Introduction

Jonathan Steinberg was largely responsible for persuading Cambridge University Press to publish my first book, The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929–1932: A Study in Conflict. I began researching it as a PhD thesis in Rome in the 1970s; so when I was awarded the Balsdon Fellowship of the British School at Rome in 2013, I decided to revisit the subject matter of the thesis by undertaking research on ‘religion and the fascist right in contemporary Italy’.

For Italy, 2013 was a decisive year. In the general elections of February, the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo took its place in parliament for the first time, and the conclave of March elected the first non-European pope for many centuries, the Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio, who took the name of Francis I and embarked upon a reforming agenda in the Vatican. Italy was, once again, ‘in transition’.

There have been studies of specific Italian parties and groups, or the response of these parties and groups in public debates on issues of relevance to religious beliefs – like voluntary euthanasia, bio-ethics and same-sex marriage. My research sought to analyse more broadly the relationships between religion and groups on the fascist right within a historical perspective, focusing on the following questions:

• 1. How similar/different was the relationship between the Catholic Church and fascist groups in 2013 and that of the early 1930s?

• 2. What areas of broad agreement existed between fascist groups and the Catholic right in 2013?

• 3. What impact have exogenous factors had on the relationships between religion and the fascist right?

By way of a preamble, I examined relations between religion and the parliamentary, or ‘respectable’, non-fascist right, including the Lega (the Leagues), Forza Italia! (literally Forward Italy!) and the so-called ‘post-fascist’ right, like La Destra (the Right) and the Centro–Destra Nazionale (National Centre–Right), which is now called Fratelli D’Italia (Brothers of Italy), has been presented. This was necessitated by the fact that the centre to far right of the Italian political spectrum is very much a continuum, with substantial cultural and ideological overlaps between the various groups as far as attitudes to religion are concerned. Unless one examines the full range of the continuum, it is impossible to fully understand the cultures and ideologies underpinning the fascist right.

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is the most common chronic treatable neuropathy in the Western world with a prevalence of 1–2 per 100,000 (Lunn et al. 1999; McLeod et al. 1999). It is the chronic variety of the inflammatory demyelinating neuropathies, of which the Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) is the acute form. Because it is treatable, CIDP needs to be considered in the differential diagnosis whenever a patient presents with an acquired chronic or progressive neuropathy. The inflammatory demyelinating neuropathies are characterised pathologically by multifocal areas throughout the peripheral nervous system (PNS) of inflammatory infiltrates associated with demyelination. When demyelination is assessed by the study of teased nerve fibres it is seen to be segmental, i.e. by and large restricted to the territory of individual Schwann cells (Figure 10.1). This characteristic pathological description suggests that the myelin loss, which occurs in these neuropathies, results from some insult which targets Schwann cells rather than the myelin itself.

Despite considerable advances in treatment strategies, which have developed effective therapies for a majority of patients, the pathogenic mechanisms which disrupt Schwann cell function resulting in demyelination remain unknown in most patients. It is likely moreover that CIDP, like GBS, is comprised of a number of different subtypes, and the study of patients within these homogenous subgroups may permit the recognition of meaningful patterns of pathogenicity. To date, research into CIDP and indeed its acute counterpart GBS has centred largely around the animal model experimental autoimmune neuritis (EAN).

Introduction

By the end of the reign of Pius X in August 1914, the construction of the modern papacy was virtually complete. Nearly all of its most typical characteristics were in place – papal infallibility, the ‘Romanisation’ of national hierarchies through the appointment of increasing numbers of bishops at least partially educated in Rome, bureaucratic centralisation of decision-making in all ecclesiastical affairs in Rome via the agency of papal nuncios and apostolic delegates, and the use of papal encyclicals and apostolic letters to enforce the magisterium in matters not only of dogmatic theology and moral theology, but of social doctrine, liturgy, popular piety and those touching upon church–state relations in individual countries. Perhaps most important of all, the cult around the personality of the reigning pontiff had been fully developed, underpinned by the mobilisation of lay support through the Catholic press, Peter’s Pence, pilgrimages and early forms of ‘Catholic Action’ organisation.

The only major elements of modern papal absolutism over the Roman Catholic church that were still lacking were the codification of canon law, which would be promulgated by Benedict XV in 1917 but which in point of fact had been inaugurated by his predecessor ten years earlier, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to replace national/regional variants of basic Christian doctrine taught to the laity, which would first be prospected by Benedict XV in 1921 but not brought to fruition until the reign of John Paul II in 1992.