Religion and Politics Toward a Redefinition of their Boundaries -The case of Europe-

During the recent history of Europe, many factors (such as the appearence on the world stage of many fundamentalist movements, the tendency of the late communist countries to identify religion with nation, the diffusion of Islam, the renewed public role of the traditional churches, etc.) indicate that religion has emerged from the irrelevance to which it had been confined in the past decades. At the same time, such a recovery of the importance of religion seems to be often accompanied by an increase of conflictuality, to the point that many people, to avoid a recurrence of intolerance, are looking for new models of relationship between religion and politics, public religious organizations and the state. Traditionally, modern European models can be divided into models regulated by Concordats (catholic countries), separatist models (secular countries), and models regulated by peculiar forms of State religions (Protestant countries). In spite of their differences, such models rest on a common juridical ground: they share a common notion of the impartiality of the state, determine the area of activity of the various religious subjects and recognize the right of the state to be the guarantor of the rules of the game. In the present paper I try to describe how, today, such models and their historical realizations have reached a crisis not only because of the changed situation and the social factors mentioned above, but also because of a more radical criticism coming from the European (Christian) churches toward the a-morality of the modern conception of the state and its inner deficiencies. In a more positive way, this paper tries to re-define the position of religion in European society, and to delineate some of the main characteristics of the new model: a model which - in full respect of the distinction between religion and State - could also be respectful and tolerant of religious pluralism, enriched by interreligious dialogue and ecumenism, sensitive to the necessities of solidarity and justice, and rooted in a metaphysical and inculturated conception of human rights