Visioni LatinoAmericane 17 (2017), Numero speciale: Lived religion in Latin America and Europe

The Author reflects on a segment of the complex and multifaceted experience of Italian Catholicism provided by the analysis of the life stories of 29 Roman Catholics from Rome, gathered during the year 2016. Socialisation appears to be the fundamental mode of transmission of religious values, together with a personalization and re-elaboration of religious beliefs.

The Author discusses the lived religion of 29 Roman Catholics resident in Rome. The analysis is based on binomials like individual/institution, spirituality/religion, auton-omy/membership of a religious community, and focuses, in particular, on the interviewees’ perceptions of God, good-evil, faith and suffering and the figures of various Pontiffs.

The Authors discuss the relationship that Catholic believers maintain with the religious institution through their own notions of spaces where faith and transcendence are lived. For both Catholics who are far from the institution and those who still have a link with it, the spaces for living religion are manifold and varied.

Lima is a city where religions flourish in a context of religious transformation. The Authors approached lived Catholicism from a qualitative perspective considering ur-ban diversity and different lifestyles. Differences in lived religion were found in three local domains of everyday life: 1) the family, which paves the way for school and sacred spaces; 2) the parish, where individuals seek to live their religion; 3) civil society, including the workplace and social organisations.

From a lived religion approach, the Authors explore how Catholics and ex-Catholics from Córdoba, Argentina, conceive “being Catholics”, and how they react to the plurality of religious options in their everyday lives. The conceptions are diverse and contested. Inter-religious practices are multiple, but when diversity is present within their own homes (inter-religious families) they prefer to avoid speaking of religion.