance that Luckmann, in the initial pages of his book,

paid homage to his illustrious predecessors: ``Di€erent as their theories are, it

is remarkable that both Weber and Durkheim sought the keyto an under-

standing of the social location of the individual in the studyof religion''

(Luckmann, 1967: 12).

But there is more. Aside from this tribute, the connection between Durk-

heim and Luckmann is much clearer. There is a passage in the Elementary

Forms of Religious Life (Durkheim, 1995: 43) which seems to anticipate

Luckmann's thesis of invisible religion:

. . . but if one includes the notion of church in the de®nition of religion, does one not by

the same stroke exclude the individual religions that the individual institutes for himself

and celebrates for himself alone? There is scarcelyanysocietyin which this is not to be

found . . . And not onlyare these individual religions verycommon throughout history,

but some people todaypose the question whether such religions are not destined to

become the dominant form of religious life ± whether a daywill not come when the

onlycult will be the one that each person freelypractises in his innermost self.

The Fortunes of the Concept of Invisible Religion

The publication of Das Problem der Religion in der modernen Gesellschaft

in 1963, and of The Invisible Religion in 1967 inspired con¯icting judgements.

Above all, it was hard to accept the idea of religion in terms of modern

approaches, thus overturning a series of de®ning schemas of religion that

were almost always linked to the idea of a supernatural dimension of

reference and to an organized group practising the cult. Catholic-inspired

sociologyin particular saw in Luckmann's interpretation a de®nitive contri-

bution to the thesis of secularization. Notwithstanding its age (almost 40

years have passed), the idea of an invisible religion still keeps on reappearing

in scienti®c discussion (Besecke, 2001). However, it has reallynot been sub-

jected to a screening byspeci®c ®eld research. When this has occurred in a

partial sense, there has been evidence of a certain gap between the abstract-

ness of the theoryand the concreteness of empirical data (Cipriani, 1978). Its

value remains linked to the original design of sociologyof knowledge applied

to the religious phenomenon, according to the magisterial perspective of The

Social Construction of Reality byPeter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

(1966). Indeed, religion appears as a product of a construct of meaning

activated at the personal level to traverse the collective level. However, we

must object that Luckmann's idea of religion can at least in part correspond

to what is common opinion regarding religion, or remain a merelyabstract

construction without empirical bases.

According to what is evident to all, historicallyorganized and consolidated

religions are still active and dominant, with all the weight of their doctrinal,

symbolic and behavioural in¯uence. Luckmann says that religion cannot be

restricted to the singular church, but is something that involves the new

dominant values of contemporarysociety. It is above all the private sphere

that takes on the character of the new social form of religion.

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Social Compass 50(3)

In fact, there is no shortage of quite substantial signs of ``modern religious

themes'' within the old confessional, ideological contexts. How can we other-

wise explain the post-communist e€ects in Poland, the post-Tito ones in the

former Yugoslavia, and more recentlythe post-Taliban ones in Afghanistan?

In short, from the wreckage of the old states and old religious forms, new

longings seem to ¯ower, showing themselves through choices and social

actions marked bymodels of individualism, familism, autonomyand self-

expression and self-realization (especiallyvia sexualityand mobility). The

sphere of the private manages to express itself in quite independent forms.

However, we must also ask if we are faced with an absolute noveltyor

whether the modern religious themes are nothing more than the sedi-

mentation of pre-existing channels, long incorporated in traditional religious

modes.

Luckmann believes that the modern sacred cosmos has a relative instabil-

itydepending on the various social strata in which it is active. In fact, tradi-

tional, customaryreligious themes are re-ordered in the orbit of the secular

and the private. Thus Durkheim's prediction of a whollyindividual religion

would seem to be coming true.

Invisible Religion in Italy

An initial response to Luckmann came in 1970 from the sociologist Silvano

Burgalassi, who was led to entitle his book Hidden Christianities, surely

inspired by The Invisible Religion. But aside from the reminder in the title,

Burgalassi's research did not adopt invisible religion as a matrix.

This occurred instead in a studyassisted byLuckmann himself. It was a

surveyof two Italian regions, Veneto and Abruzzo±Molise. The idea was

to follow the development of the phenomenon of secularization along the

continuum antiquity±modernity. The categories of analysis used were

those of rationalization, urbanization and pluralism, privatization and the

separation of religion and society, with subsequent dislocation of the

church as structure, changes in the world of symbols, and lack of meaning

for one's existence (Cipriani, 1978: 12).

The data used here for comparison are those relating to the area of

Abruzzo±Molise. The observation made in the early1970s did not con®rm

Luckmann's perspective. Territorial mobilitywas slight, socio-economic

mobilityrather greater but with no remarkable peaks. Free-time activities

did not seem numerous. Familism, on the other hand, was deep and di€use.

Indeed, in this regard there is an extreme individualism expressed in the inter-

est for the familymicrocosm, with an almost total rejection of the social

macrocosm. The desire to contribute to the welfare of the community

remained a vain aspiration.

On the other hand, we should add that familism reappears in the qualities

of the ideal woman, who must above all be a ``good'' mother, a ``good'' wife,

a ``good'' housewife. Thus 60 percent of the sample stated that women should

not have important jobs and should assist the husband's career.

Cipriani: Invisible or Di€used Religion in Italy? 313

Finally, the subjects almost exclusively referred to their own conscience.

But the sexual component was undoubtedlythe most important in all

areas surveyed (Cipriani, 1978: 47). It therefore seems as if sex and family

are reallythe outstanding themes in the modern sacred cosmos Luckmann

speaks of.

Almost 80 percent of the respondents said theybelieved in God. Moreover,

a possible rejection of institutional religion found no alternative, solid and

satisfying outlets. In addition, a certain aversion to the Catholic Church as

an organization concerned onlyspeci®c aspects and rarelyinvolved the

founding elements of belief. In short, there was a constant in the process

of secularization: great support for base values and minimal consensus for

the bureaucratic-organizational ordering of the church (Cipriani, 1978: 59).

About 50 percent followed ocial doctrine but 41 percent made a personal

choice in terms of a rationalization for action. However, overall con®dence

in the role of the church showed no signi®cant drop. Obviouslyin the less

urbanized areas of Abruzzo and Molise the data seemed rather more in

line with ocial religion.

Results of the Research

Here are the results from the Abruzzo±Molise study:

1. The Church is important because it manages to unite individuals: 57 per-

cent.

2. In order to feel united, believers do not need an organized church: 5 per-

cent.

3. Religion is a private matter, the individual has no need to live it with

others, it is enough to respect certain principles: 15 percent.

4. Religion is such an intimate experience that each individual lives it in his

own wayas if he were his own church: 22 percent.

We see here a clear distinction between two di€erent universesÐ57 percent

more tied to church religion and the 42 percent who maintain their belief

but do not entrust themselves to the church and live it in their private

sphere. But in fact the privatization of religion is certainlynot (or not yet)

Luckmann's invisible religion. Once again we could applyhere the de®nition

of a di€used religion conceived of as a link with a particular form of religious

belief and thus of church religion. This circumstance gives rise to the

channelled ¯ux which, in varying forms of intensity, pervades the social

action of those who on one or several occasions demonstrate concretely

the existence of predisposed inputs (Cipriani, 1988: 15±16).

This di€used religion is ®rst of all a global phenomenon closelylinked to

the broader set of values and models of behaviour. In fact,

. . . the variables in ``di€used religion'' are . . . more changeable according to the syntheses

which it produced from time to time. The ``new'' value is internalized but almost never

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taken up in a whollypure form or according to a formula that could totallyreplace the

previous perspective. The new wayof seeing reality, the di€erent Weltanschauung, is,

however, the result of the collision-encounter between what alreadyexists and what is

still in the process of becoming. ``Di€used religion'' therefore becomes dominant precisely

where there is a dominant form of religion. (Cipriani, 1989: 29)

What is meant bydi€used religion is to be understood in at least a double

sense. First of all, it is di€used in that it comprises a vast section of the Italian

population and goes beyond the simple limits of church religion, sometimes

it is in open contrast to church religion. Besides, it has been shown to be a

historical and cultural result of the almost bi-millennial presence of the

Catholic institution in Italyand of its socializing and legitimizing action.

In e€ect,

Thomas Luckmann's theorization regarding the ``invisible religion'' has attracted much

attention on the part of the Italian sociologists, even though it has not always brought

scienti®c consensus. The idea of a functional substitution of church religion byseries

of topics such as ``individual autonomy, auto-expression, auto-ful®lment, mobility

ethos, sex and familism'' has developed parallel to the theoryof secularisation. Thus

the ``invisible religion'' perceived byThomas Luckmann, which is based on the assump-

tion of a crisis of the institutional apparatus, seems to be applicable onlyin relation to

certain aspects of modern Italian society, and does not completely destroy so-called

church religion. (Cipriani, 1984: 30)

A form of invisible religion within both church religion and di€used religion

maybe represented byprayer. Italians who prayare much more numerous

than those who attend mass. And their behaviour often takes a non-visible

form. The studyin Abruzzo and Molise had alreadypointed to this fact

(in provincial capitals):

1. never pray: 5 percent;

2. praysometimes or at certain religious ceremonies or onlyin dicult

moments: 49 percent;

3. praysometimes: 16 percent;

4. praydailyor almost: 29 percent.

In practice, a third of the population is accustomed to dailyprayer, but onlya

minorityrefrains totallyfrom this mode of religious expression. A similar

``silent'' and/or ``invisible'' majorityis the central core of so-called di€used

religion, maintaining its continuum with church religion but without wholly

diverging from it, though incorporating also a good part of the modern

themes of invisible religion.

Luckmann's suggestion is veryuseful at the methodological level provided

we do not force the terms of his concluding argument so as to make it uni-

versallyand aprioristicallyvalid. There is no noteworthyterritorial mobility,

religion has not lost its ``ultimate signi®cance''. However, we should stress

that the majorityof these phenomena do not make for a noveltyin the

social fabric. On the other hand, we should accept the careful, penetrating

Cipriani: Invisible or Di€used Religion in Italy? 315

scrutinyof the institutional crisis of the church. Furthermore, we cannot

avoid facing two keyaspects of ``invisible religion'': familyand sex. Regard-

ing the former, the universe of our research provided data to con®rm

Luckmann's thesis, although onlypartially. As regards sex, it seems we

should not speak of a dominant theme in the fullest sense of the word. The

theme of sexuality, when revealed, appears in its true dimension as basic

realityof life. But sexualitydoes not seem to reach levels of ``ultimate

signi®cance''.

Individualism also should be explained in terms di€erent from Luck-

mann's. It should to be ascribed to church religion, which through the

personalism of devotional practice has prevented the development of a sen-

sitivitytowards others.

Continuity and Change in Research on Religion in Italy

For a further testing of Luckmann's hypotheses, the dynamic recorded in the

various studies carried out in the context of the European Values Study,

inaugurated in 1981, is markedlyrevealing. The studycontinued in 1990

(Capraro, 1995), and 1999 (Abbruzzese, 2000; Gubert, 2000).

Some 83 percent of the Italians said theywere religious in 1981 and 1999

(though in 1990 the percentage fell to 80 percent). Use of prayer and medita-

tion increased, from 72 percent in 1981 to 73 percent in 1991 and 77 percent

in 1999. Belief in God too seemed to increase, from 84 percent in 1981 (73 per-

cent in 1991) to 88 percent in 1999.

Thus both the maintenance of religious practice and the spread of subjec-

tive egoism are seen to be equallypossible and compatible:

Today, while elements of secularisation and laicisation remain dominant features, but

also while there is a real crisis of the various cultural sensitivities, the interconnection

between religious membership and civil society± and thus between religious and civil

ethics ± can onlybe resolved in a problematic way. . . This sets the measure of the di€er-

ence of the process of secularisation in Italyas regards the European trend (especially

France). (Abbruzzese, 2000: 454)

This peculiaritywas not lost on Robert N. Bellah (1974) who, during a

research visit to Italyin 1972, had identi®ed a kind of ``religious ground

bass'', a real religion contraposed to ocial religion. Italians' civil religion

was said to have a pronounced particularistic streak, alert to the ``family,

clan, the pseudo-kinship groups like the ma®a, the village, the city, the

faction and the clique'' (Bellah, 1974: 445).

In Sicily, there is a clear orientation of religious values of a universalistic

kind (Cipriani, 1992). New and old religiosityexist without particular con-

¯icts. Indeed, we can note ``a strong religiositywhich preserves an equally

strong reference to the church and which constitutes a rule of conduct

capable of feeding civil sense, and on the other hand a di€use presence of

customaryreligiosity'' (Gucciardo, 2001: 109). This emerges from a study

of values and models of behaviour among Palermo universitystudents

(Gucciardo, 1997).

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Social Compass 50(3)

Another Sicilian study(Cipriani, 1992: 347) has shown that there is

. . . a return of religious values in another guise, not ecclesial but public. These values

overleap the boundaries of mere church religion, embrace manykinds of experience

and relations, of di€erence with as well as distance from the church, and di€used religion

experienced as the prevailing condition. This is just the whole gamut of the religion of

values wherein honesty, loyalty and tolerance receive broad acceptance but can really

leave the problem of the connection between thought expressed and real conduct

unresolved.

At the level of particularistic values, the Sicilian ®nding in ®rst place is that

of familism with 62.6 percent, whereas individualism does not exceed 9.2 per-

cent.

In this way, di€used religion, the product of socialization, returns to the

wider context of the so-called religion of values (Cipriani, 1992), but even

before our research in Sicily, Calvaruso and Abbruzzese (1985: 79) put it

thus:

. . . di€used religion then becomes the dominant religious dimension for all those who,

immersed in the secular realityof contemporarysociety, though not managing to

accept these dimensions of the sacred cosmos which are more remote and provocative

compared with the rational vision of the world, do not therebyabandon their need for

meaningfulness. In the immanent dimension of individual everyday existence, di€used

religion, rather than bearing witness to the presence of a process of laicisation in a reli-

giouslyoriented society, seems to enhance the permanence of the sacred in the secularized

society.

In Italyalso a crisis of institutional religion is evident.

Meanwhile, according to the national studyof religiosityin Italy(Lanzetti,

1995a: 91), 83 percent of those interviewed prayed at least once a year. The

familyremains the major factor of satisfaction (73 percent of the universe).

On the other hand, ``those we could term `hedonistic-materialistic values'

(career, money, savings, entertainment) all in all have a secondary place,

given that theyare at the bottom of the classi®cation'' (Rovati, 1995: 190±

191).

Therefore, there is a principle of acceptance of the church, but with an

autonomyof personal judgement in ethical matters (Garelli, 1995: 242±

245). Moreover there is a certain personalization of religion, especiallyin

familyand sexual ethics. But this ``should not be confused with the process

of `privatisation' of the religious phenomenon'' (Lanzetti, 1995b: 273).

Still more explicit are the terms used byEnzo Pace (2001: 8), at the end of

the Italian studycarried out most recentlyon religious and moral pluralism

using a questionnaire ®lled out by2149 subjects:

. . . the secularisation of customs and lifestyles, conventionally dated in Italy from the

referendum which saw the approval of the divorce law with a substantial majority

(over 60% in favour) in 1974, did not reduce the space occupied byreligion. It was the

start of a process of individualisation of belief . . . people began to think di€erently,

felt a growing need for independence which combined, due to favourable circumstances

and ongoing changes, with modern ways of thinking and lifestyles, focussing on the asser-

tion of the individual and his/her prerogatives.

Cipriani: Invisible or Di€used Religion in Italy? 317

Again, Pace speaks of a ``soft secularisation'' typical of Italy where ``the

widespread relativism among the population maybe interpreted as an indi-

cator of the tendencyamong majorityof Italians to `move freely' in the

construction of their own belief system; a religious mobility which appears

extremelymodern'' (2001: 10) but which has connotations rather di€erent

from the ethos of mobility, one of the ``modern religious themes'' identi®ed

byLuckmann as constituting the invisible religion.

Probablyat the root of the resistance of visible, or more exactly, di€used,

religion is the fact that in Italythere is a situation di€erent from that where

``religion is not generallyand successfullytransmitted in the basic socializa-

tion procedures'' (Luckmann, 1983: 169).

Italian religion thus has a character that makes it tendentiallydi€used and

shared. In practice, as emerged also from the national studyconcluded in

1995 byCesareo et al.:

. . . religion in the broad sense (church or di€used/modal) is largelypreponderant and

clearlyalmost all of Catholic type. Church religion is a minoritypercentage-wise, and

di€used religion (called modal, as statisticallyit is in practice the mode, the characteristic

with the greatest frequency) is the majority. But between minority and majority there is no

break. (Cipriani, 2001: 303)

NOTE

This is a short version of a paper presented at the Conference ``Europe and the

Invisible Religion'', Universityof Zurich, 18±19 January2001.

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Roberto CIPRIANI is full Professor of Sociologyat the Universityof

Rome Three. He has been visiting scholar at the Universityof Berkeley,

and visiting professor of Qualitative Methodologyat the Universityof

SaÄo Paulo, of Political Science at the Laval University, and of Method-

ologyand Visual Sociologyat the Universityof Buenos Aires. He has

also been President of the International Sociological Association

Research Committee for the Sociologyof Religion. He is Past Editor

in Chief of International Sociology (the ocial journal of the Inter-

national Sociological Association). He was a member of the Executive

Cipriani: Invisible or Di€used Religion in Italy? 319

Committee of the AISLF (International Association of French-Speaking

Sociologists), and of the IIS (International Institute of Sociology). He is

Vice President of the Italian Sociological Association. His publications

include: Sociology of Religion: An Historical Introduction (New York:

Aldine de Gruyter, 2000), Sociology of Legitimation (London: Sage,

1987), Aux sources des sociologies de langue francËaise et italienne (Paris:

L'Harmattan, 1997). He has undertaken research in Mexico and

Greece. ADDRESS: Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione, via del

Castro Pretorio 20, I ± 00185 Roma, Italy. [email: [e-mail]]

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