01879 - Comparative Italian Ecclesiastical Law

Learning outcomes

The course provides relevant information according to the protection of religious freedom and the individual and collective actual operations of religions and their institutions in our and in other jurisdictions. A particular attention is reserved to the comparative of all the issues addressed and the recent phenomenon of territorial rights of religious freedom.

Course contents

The contents of the course are the following, arranged by theme:


I. Introductory elements and historical framework

- Ecclesiastical law: scope, origin and development of the discipline
- The relationship models between political power and the religious phenomenon among history, current events and comparison
- The evolution of ecclesiastical politics in Italy from the 19th century to the 1948 Republican Constitution
- The advent of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural society. Problematic issues and new perspectives for a constantly changing discipline


II. The system of sources of Ecclesiastical law and the constitutional principles

- Specificity and complexity of the structure of Ecclesiastical law sources in the Italian legal system
- The religious factor in the Constitution (articles 2, 3, 7, 8, 19 and 20)
- The supreme principle of laicity of the State in the case law of the Constitutional Court
- Ordinary State legislation and regional legislation
- Bilaterally derived rules and the bilateral principle. The Lateran Pacts and their reform; agreements with religious denominations other than Catholicism; the so-called “widespread” bilaterality
- Rules of religious origin and their meaning in the eyes of the secular system: in particular, Canon law
- Religious freedom in the sources of supranational law: the rules of international law, the relevance of the ECHR and the impact of the sources of European Union law, the role of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union


III. Religious freedom in the legal experience

- Religious freedom (art. 19 of the Constitution): its contents and limits (explicit, implicit and emerging ones)
- Freedom of conscience and protection of the so-called “negative” religious beliefs (atheism)
- Problematic profiles: the definition of ‘religious denomination’, the legal condition of religious denomination without an agreement (recognized and de facto ones), the ‘new religious movements’
- Conscientious objections (between ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms) and bioethical issues
- Places and goods designated for worship. The construction and maintenance of places of worship
- Cultural heritage of religious interest between ordinary law and denominational peculiarities
- Spiritual assistance in separated communities and segregating structures
- Employment relationships. Religious holidays and ideologically-oriented organizations
- The teaching of religion in public schools and confessional schools
- Religious food prescriptions and their relevance (e.g. ritual slaughter)
- Religious symbols in public spaces (religiously oriented clothing, the issue of the crucifix in school classrooms, etc.)
- Criminal protection of religious sentiment and the fight against discriminatory actions
- Criminal law and religious factor (e.g. female genital mutilation, ritual circumcision, etc.)
- Religious factor and family relationships. The religious education of offspring
- The protection of personal data of a religious nature
- The legal status of ministers of worship (ecclesiastics and religious)
- Restrictions on religious freedom: the delicate example of the measures adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic


IV. The Holy See and the Vatican City State

- Holy See, Vatican City State and Catholic Church: preliminary distinctions
- The international legal subjectivity of the Holy See
- Relations between the Holy See and the Italian State from the “Roman question” to the 1929 Lateran Treaty
- The Vatican City State: nature, characteristics and peculiarities. Relations with Italy, the European Union and the international community
- The central bodies of the Catholic Church
- The Holy See and its activities in the Italian legal system


V. Structures and activities of religious denominations

- Art. 20 of the Constitution
- Ecclesiastical bodies: the procedure for the recognition of legal personality
- Religious or worship activities and different activities of ecclesiastical bodies
- The bodies of the Catholic Church and the bodies of religious denominations other than Catholicism
- Religious bodies and reform of the Third sector
- The financing of religious denominations. In particular, the “eight per thousand” system
- The support of the Catholic clergy and the remuneration of ministers of other cults


VI. Religious marriage with civil effects and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over concordat marriage

- Civil relevance of religious marriage and the transcription of canonical marriage
- Religious marriage celebrated before ministers of religious denominations other than Catholicism (with or without agreement)
- The jurisdiction over concordat marriage and the civil efficacy of ecclesiastical sentences of matrimonial nullity: emerging problems in light of Pope Francis’ reforms and the outcomes of the case law of the Court of Cassation
- The relationship between civil jurisdiction and canonical jurisdiction

Readings/Bibliography

In preparation for the exam, students have to choose one of the following alternatives:


I. ZUANAZZI, M.C. RUSCAZIO, M. CIRAVEGNA, La convivenza delle religioni negli ordinamenti giuridici dei Paesi europei, G. Giappichelli Editore, Torino, 2022, pp. 1-330 (excluding paragraphs 5 and 6 of chapter 14).


or, alternatively,


G. DALLA TORRE, Lezioni di diritto ecclesiastico, Sixth edition, G. Giappichelli Editore, Torino, 2019, pp. 1-150 and pp. 187-384 (excluding chapter eleven).


For the special part:

G. BONI, A. ZANOTTI (eds.), Matrimonio e famiglia tra diritti religiosi e diritti secolari, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna, 2024 (chapter 7 of the first part - Generalia - and, in addition, two chapters chosen by the student among chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the second part - Quaestiones).

Students who attend the course will follow a facilitated exam program. They will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues in which they are particularly interested, that will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

In the course of the lessons, the teachers will recommend and supply teaching aids and further learning material, following the students’ specific requests and interests. The material will be uploaded to the teachers’ web page and made accessible to students.

Teaching methods

The course will develop through lectures, seminars and meetings with experts.

Lectures will be given in the IInd semester. As a consequence, students obtaining their attendance certificate in the current academic year are allowed to take their exam only starting from the month of May. The exam program coincides with the subjects of the course.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures or through notices, also on the Faculty website. The teachers use slides (or other supplementary material) that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform.

Students who attend the course will be invited to actively take part in the analysis of the themes studied in class: students will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a written paper about specific issues in which they are particularly interested, that will be previously corrected and discussed together, and then evaluated during the final exam, thus concurring to the overall assessment. For this purpose, one or more practice sessions will be held in classroom or online, in parallel to lessons, in which methods for searching for sources and bibliographic materials, and for the formal writing, structuring and drafting of juridical texts will be explained: on this occasion, students will be given time for questions, requests for clarification and further information.

Assessment methods

Only students who have already taken the exams of Constitutional law and Private law are admitted to the final exam.

The verification of learning outcomes consists in an exclusively oral final exam, which will explore the acquisition of the required knowledge and skills through an oral examination sustained with the teachers.

The exam will cover the issues described in the “Course contents” section. The examination entails the assignment of a grade.

Through such exam, the knowledge learned and the critical and methodological skills acquired by the student will be assessed.

In addition to the possession of a mastery of expression and of an appropriate technical language, the student will also have to prove to be able to move confidently within the system of the legal sources on the matter, to have a clear perception of the received information and to have understood and adequately deepened the themes that were addressed in class and explained in the reference textbooks, which will have to be described and argued properly. Learning such skills is easier during the course, the attendance of which is recommended in order to improve the learning process and therefore the student’s performance during the exam.

Namely, about the oral exam:

 As previously mentioned, the aim of the oral exam is to assess the actual achievement of the learning outcomes: therefore, both the knowledge of the relevant legal issues and the student’s capability to apply it in order to realize the required logical-deductive connections will be taken into account.

By way of a mere example, the assignment of the final grade will be based on the following criteria:

Sufficient knowledge of a very small number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that only emerge through extensive support by the interviewer, with the use of a language that is not incorrect but is not completely accurate either → 18-19;

Fairly good knowledge of a limited number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that are autonomous only on purely executive issues, with the use of a correct but not fully confident and exhaustive language → 20-24;

Good knowledge of a wide number of the topics addressed during the course and capability to develop autonomous analytical skills, with an efficient and confident use of a technically specific language → 25-29;

Extensive and substantially exhaustive knowledge of the whole program addressed during the course, capability to develop very good legal reasonings and to critically analyze and connect different topics, with a fully confident use of a technically specific language that shows a mature ability to develop original reflections → 30-30L.

The students who attend the course will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teachers their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures: the same also applies with regard to the final exam.

Students have to book the final exam on the web application AlmaEsami.


Thesis

For the assignment of a thesis, students must go to the teachers' office hours in order to discuss and select the subject.

Teaching tools

During the lessons the teachers will recommend and supply texts and further learning material to complete the preparation.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures and through notices on the Faculty website.

The teachers use slides that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform in order to help them understanding the issues and the institutes explained during the lessons.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teachers their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

Office hours

See the website of Manuel Ganarin

See the website of Alberto Tomer