Il mito dell’Italia cattolica, Nazione, religione e cattolicesimo negli anni del fascismo

Looking at the great transformations of collective mentalities, systems of belief and mass communication, recent scholarship has introduced a new "cultural" perspective in the history of fascism. This approach has not been applied to the studies on Catholicism., event though the nationalization process during fascism was deeply linked with religious values and Catholisins became an integral part of national symbolism. Converging but also competing for hegemony, both fascism and Catholicism spread the myth of a Catholic Italy, exactly when the growing secularization of Italian society begun to be visible. The fascists wished to englobe Catholicism in their totalitarian world view. The Catholics aspired to the establishment of a Catholic State. The book is devoted to this myth as a decisive factor in the history of the fascist but also of postwar Italy, in which it continued to influence Italians.