Originally my project was to examine the role played by religion in the Italian fascist right over the last 20–5 years. After my initial researches, I decided to extend the project to the non-fascist right including the Lega, Forza Italia! and the NCD of Angelino Alfano, as well as the ‘post-fascist’ right like La Destra and the Centro-Destra Nazionale and the ‘non-respectable’ or fascist right that includes groups like Fiamma Tricolore and Forza Nuova. There are also social movements characterized by ‘meta-politics’ rather than conventional political activism, like CasaPound, RAIDO and other right-wing associazioni di militanti or centri culturali, and groups of so-called ‘Nazi-skins’ in Rome, Vicenza, Bollate (MI) and so on.
It became clear that the right of the Italian political spectrum is very much a continuum, but with substantial cultural/ideological overlaps between the various groups as far as religion is concerned. Unless one examines the full range of the continuum it is impossible to understand the impact of the cultures and ideologies underpinning the fascist right. The relationship of these parties and groups to Catholicism is the primary focus of my research, but it includes other religions or ‘anti-religions’, like Odinism and Satanism.
As well as consulting a body of secondary literature, and closely and continuously monitoring relevant websites, I made a textual examination of statements of ideology and policy of various groups, most importantly the political manifestos of these groups for the 2013 general elections.
Due to the kindness of a leading member, I was able to observe at close quarters one particular gruppuscolo, RAIDO, which has its base in Rome and is inspired by the ideas of fascist thinker Julius Evola and by the ideology of Romanità. I examined the eighteen-year run of its periodical. I also attended a speaker meeting of this group. Among other ‘field work’, I attended a demo of the Movimento Sociale Europeo outside Rebibbia prison in Rome, I visited a ‘dissident Catholic’ church in Rome and was present at a ‘Nazi-rock’ concert in Bollate, Milan province — an open-air anti-fascist demo there on the same day was cancelled because of a heavy fall of snow. I also visited bookshops selling right-wing and fascist literature and artefacts in Rome and Milan.
So far my research has produced the following results. The discovery that, as in the 1920s and 1930s, there are groups that can definitely be called ‘clerico-fascist’, and that anti-Protestantism and anti-Semitism, and fears about freemasonry, still characterize some elements of the right, across the spectrum. The prevalence of Islamophobia and homophobia did not surprise me. On the other hand, my research has confirmed my belief that Odinism — the religion of the Norse gods — and Satanism are much, much less influential on the Italian fascist scene than in North America, Britain or Scandinavia, because Catholicism remains a(the?) default component of Italian popular culture. Though there are racially-oriented Odinist groups in Italy, I have found no links between them and fascist groups.
I do not think that anyone in Italy has looked at the relationship between religion and the right in contemporary Italy from a historical perspective, or ‘in the round’. The focus has, rather, been on specific 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, same-sex marriage and so on. Because I chose to approach my research in the way I did, it has revealed the extent of continuities between the 1930s situation that I studied as a research student, and that of today, despite the enormous changes that have taken place in terms of religious allegiances, secularization and, of course, the political landscape between times. This is the one thing I did not expect. It suggests the remarkable persistence of certain basic, religiously-inspired notions and sentiments in Italy over the last 80–90 years.
