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1. The disease of 1855 and the emergency “notification” in San Marino yesterday as today.

Only a few years after Garibaldi’s “escape” in San Marino, where the hero of the two worlds found hospitality hunted by the Austrians in the most serious hour^[1], a new fearful danger for the survival of the oldest Republic in the world loomed on the horizon. This time it was not the fear of being invaded by the weapons of others, but a subtle and invisible enemy that crossed the borders without showing any documents, just the disease that in 1855 arrived on the Titan, just as today the Coranavirus, silent and deadly, crosses the doors of the Serenissima Republic bringing infection and death. The “Asian disease” that appeared in 1855 in the small State forced the Captains Regent of that time to produce (yesterday as today) an emergency decree on several occasions in an attempt to contain the infection. Certainly the times and the scientific knowledge as well as the hygienic conditions of that time were different, the sovereign diarchies of the small State promulgated then “a Notification that alerted the population to use  every precaution expected by the proximity of the scourge of cholera”, recommending that the houses be kept clean, forbidding “the pouring of unclean materials from the windows and piles of manure near the houses”^[2] forbidding furthermore the sale of overripe fruit, meat, fish, cold meats and pork, thinking that the spread of evil would also depend on the state of preservation of these foods. And then again and again notifications from the Government in a short period of time, until September 27^th 1855 when Captains Regent Gaetano Belluzzi and Francesco Rossini had to admit coram populo that “the terrible disease, which has been infesting the nearby districts for some time, invaded even this our Republic”. On October the 20^th of the same year, the outbreak ended with a heavy balance, 245 infected citizens of whom 99 dead, a major bill for a small community like that of San Marino in 1855 that counted only 6,000 subjects.

Today as yesterday on the Titano, small state set between the Romagne and Marche regions, in the geographical heart of central-northern Italy and with a population of over 33,000 Italian-speaking people living within its borders, there are emergency decrees aimed at containing a reactive and penetrating virus such as Covid-19. A disease yesterday as it was then, which has slowly crossed the complex and ancient structures of a micro-State of medieval origin that survived free and independent to many political seasons, serving only a short but suffered period of occupation from Cardinal Alberoni^[3].

A micro-State governed by a mix of rites and history, a diarchy^[4] with ancient institutions of participatory democracy^[5] that still today have brought the common law being the heart of the legal framework of the Republic^[6] , which refers, with her name, to the life and history of the founding saint, the Dalmatian stonemason Marino “libertas auctor”. A Republic that links its institutions in many ways to a confessional fact, as it was founded in that Christian sign^[7] , even though it is a secular or rather non-confessional State^[8], having a complex, particular^[9] secularity and with a growing rate of secularisation as witnessed by the marriages celebrated in 2019, of which only 23.1% celebrated with religious rite^[10]. On the other hand, it is precisely in the moral heritage of San Marino that lies the legacy of independence, distinctive of its precious freedom. Freedom and secularity expressed in the sentence with which Saint Marino began their independence: “relinquo vos liberos ab utroque homine” this is to say “I leave you free both from the Emperor and the Pope”, the two figures who at the time dominated the political scene. This freedom was always defended with greatest pride, even though without having a professional army, with the weapons of diplomacy; a freedom that has made it famous in history as a space of protection and refuge, as a place of neutrality and culture of peace. Suffice it to say that in 2007 the Republic of San Marino, when holding the Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, brought inter-religious dialogue and forms of contemplation of confessional differences in Europe as the guiding theme of that period of government, in order to promote intercultural dialogue, political and economic stability and peace among peoples, always and by all legal means.

2. The closure of religious buildings: Decree no. 52 of 20 March 2020 for the containment of Covid-19.

Article 6, paragraph I, of the Declaration of Citizens’ Rights and Fundamental Principles of the Order of San Marino, made operative by Law no. 59 of 8 July 1974, and subsequent amendment of 26 February 2002 no. 36, guarantees freedom of expression of thought, worship and conscience with a formula that prudently takes into account the temporary suspension for emergency reasons and in exceptional cases of civil and political liberties: “The law may limit the exercise of these rights only in exceptional cases for serious reasons of public order and public interest”^[11]. In issuing “emergency laws”, the San Marino legal system also relies on the conditions of necessity and urgency referred to in article 2, paragraph 2, letter b) of Constitutional Law no. 183 of 15 December 2005 and article 12 of Qualified Law no. 184 of 15 December 2005. This jumble of arrangements today is useful to manage the Covid-19 emergency which powerfully spreads over the Italian soil and immediately reached the Titan rock, causing several victims in relation to the resident population. The Government then issued an initial Decree Law no. 51 of March 14, 2020, Article 1, letter f) of which states: “All events organized, conferences, congresses, meetings, as well as events in public or private places, including those of a social, cultural, recreational, sports, religious and trade fair nature, even if held in closed spaces but open to the public, such as, for example, major events, cinemas, theatres, pubs, dance schools, games rooms, betting and bingo halls, discos and similar venues, shall be suspended. All activities are suspended in these places. The violation of the suspensions contained in this letter is punished with an administrative fine of € 2,000.00 (two thousand/00) and with the suspension of the operating licence for 30 (thirty) days”. The sanctioning corollary of the norm refers, given the tenor, essentially to commercial businesses but in the abstract, only for the pecuniary part obviusly, it would seem applicable also to ministers of worship who wish to continue to hold collective rites within demonstrations with religious content. In letter r) of the same article 1 of the Decree it is then noted that: “The opening of places of worship is conditioned on the adoption of organisational measures such as to avoid the gathering of people, taking into account the size and characteristics of the venues, and such as to ensure that visitors can respect the distance between them of at least one metre referred to in Annex 1, letter d) of the present decree – law. Civil and religious ceremonies, including funeral ceremonies, are suspended”. This first rule did not therefore decree the closure of places of worship which, observing the measures of social distancing, were still be frequented. This regime for worship intended buildings, due to the worsening of the overall health situation, lasted only six days until the issue of the new Decree Law no. 52 of March 20, 2020 which completely closes the places of worship at every attendance and use to the new art. 1 letter r) which reads as follows: “The places of worship are closed. Civil and religious ceremonies are suspended, including funeral ceremonies, except for the minimum burial service, according to the arrangements given for essential public services”, thus differentiating itself from the nearby Italian Republic, which has never declared in the six emergency decrees issued in just one month a total closure of places of worship^[12], also because of the difficulties that would be operatively encountered in managing the balance of constitutional values at stake and the nature of the article itself. 19 of the Italian Constitution which presents itself, by the consolidated case-law guidelines, as a perfect subjective fundamental right, not subject to conditions of reciprocity, and unavailable which expressly guarantees the exercise of worship in public^[13]. In the previous Emergency Decree of 14 March last, the Titan’s legislator includes an important arrangement that in art. 4 contemplates the possibility of requisitioning real estate by the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Coordination of Health Emergencies and that will see, if the situation worsens further, certainly involved the San Marino Diocese with a substantial real estate assets, in order to make agreements in this sense. Agreements, however, without prejudice to the third paragraph of article 4 in question: “without prejudice to the right to define with the private property concerned agreements aimed to obtain the immediate availability of the aforementioned facilities” and necessary, in the case in point, also for coordination with the arrangement from article 8 of the 1992 Framework Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of San Marino^[14]. Article the one relating to the requisitioning of the buildings, which was then entirely re-proposed by the Secretary of Internal Affairs in the formulation of Decree no. 52 of 20 March 2020.

With regard to the measures for the total closure of places of worship that have raised constitutional perplexities, which are, however, overcome at the root by the clear formulation of the articulate formulation on the subject contained in the Declaration of Citizens’ Rights and Fundamental Principles of the Order of San Marino, which allows this operation in the light of the framework of a very serious health emergency in progress, the Catholic Church has also intervened through a statement from Bishop H.E. Andrea Turazzi , leading the Diocese between two States^[15] – San Marino-Montefeltro – has shown full understanding of the extent of the facts taking place in an emergency with unforeseen and unpredictable contours and recognizing clearly the boundaries of governance of spiritual matter with respect to what is the responsibility of Government’s power, as per the Concordat approach^[16]: “Such a radical decision is arousing understandable reactions: the claim of free exercise of worship and the possibility of the ‘open church’ as a sign of hope (even if, in fact, one should not go to church because of the limitations of movement already established). Reactions worthy of respect. It is necessary, however, to reflect without emotional impulses and to recognize that the situation that the authorities are called to govern is of a complexity never seen before, of which we can only grasp some evidence. It is not for the Church, but for the State to legislate on public health”^[17]. So following this decision taken by the San Marino authorities, the Bishop Andrea Turazzi, in order to maintain a lively contact with the ecclesial community, has, in the phase that the country is going through, set up “alternative” garrisons, above all in order to allow the use of the Sunday precept and mass in general, through streaming masses also transmitted by the State TV; correlatively encouraging the social tool with a page dedicated to the emergency on the Diocese website, and the implementation of the Twitterpage of the diocesan Ordinary.

On 24 March 2020 the Bishop of San Marino, given the emergency situation also from logistic point of view, with the presence of a high number of faithful in danger of death and the expected peak of deaths in our hospitals, decided to issue Decree no. 40 on the subject of “Absolution to several penitents without prior individual confession” where it is provided that hospital chaplains in hospitals and nursing homes “may impart absolution to several penitents without prior individual confession when the patients admitted to them are in danger of death or are in wards where it is not possible to guarantee the secrecy of the confession and the appropriate health measures”^[18], expressly referring in the Preamble of the Decree itself to the Note of the Apostolic Penitentiary of 19 March 2020, the orientation of the presidency of the CEI as a service of the Diocese in Italy (given that part of the diocesan territory falls there) and canons 961 and 962 contained in Book IV, Title IV of the 1983 Code of Canon Law on the Sacrament of Penance, as well as nn. 31-35 of the Rite of Penance.

Other micro-States in Europe with legal systems of medieval derivation, the result of complex geo-political balances that have led to elaborate government structures in small territories, are now facing a health emergency of global importance that risks disrupting, much more than other federated States in supranational organizations, economic-political realities survived several times to changes in situations around them. Often small State realities completely surrounded at the level of political borders by one or two large states which, over the years, have played, depending on the historical passages, alternately the role of friend, protector or enemy of considerable proportions from which to beware, small states such as the Co-Principality of Andorra, the Principality of Monaco or the Principality of Liechtenstein, states which today, precisely because of their limited territorial scope and without potential shock absorbers due to their belonging to over-state containers such as the EU, are afraid to emerge from this terrible pandemic economically shattered and broken in their identity structure^[19].

Of course, even in the serious emergency situation, this is not the ultimate scenario for the Serenissima Republic of San Marino, which, although not belonging to the EU, is a member of many international organizations such as the UN, and specialized agencies such as the ILO, WHO, FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF^[20] and above all because of its relationship with Italy, with which it has always sought a privileged and fraternal relationship, in the respect of the independence of the ancient Republic and in the satisfaction of mutual interests, a collaboration that has been concretely realized also in this emergency with the stipulation of an additional agreement to the normal health agreements in force between the two countries, in order to manage together the international emergency caused by the fearsome Covid-19 virus^[21].

[1] On the morning of July 31, 1849 the torn, hungry and tired Garibaldini, pursued by four armies, decided to violate the border of the Republic of San Marino. After exchanging a few words with the Barnabite friar Ugo Bassi, the Hero of Two Worlds, who had arrived in the city, he immediately went to the Government Palace where he explained the painful situation his troops were in to Regent Belzoppi who replied: “Well come the refugee, this hospitable land welcomes you, O General. The rations are prepared for your soldiers, your wounded are received, and they are cured; you owe us the return, sparing this land feared evils and disasters. I then accept the mandate that you offer me, because to lend it to you is a humanitarian office that I am grateful to perform”. See L. SIMONCINI, Giuseppe Garibaldi e Ugo Bassi a San Marino: appunti storici, San Marino, 1949.

[2] See D. PEZZI, San Marino. La sofferenza di un Paese impreparato, in www.libertas.sm, 15.12.2019, 1.

[3] In San Marino every 5 February, the celebrations for Sant’Agata, national holiday dedicated to the Patron saint of the Republic, are held. It celebrates the anniversary of the end of the Alberonian occupation, which occurred on February 5, 1740. In the Serenissima Republic is a very important anniversary, of those that are celebrated, with the active participation of the Captains Regent who wear collars for the occasion. For further information see M. E. BARTOLI, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni e San Marino, Faenza, 1960.

[4] At the top of the State there is the Institute of the Most Excellent Regency made up of two Captains Regent appointed by the Great and General Council (unicameral Parliament) who act for a period of six months and collectively as Heads of State. See comment F. MORGANTI, L’Istituto della Reggenza nell’Ordinamento giuridico Sanmarinese, in AA.VV., Identità Sanmarinese: Riflessioni sulla libertà e la democrazia fra politica, storia e cultura, San Marino, 2017, 151.

[5] Reference is made here to the so-called “Istanza d’Arengo”, a typical legal institution in the long history of San Marino, which has come down to us in its modern version, becoming a sort of right of petition with which the people on the occasion of the election of the Captains Regent can bring petitions to the attention of the governing bodies of the Republic. See R. REGOLI – G. BIANCHI di CASTELBIANCO, Il sistema politico istituzionale e i rapporti Stato-Chiesa nella Repubblica di San Marino, in Quaderni di Scienze Politiche – Unicatt, n. 14/2018, 11-12.

[6] An important source of San Marino law is still today the common law, formed by Roman law, canon law, Germanic law and statutory law which includes the instrument of custom. See L. LONFERNINI, Elements of San Marino Civil Law. The sources of civil law. The rights of the person. Legal acts and facts, Trad. En., San Marino, 2002, 527 which also notes that: “Canon law after Roman law is the one that most contributed to the formation of common law”.

[7] As noted by L. LONFERNINI, Diritto costituzionale sammarinese, San Marino, 2006, 18.

[8] In this sense G. FELICI, Profili di diritto costituzionale sanmarinese, San Marino, 1999, 113.

[9] For an in-depth analysis on this point see V. PARLATO, Alcune considerazioni sulla laicità della Repubblica di San Marino, last visit: 23.03.2020, 1-12.

[10] The social fabric of the Republic has changed rapidly, and at this stage the political affirmation of the political party Democrazia Cristiana no longer reflects in some social dynamics the San Marino of the past, which was once described precisely on the theme of marriage only thirty years ago in this term: “Despite the introduction of civil marriage with the law n. 37 of 1953, Catholic marriage has always been, and still is, the marriage of San Marino people, that is, the marriage chosen by almost all the people” see S. DI GRAZIA, I rapporti tra matrimonio religioso e matrimonio civile nel diritto Sanmarinese, in Quaderni di diritto e politica ecclesiastica, 1988, 97. On the secularization of marriage in the Republic of San Marino see L. IANNACCONE, Il matrimonio religioso nella Repubblica di San Marino, in A. DE OTO – L. IANNACCONE (ed.), Il fattore religioso nella Repubblica di San Marino, Il Cerchio, 2013, 57 ff.

[11] On the socio-normative scope of the Declaration of Citizens’ Rights and Fundamental Principles of the San Marino Order and subsequent amendments see R. REGOLI – G. BIANCHI di CASTELBIANCO, Il sistema politico istituzionale e i rapporti Stato-Chiesa nella Repubblica di San Marino, in Quaderni di Scienze Politiche – Unicatt, n. 14/2018, 10-13.

[12] In this sense also the specifications of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, which came as a result of questions formulated by the CEI on the exercise of worship in the country.

[13] On the balance of articles 19 and 32 of the Italian Constitution and the solutions adopted to guarantee a limited exercise of worship in the “Belpaese” see F. BALSAMO, The loyal collaboration between State and religions at the testing bench of the Covid-19 pandemic. A perspective from Italy, 1-8.

[14] Article 8 of the Framework Agreement of 2 April 1992 between the Holy See and the Republic of San Marino reads: “1. The ownership, acquisition, possession, administration, administration and alienation of temporal goods by ecclesiastical bodies, as well as the succession to such goods in favour of the same bodies, are regulated by ordinary laws of general application. 2. In the event of the vacancy of an ecclesiastical benefit, the legal representation of it shall be established on the basis of the provisions of canon law. 3. The establishment or acceptance of pious foundations, pious legacies, as well as, even for those already existing, the administration of goods and the satisfaction of the relative burdens, are the exclusive competence of the ecclesiastical authority”. For the complete text see here.

[15] For more information on the nature, history and structure from the point of view of canon law of the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro see P. STEFANÌ, Note di diritto canonico sulla Diocesi di San Marino – Montefeltro, in A. DE OTO – L. IANNACCONE (ed.), Il fattore religioso nella Repubblica di San Marino, Il Cerchio, Rimini, 2013, 43 ff.

[16] The Framework Agreement of 2 April 1992 between the Holy See and the Republic of San Marino in its Proemio highlights precisely “the mutual respect for independence and sovereignty which each has in its own order”, see Acta Apostolicae Sedis , 85 (1993), 324-334.

[17] Statements taken from the SIR Information Agency: Coronavirus Covid-19: places of worship closed in San Marino, http://www.agensir.it, 21 March 2020 , 1.

[18] See Decree of the Bishop of San Marino- Montefeltro n. 40/2020 Assolutions to several penitents without prior individual confession (see attachment).

[19] On the identity factor in the small States, reference should be made to the reflections already made in A. DE OTO, Piccoli Stati e fattore religioso, in A. DE OTO – L. IANNACCONE (ed.), Il fattore religioso nella Repubblica di San Marino, Il Cerchio, Rimini, 2013, 125.

[20] See R. REGOLI – G. BIANCHI di CASTELBIANCO, Il sistema politico istituzionale e i rapporti Stato-Chiesa nella Repubblica di San Marino, in Quaderni di Scienze Politiche – Unicatt, n. 14/2018, 23.

[21] See Coronavirus: San Marino-Italy, signed Memorandum of Understanding on mutual cooperation, 26 March 2020.

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by Luigi Mariano Guzzo^*

lmguzzo@unicz.it

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We’re not going back to normal said Gideon Lichfield, the editor in chief of MIT Technology Review. And it’s likely that, once Sars-Cov-2 pandemic is overcome, an update of the Law and Religion studies will be a new issue to think about as well. Nowadays, in fact, it’s easy to see how the traditionally used categories are no longer adequate to understand the reality. We are witnessing a crisis of the “vertical” configuration (or “vertex-shaped”) of religions’ public law, built on a pact-related model[1]. On the other hand, the thought of a horizontal setting for the Law and Religion studies is becoming stronger and stronger: a new dimension, that “encloses diverse possible expressions of the human spirituality, the ones related to choices of faith and the ethical ones, also reaching the ones originated from different kind of values, such as peace, justice, brotherhood, solidarity, environmental protection”[2].

If we focus, as Schmit somehow does, on the regulatory and political systems’ vertex, on the relation between decision and regulation, we miss all the rest, and “rest” means the social reality. If we focus, as Schmit does in some ways, just on the regulatory and political systems’ vertex, on the relation between decision and regulation, we risk losing all the rest, and “rest” means the social reality. If we look just at the appearance, we shut our eyes on the substance. And the law abdicates to be a useful resolution tool for social conflicts, as it is for practical problems.

Sars-Cov-2 is actually showing it ruthlessly: the mere analysis of the legal provisions is not so useful to stop the infection, and therefore to save the humankind, without an appropriate consideration of their application[3]. The jurist, in front of “stream of regulatory sources”[4] appears confused. And he seems having the only path that leads to the shelter of the traditional paradigms of our juridical system to follow The scheme is from time to time equal to itself: the regulation urgently decreed is examined and interpreted on the basis of the reference constitution, trying to highlight any possible aporia. Then everything is explained through the state of necessity, including the moment of suspension of the constitutional freedoms. So far the problem seems solved. No matter if everything around us is changing fast. We keep on adapting our life to the rules, but Sars-Cov-2 forces us to adapt the rules to our life instead. In fact, the call by the Government to our responsibilities has becomes more and more persistent.

Here starts, first of all, the need of a “horizontal” reflection on the Law studies about the religious and ethical choices; the values behind these personal choices cause, in each person, “responsible” behaviour, that is those ones aimed at saving the communities and the humankind itself[5]. Human race is being saved, not by the political decisions (much less those ones with one man at the wheel), but the behaviour of the people who are building wide and innovative solidarity networks, locally, digitally and globally. The virus overthrows sovereignisms and the last nationalistic privilege, legacy of an old legal system, that is the citizenship as well. And the issue of a Earth constitution is becoming urgent, as La Valle[6] and Ferrajoli[7] remind us, because of the total interdependence of the inhabitants of the planet[8]. How is it possible that all this remains uninvolved in the juridical reflection? Everyone can see the reality: the mercantile vision of the globalized law doesn’t work; the subjective law is not typically “individual”, because it originates in a regulatory relations system that causes the social rights[9].

Our religious and ethical choices have a main role, in our conscience, in these processes; but we have to ask ourselves about the religions, as collective subjects. What about them and what are they going to be? The Sars-Cov-2 not only has overthrown the governments’ and citizenship’s barriers, but also those of religious affiliation.

The impact of Coronavirus on religions is so strong that even Wikipedia has made a page about it, constantly updated, in English. This confirms the “global” reply by the religious organizations. All the regulatory scheme, except for some ritual and confessional characteristics, are very similar, as well in their actualization: similar are, in fact, the sanitary and safety measures during the celebrations, and the number of people during them, the suspension of the collective meetings, the cancellation of big events, and, in most cases, the closure of the places of worship or the denial of access for the worshippers. There are few groups who challenge the laws of nature, not worrying about the infection and perhaps enhancing new outbreaks (such as South Korea and Campania-Italy); they are minority groups, or, sometimes, “extremist” fringes. This is illustrating an acquired fact in the religious studies: through the single religious experiences is generally possible to trace a concept of religion, according with a phenomenological approach (such as the one of Rudolf Otto).

Of course, we have to deal with this kind of perspective taking into consideration that the self-executing “degree” of the religious rules can be different in each context. The Catholic religious authorities suspend the Sunday Mass, just like the Islamic ones suspend the Friday prayers, and so the Protestant with their cult. And Jews synagogues close. Priests and bishops get the infection and, without their knowledge, infect. The virus crosses the Vatican City borders as well. Lourdes baths close and so the Buddhist places of worship and the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. The spread of the measures is similar: via websites or official pages on Facebook or Twitter. And this occurs all around the world, no matter what the religion is.

In these situations, the ones who study Law or Religion feel disoriented. Even the already tested relation system between public powers and religion can’t help to understand what’s happening in this phase: the laical France, with its notorious separatist model, has started a debate with religions’ delegates; Italy seems, during this emergency, to have set aside its traditional bilateral concordat with (except for a small dialogue, that causes doubts more than certainty[10], with the Catholic Church, about the Holy Week rituals). It’s also necessary think about the Roman Catholic Church model, as we know it, with its hierarchical and universal structure, with the Pope at the top. But the Pope doesn’t choose for the whole Church. Francesco acts in his typical way, as the Rome bishop, leaving the responsibility to the other bishops[11]. This can seem a paradox for the Canon Law scholars, but he’s more “primus inter pares” than Patriarch Bartholomew, who, quite the opposite, decides to suspend the celebrations in all the Greek Orthodox Churches. And so The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does: a measure suspends all the celebrations worldwide. Aren’t these elements to bear in mind in our analysis from now on?

There is a national law (and supranational) and a religion law of the emergency (www.diresom.net, here a wide collection of measures, regulations and provisions). In the religious rights it’s generally possible to find several previsions of exceptions to the rule. But these exceptions themselves are not enough compared to the sanitary emergency. As the liberal constitutions, even the confessional organizations aren’t prepared to cope with Sars-Cov-2, that means to adapt it to their regulatory categories. The only exception is made by the Islamic tradition, that has a specific hadit, that refers precisely to epidemics: “If an epidemic may appear in a land, don’t go there; and if you are in that land, don’t escape from it”[12].

All these new emergency rights have a further characteristic in common: all the provisions are made, more or less formally, on the basis of the political measures. That means that the religions’ independence and autonomy from the political communities, and on this detachment are based all the conceptualization of the secularity, are actually limited. There are issues, such as the human safety on Earth, on which the religions don’t have authority, because they aren’t able to solve the mean issues the people have to deal with[13]. So far, nothing new: the modernity probably starts from here. What’s new is that this time religions have clearly admitted this principle. The religions at last are willing to render unto God what’s God’s and to leave to Caesar what’s Caesar’s. When the Pointer Institute declares that faith cannot save the humankind, everything is perfectly normal; but, when the religions themselves, declare it explicitly, we are witnessing a deep change, that cannot be simply explained with the matter of secularism. Therefore, seemingly there is no difference between the Imam, who asks to the Muslims to follow the Saudi Arabia civil law, and the Episcopal Conference’s news agency, that publishes an article in which we can read: “the power of faith and of clergy is in addition and can’t substitute the civil power”. Pope Francesco himself, who declared he prayed God to stop the epidemic by “His hand”, on the 22^th March angelus talked about the need of doing “what the Government asks us to do for everyone’s sake”. Even Dalai Lama writes that it is necessary to employ “science and human ingenuity with determination asnd courage to overcome the problems that confront us”. The separation between religion and science has therefore been made. After all, the Dominican Tommaso Campanella as well, in his “Defense of Galileo”, wrote (1616): “Each cult or human institution that forbids the investigation of natural things must be considered suspect of counterfeiting”[14].

So Coronavirus reconciles everything, even the religions, that in these days provide their services online, via streaming. It seems that no religion is capable to give a specific, personal answer, adequate for contrasting and limiting the infection. A part from the answer of the prayer, a sensible answer. And this is not small thing. But some religions – especially the Abrahamic ones –, starting from this crisis, might get the chance to activate, within themselves, reform processes, that deal with the relations between top and basis, authority and popular participation. In addition, we have to ask ourselves, within the relation between religion and innovation, how much all this affects the symbols and the liturgy: vinyl and nitrile gloves for Catholic priests, the individually packed particle for the Anglicans, the single-use mat for the Muslims.

It has to be clear that this is the only way religions could be act in, that is with responsible actions, that put everybody’s life at the centre. But we can’t avoid the question: what will be the impact of Sars-Cov-2 on religions in the long-term (as Gary Bouma already wondered)?

Religions have always offered safety. And today religions entrust this safety to science; the science that has even aimed to take over God. Buddhists, Waldensians, Catholics, Muslims allocate funds to the research, acting not differently from several NGOs: over the centuries public powers have found many ways to finance religions, now religions finance the public health. Everybody thinks that these are common sense choices. Most likely all this will not lead to the eclipse of religions from the public space (especially if the public space expands to digital …). There is a lot at stake: maybe were we already in front of the first signs of a super-religion, that “ensures the Heaven to the enhanced man, on Earth as in Heaven”[15]? And could be this super-religion the achievement of Gioacchino da Fiore’s previsions, whose theology of history considers the third age the one of the Spirit, with an Ecumenical, free and tolerant church (and religion)? Does it not go in this direction, the idea of ​​universal human brotherhood, for world peace and common coexistence, of which above all the Catholic Church and Islam have promoted, with the Abu Dhabi document (2019), now referred to as “global fraternity” in a document of the Pontifical Academy of Life?

Perhaps we are going a bit further. But these are challenges the juridical studies about religion have to cope with. Because we’re not going back to normal, after Sars-Cov-2. Included our Law and Religion studies.

* Research Fellow in Law and Religion at the “Magna Graecia” University of Catanzaro (Italy).

[1] Pacillo, for instance, highlighted the Italian context, where the suspension of the costitutionally-guardanteed fundamental freedoms has “overwhelmed” the concordat system. V. Pacillo, La sospensione del diritto di libertà religiosa nel tempo della pandemia, in Olir, 16 marzo 2020.

[2] P. Consorti, Diritto e religione. Basi e prospettive, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2020, p. 17.

[3] M.Barberis, who teaches Philosophy of Law in Trieste, has well summarized this issue with a post on Facebook: “Even the juridical realism, the real one (mine), helps in some ways. Everyone hurries to give an interpretation of the decrees in order to understand what can and cannot be done. The juridical realist, instead, go out in the morning, under a fine drizzle, and see how the decree are put into practice” (12^th March 2020).

[4] “profluvio di fonti normative”, I. Massa Pinto, La tremendissima lezione del Covid-19 (anche) ai giuristi, in Questione giustizia, 18 marzo 2020.

[5] In fact, even a “horizontality of dulie” is being discussed. T. Greco, Il ritorno dei doveri, in Cultura e diritti. Per una formazione giuridica, n. 1/2012, pp. 91 ss.

[6] R. La Valle, Imparare da ciò che siamo, 14 marzo 2020, in http://ranierolavalle.blogspot.com/2020/03/imparare-da-cio-che-patiamo.html.

[7] [7] L. Ferrajoli, Il virus mette la globalizzazione con i piedi per terra, in Il manifesto.it, 17 marzo 2020.

[8] Cfr. A. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Covid, la malattia etica, in Calumet, 16 marzo 2020.     

[9] I wonder if, once the pandemic is passed, in the Law studies departments, having the Trade Law as a fundamental and the Third Sector Law as an optional, will still make sense. Or maybe the jurist’s education priority have to be revised?

[10] See the two comments on my blog (www.luigimarianoguzzo.com): Coronavirus, la Conferenza Episcopale Italiana pubblica gli Orientamenti per la Settimana Santa: i provvedimenti governativi sulla libertà di culto possono essere derogati per “sentito dire”?, 24^th March 2020; Coronavirus, il Ministero dell’Interno chiarisce: alle messe può partecipare una rappresentanza di fedeli, 28^th March 2020.

[11] This is an example of the synodal attitude that belongs to the ecclesiastical update process conducted by Francesco. Cfr, for everyone, A. Mantineo, Il ritorno al Concilio Vaticano II e l’aggiornamento del diritto ecclesiale nel tempo di Papa Francesco, in Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, n. 27/2017.

[12] The UCOII mentioned it recently. See also M. Abu Salem, L’Islam italiano e le regole religiose di fronte all’emergenza del COVID-19: “L’avversità si accompagna alla buona sorte” (Cor 94, 5-6), in Olir, 13^th March 2020.

[13] Cfr. Y. N. Harari, 21 lezioni per il XXI secolo, Bompiani, Milano, 2019, p. 177.

[14] See T. Campanella, Apologia per Galileo, Bompiani, Milano, 2001.

[15] M. Ventura, Dio non basta, è ora di super religione, in Corriere della Sera – La Lettura, 17^th January 2016, p. 7.

by Daniela Tarantino

daniela.tarantino@unige.it

«Non in pane solo vivet homo, sed in omni verbo quod procedit de ore Dei»^[1]. So Jesus answered to the devil’s invitation to turn desert stones into bread, in order to satisfy the hunger that had come after 40 nights and 40 days of fasting; he meant that man lives not only on material nourishment, but above all on spiritual nourishment, especially when facing the desertification of existence and its precariousness. Never as in this time – which seems to flow more slowly in the deafening silence of deserted streets and empty churches, where the sound of sirens takes your breath away while your heart skips a beat – do the faithful deeply miss the proclamation of the “Word that saves” and the act of approaching the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of Eucharist. Never as in this situation is the need for the “Word of God” regarded by Catholics and by the Church as an anchor to cling to in order not to be completely overwhelmed by the tumultuous sea of ​​uncertainty, restlessness, anguish, fear, despair and in order to have still hope of “rebirth”. Never as in these convulsive and ruthless days, in which science is divinized in the face of the Coronavirus emergency, do the faithful feel hunger, a longing not merely for food, but for peace to be found in the power of prayer, which is the way to “resist” the pandemic and to live the encounter with the transcendent dimension.

Epidemics have been a constant presence in the history of humanity, with a characteristic cyclical trend, to the point of influencing its growth and development^[2]. The prayer, the recitation of the Holy Rosary, the act of turning to the patron saints of the great epidemics have helped the faithful feel less lonely and make them perceive the constant presence of Christ in every moment of history^[3]. Popular faith has always turned to special protectors – from Saint Rita to Saint Roque, from Saint Michael the Archangel to Saint Antony abbot, from Saint Cristopher to Saint Sebastian – in order to prevent and fight diseases, by organizing prayers in public form, large processions, long pilgrimages^[4]. In 1576, when the plague broke out in Milan, Saint Charles Borromeo opposed the magistrates of the city who wanted to forbid the processions and collective prayers of the faithful. In those dramatic moments, three large processions took place in the city center over three different days, led by the barefoot cardinal and archbishop of the city of Milan, whom the canonization decree defined as «un uomo che, mentre il mondo gli sorride con le maggiori blandizie, vive crocifisso al mondo, vive dello spirito, calpestando le cose terrene, cercando continuamente le celesti, emulo in terra, nei pensieri e nelle opere, della vita degli Angeli»^[5]. A few years later, in 1630, the magistrates of Milan asked Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Charles’ cousin, to carry the body of Charles Borromeo in a solemn procession through the streets of the city, in order to ward off the threat of the plague. The cardinal accepted the request, although he did not conceal his doubts about the usefulness of such a religious operation, both for reasons of security, related to the risk of increasing the infection, and for reasons of faith, related to the fear that the community might lose its faith in the saint in case of failure^[6].

Whereas Saint Charles Borromeo was convinced that everything was dependent on the great mercy of God, regarded as the beginning and the end of the plague^[7], today those – who say that the coronavirus could be a warning from God and compare it to the plague faced in the VXI century or to the Spanish flu of the last century^[8] – are faced with the position of Cardinal Angelo Scola, according to whom God, while knowing and predicting events, does not determine them. In an interview by Paolo Rodari published in the newspaper “La Repubblica”, the emeritus archbishop of Milan rejected the idea that there could be divine punishment behind the coronavirus, stating that «Dio vuole il nostro bene, ci ama e ci è vicino. Il rapporto con lui è da persona a persona, è un rapporto di libertà (…) Per i cristiani Dio comunica attraverso le circostanze e i rapporti. Anche da questa circostanza potrà emergere un bene per noi. Fra i tanti insegnamenti la necessità di imparare a stare nella paura portandola a un livello razionale»^[9]. Cardinal Scola praises the initiatives taken to prevent the infection, although there has not been an unanimous consensus on the preventive suspension of civil and religious ceremonies, including funeral ceremonies, throughout the national territory, enacted by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (IBC) in the context of a relationship of collaboration and alignment to the measures of prevention, containment and contrast adopted by the State lawmaker^[10].

This suspension – along with the decision to remove blessed water from the stoups, to advise against the gatherings of the faithful, to remove the liturgical leaflets and the hymns, to receive Holy Communion only in the hand^[11], to recite the Angelus in streaming –has appeared to some not only as an unjustified restriction, but also the expression of a sort of “spiritual impermeability” of the Italian ecclesiastical authorities, who would allegedly renounce their mission^[12], without even attempting to try different solutions^[13].

After the declaration of IBC’s National Office for Social Communications of 9 March, which referred to an “authentic interpretation” of the government provisions as including not only extraordinary ceremonies, but also Sunday Masses, one may wonder whether the ease, with which the Italian Church has seemed to align itself with governmental provisions, may in some way set a dangerous precedent for the libertas Ecclesiae^[14]. Immediately after the decisions taken by the Italian Church, Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio – in a comment published in the newspaper “La Stampa” – said he was embittered by a choice grounded on fear and on the Church’s flattening on the secular institutions^[15]. This position is shared by the historian Alberto Melloni: in the newspaper “La Repubblica”, he has blamed the bishops for a “too much bureaucratic laziness”, stressing the need for a truly virtuous and credible clergy ^[16]. Likewise, Enzo Bianchi, the prior of the monastic community of Bose, has wondered on Twitter whether such drastic measures against the possibility to spread the contagion are truly supportive of those who suffer, who are afraid and who seek consolation^[17]. On the same wave, in the newspaper “La Stampa” the historian Franco Cardini has remarked that, in the past, novenas and processions were organized during epidemics in order to invoke divine protection, while today churches are closed. According to him «Aver reciso il cordone con il sacro ha portato ad assolutizzare l’individuo e ciò spiega perché ci comportiamo da bambini sciocchi davanti al coronavirus»^[18]. In the same way, with regard to the closure of the pools of Lourdes in order to protect the safety and health of pilgrims and of the working community of the sanctuary, the historian Roberto de Mattei has stated that «Chi nega il carattere miracoloso dell’acqua di Lourdes, chi teme che le piscine di Lourdes possano produrre contagio, nega il potere di Dio, nega le promesse della Madonna, nega il significato di Lourdes»^[19].

 Although the complexity of the circumstances can make the Church run the risk of confusing the faithful^[20], one can try to be a “pilgrim” even without going to a sanctuary; one can be part of a community even from a distance; one can pray even without going to the Church. There are many passages in the Gospel which show how this way to relate to God is envisaged by Christ himself: “Perché dove sono due o tre riuniti nel mio nome, io sono in mezzo a loro” (MT 18, 20); and again “Tu invece, quando preghi, entra nella tua camera e, chiusa la porta, prega il Padre tuo nel segreto; e il Padre tuo, che vede nel segreto, ti ricompenserà” (MT 6, 6). Although the forced limitation of diocesan events due to the health emergency does not allow to live the «dimensione pubblica della fede», the mystical prayer carried out in silence and in solitude continues to give comfort and is enriched, in the digital age, by a new form: this is the prayer made in “community”, where one is related to the other one even if at a distance and the link with the sacred is intensified; it is the prayer made “in connection”, “on the net”, where online groups that recall the importance of faith are organized. The IBC itself has launched a new digital platform containing news and reflections that help to live this difficult moment, giving the possibility to download texts – updated and enriched weekly – to “celebrate and pray in times of epidemic”. It is emphasized that the impossibility to carry out celebrations in the assembly context does not mean the impossibility to enter into communion with God^[21]. The Holy Masses, in fact, continue to be celebrated regularly without the convocation and participation of the assembly, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice continues «ad essere offerto per tutta la Chiesa, con la possibilità dei fedeli di unirsi spiritualmente nell’orazione e di sostare in adorazione dinnanzi al tabernacolo nelle chiese, che continueranno a rimanere aperte»^[22]. 

The bishop of Lecce, monsignor Michele Seccia, has decided to compose and send a prayer to all the priests on the difficult moment we are going through. The prayer has been sent in paper and via the web to all the priests, who in turn are to spread it amongst the faithful of their own communities, along with the invitation to recite family prayers every day, in order to obtain the liberation from the virus through the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the patron saint Oronzo who, in the past, had already saved the city of Lecce from the plague^[23]. Due to the emergency that the country is experiencing, the “Rinnovamento nello Spirito” has also launched a national campaign to pray the Holy Spirit, inviting everyone to pray the rosary in their own homes every Thursday, starting from 27 February, in the time slot that goes from 19 to 23, by placing a light next to the window, or on the balcony, or yet outside the door, so that the prayer «guarisca coloro che sono nella sofferenza, ispiri la scienza ai medici e la sapienza ai governanti, infonda coraggio a tutti coloro che sono nello sconforto e nella paura»^[24].

On 11 March Angelo De Donatis, the cardinal vicar for the diocese of Rome, established a day of prayer, fasting and solidarity with the sick and with those working for them in Italy and in the world. Through the listening to the word of God and the rediscovery of what is essential in these days of desperate and anguishing silence, one is invited «a vivere con la forza della fede, la certezza della speranza, la gioia della carità, il gusto della preghiera»^[25]. In fact, as the cardinal has said, «Si sperimenta la forza della preghiera quando siamo consapevoli delle nostre debolezze, delle nostre fragilità, del senso di smarrimento che avvertiamo davanti all’imprevisto e all’ignoto»^[26]. This is the same reflection that can be found in the words of Julián Carrón, president of “Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione”; in a letter sent to Luciano Fontana, the director of the newspaper “Corriere della Sera”, he has  stressed that «il nemico con cui ci troviamo a combattere non è appena il coronavirus, ma la paura»^[27]: this is a fear which we are not always able to deal with rationally and against which it is not easy to develop antibodies^[28].

In these weeks, the planetary interconnection makes us experience a paradoxical condition: the more connected we are, the more the contact becomes “contagion” and communication turns into “contamination”^[29]. We find ourselves fragile, vulnerable, insecure, precarious, “human”; the boundaries that previously stretched beyond the horizon now shrink inexorably to the point of closing us within the domestic walls^[30]. The “virus fear” accompanies a daily life where we struggle to glimpse a foreshortening of the future and are crushed by the weight of impotence. At this juncture, in which unprecedented scenarios are the background of our days, it is necessary, albeit not simple, to feel this experience not as a privation, but as an opportunity to discover new ways to relate to each other and between us and God^[31]. Therefore the Church reiterates the following message to its people: the absence of celebrations and liturgies can be a sign of pastoral responsibility and discernment, and not of giving up faith; all must comply with the envisaged rules of conduct to avoid the spread of the infection; the care for souls is the mission of priests, who must continue to accompany, support, assist and comfort the exhausted people of the faithful^[32]; the word of God may also be listened to through a proclamation having a digital dimension; hope can have the voice of prayer, even of that made in solitude, although this is not a substitute for the sacrament of Holy Eucharist^[33]. We remain in wait of an appropriate reflection and solution provided soon by the pontifical magisterium to the problem of the Eucharistic fast that we are experiencing.

^[1] Mt. 4, 4 e Lc 4, 4

^[2] For further information on the topic see I. Meloncelli – F. Motta – S. Pirotta – G. Trezzi, Quando le epidemie mietevano a piene mani: lazzaretti, croci devozionali e fopponi disseminati sul nostro territorio, in Storia in Martesana, 11/2018.

^[3] See A. Staglianò, La forza delle nostre preghiere per «contrastare» l’epidemia, in http://www.avvenire.it.

^[4] See R. Maccioni, I santi da invocare contro l’epidemia, in http://www.avvenire.it.

^[5] See the the canonization bull Unigenitus (1 November 1610) issued by PAUL V, published in R. de Mattei, Come san Carlo Borromeo affrontò l’epidemia del suo tempo, in https://www.corrispondenzaromana.it.

^[6] A. Staglianò, La forza delle nostre preghiere…, cit.

^[7] As he stated: «Città di Milano, la tua grandezza si alzava fino ai cieli, le tue ricchezze si estendevano fino ai confini dell’universo mondo (…) Ecco in un tratto dal Cielo che viene la pestilenza che è la mano di Dio, e in un tratto fu abbassata la tua superbia (…) Egli ha ferito e ha sanato; Egli ha flagellato e ha curato; Egli ha posto mano alla verga del castigo e ha offerto il bastone del sostegno» (Carlo Borromeo, Memoriale al suo diletto popolo della città e diocesi di Milano, Michele Tini, Roma 1579, pp. 28-29 e p. 81).

^[8] The Spanish flu in 1918 disrupted traditional religious rites, such as funeral and burial rites («per evitare assembramenti è proibito seguire i carri funebri col prete a bordo o far sostare i feretri in chiesa, laddove l’ufficio avviene senza il corpo del defunto … non più croci, non più preti, non più campane, dritti al cimitero senza passare dalla chiesa. Nell’ottobre del 1918 a Milano trasporti notturni di salme accatastate senza bara», as we can read in A. Guasco, Vivere ai tempi della spagnola, in www.associazionepopolari.it). At that time, many believed that the contagion was a sort of new plague of Egypt or an apocalyptic punishment – in any case a divine punishment for the sins of the world. The same thing happens today as regards the coronavirus. Suffice it to mention Father Livio Fanzaga, director of Radio Maria, who claims that Covid-19 is a divine punishment, triggering the harsh reaction of Father Antonio Spadaro, director of La Civiltà Cattolica, who has tweeted as follows «Nel frattempo c’è povera gente alla quale lupi travestiti da pastori fa credere che la Madonna ha inviato il coronavirus per punire l’umanità. Mentre politici irresponsabili usano la paura del contagio per diffondere il consenso» (in F. Gnagni, La Chiesa alla prova del coronavirus (che sbarca in Vaticano), in www.formiche.net). 

^[9] M. Bazzi, Dietro il coronavirus non ci sono castighi divini, in www.ansa.it. The archbishop, aware of the possible spread of the contagion, has forbidden the gathering of people inside closed spaces, while organizing “continuous prayers”: «Sette volte durante il giorno e sette durante la notte, le campane invitavano il popolo alla preghiera e tutti, ovunque si trovassero, dovevano recitare litanie, salmi e invocare la misericordia divina. Carlo Borromeo era mosso anche da ragioni igieniche. Vietando era necessario organizzare messe in autentiche “chiese da campo”» (D. Crippa, Quando la peste infuriava sulla Brianza, in http://www.ilgiorno.it).

^[10] Decreto “coronavirus”: la posizione della CEI, in http://www.chiesacattolica.it.

^[11] As Father Mauro Leonardi said: «dei cristiani che sentono l’anelito al martirio volendo la Comunione in bocca se il vescovo dice di prenderla in mano, che vogliono abbracciarsi in una messa gremita di gente per scambiarsi il segno della pace, ricordino che martire è colui che offre la propria vita, non quella degli altri: quest’ultimo si chiama kamikaze che vuole uccidere stando in mezzo alla folla» (Andare a messa durante un’epidemia, in http://www.agi.it). 

^[12] It is Riccardo Cascioli, director of La Nuova Bussola daily, who has accused the bishops to behave, in this circumstance, as “health ministers”, providing health advice rather than “care” for souls (cfr. P. Floder Reitter, Ora i vescovi si comportano come i ministri della Salute, in La Verità, 9 marzo 2020, p. 13).

^[13] Unlike IBC, the Catholic Church in Poland has decided to increase the number of masses so as to have fewer faithful in each celebration, while imposing the respect of a safety distance (see https://episkopat.pl/president- of-the-polish-episcopate-the-church-follows-the-recommendations-of-the-health-inspection-service-on-coronavirus). In Africa, religious and socio-cultural events have been canceled or postponed (see Coronavirus: des événements religieux également annulées en Afrique, at http://www.cath.ch). As happened in 2014 during the Ebola epidemic, religious ceremonies take place having regard to some specific precautions: buckets of water and bleach are placed at the entrance of the places of worship in order to guarantee minimum levels of hygiene; gatherings, pilgrimages and processions are prohibited, and so are the use of blessed water and the sign of peace during Mass; the Eucharist is received exclusively in the hand (see Coronavirus in Africa: the churches help do not close, in http://www.radiomaria.it and Guinea Bissau, the Church in the field against Ebola, in http://www.lastampa.it). Likewise, the Russian Church – which invites to moderation, intensifies hygiene levels and disinfection practices and relies on common sense – allows full participation in the sacraments (see V. ROZANSKIJ, Russian Orthodox Church: alert on coronavirus, communion, kiss of the icon, in http://www.asianews.it).

^[14] It has been maintained that the mission of the Church is independent of “the historical contingencies in which it lives: it, the Mystical Body of Christ, has been able in every age to conserve and dispense the means necessary for the salvation of the soul, not fearing those who can kill the body (cf. Mt 10:28), but always and only loving the Just Crucified. Abdicating this mission means giving up its primary duty, the comfort and salvation of souls, in the name of an ambiguous and horizontal pseudo-pastoral option, which instead of alleviating the sufferings of the present hour aggravates them with an immanent, reckless, maddening emptiness much more serious and longer harmful to the soul and body”(F. ADERNÒ, La Messa è finita. La scandalosa rinuncia dei vescovi, in http://www.marcotosatti.com).

^[15] See F. Gnagni, La Chiesa alla prova del coronavirus…, cit.

^[16] See ibidem.

^[17] See ibidem.

^[18] “Un tempo contro le epidemie si pregava, oggi si chiudono le chiese”, in http://www.lastampa.it.

^[19] F. Boezi, Ecco perché le chiese non devono chiudere, in http://www.ilgiornale.it.

^[20] Suffice it to mention the Decree issued on 12 March by Cardinal De Donatis concerning the closure of all churches in Rome. The day after it was modified by the same cardinal, upon an intervention of the Pope, and the opening of the parish churches was authorized, on the grounds that «every ecclesial precautionary measure must take into account not only the common good of the civil society, but also that unique and precious good that is faith» (Decree of Cardinal Angelo De Donatis for the diocese of Rome, in http://www.diresom.net).

^[21] It is advised to use these texts along with with the Liturgy of the Hours, which may be downloaded for free from the ad hoc app containing both the texts and the audio files (see CEI, Sussidio per celebrare e pregare in tempo di epidemia, in https://chiciseparera.chiesacattolica.it)

^[22] «Vuolsi pregare ma non tentare Iddio»: la fede ai tempi del colera, in www.breviuarum.eu. The Italian Government and the Ministry of Health have confirmed the possibility for the faithful to attend a place of worship for individual prayer, regardless of the suspension of religious ceremonies (in http://www.diresom.net).

^[23] See Coronavirus Covid-19: Lecce, mons. Seccia invia alle famiglie della diocesi una preghiera per la protezione dalle malattie, in http://www.agensir.it).

^[24] A. De Donatis, Coronavirus Covid-19: RnS, al via da giovedì una Campagna di preghiera allo Spirito Santo, in http://www.agensir.it.

^[25] Ibidem.

^[26] Coronavirus: una giornata di preghiera e digiuno per chiedere l’aiuto del Signore, in http://www.vaticannews.it.

^[27] The text can be found in F. Gnagni, La Chiesa alla prova del coronavirus…, cit.

^[28] Suffice it to mention the young people “fleeing” from the red areas of northern Italy to the more “reassuring” southern regions of Italy when the “closure” of Lombardy was announced – a situation closely resembling Manzoni’s description: «Sono partiti prima della mezzanotte. Nonostante le grida che proibivano di lasciare la città e minacciavano le solite pene severissime, come la confisca delle case e di tutti i patrimoni, furono molti i nobili che fuggirono da Milano per andarsi a rifuggiare nei loro possedimenti in campagna» (A. Manzoni, I promessi sposi, cap. XVI).

^[29] See A. Spadaro, La politica del coronavirus: attivare gli anticorpi cattolici, in http://www.avvenire.it.

^[30] «La preghiera», Pope Francis tells us from the virtual pages of the online press, «ci fa capire la nostra vulnerabilità. È il grido dei poveri, di quelli che stanno affondando, che si sentono nel pericolo, soli. E in una situazione difficile, disperata, è importante sapere che c’è il Signore a cui aggrapparsi» (in http://www.lastampa.it).

^[31] As stressed by Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Department of Integral Human Development, God can be prayed «perché accresca la nostra fede, aiuti gli ammalati nella guarigione e sostenga gli operatori sanitari nella loro missione (…) imparando a non stigmatizzare il “malato” (…) a coltivare la “Sapienza del cuore” come atteggiamento di sa aprirsi alla sofferenza dei fratelli e riconosce in essi l’immagine di Dio (…) Così, possiamo affermare, come Giobbe, “Io ero gli occhi per il cieco, ero i piedi per lo zoppo”» (P. K. A. Turkson, Rafforzare solidarietà e amicizia nel tempo del coronavirus, in http://www.vaticanews.it).

^[32] In the Angelus of 15 March, Pope Francis addressed his thanks to the priests who, in these situations «pensano mille modi di essere vicino al popolo, perché il popolo non si senta abbandonato; sacerdoti con lo zelo apostolico, che hanno capito bene che in tempi di pandemia non si deve fare il “don Abbondio”» (Francesco, Angelus, 15 marzo 2020, in www.vatican.va). The Press Office of the Holy See communicated that the Pope visited the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in the afternoon of the same day, «per rivolgere una preghiera alla Vergine, Salus populi Romani (..) facendo un tratto di Via del Corso a piedi, come in pellegrinaggio, il Santo Padre ha raggiunto la chiesa di San Marcello al Corso, dove si trova il Crocifisso miracoloso che nel 1522 venne portato in processione per i quartieri della città perché finisse la ‘Grande Peste’ a Roma. Con la sua preghiera, il Santo Padre ha invocato la fine della pandemia che colpisce l’Italia e il mondo, implorato la guarigione per i tanti malati, ricordato le tante vittime di questi giorni, e chiesto che i loro familiari e amici trovino consolazione e conforto.» (M. Bruni, Francesco: a Santa Maria Maggiore e San Marcello al Corso per “invocare la fine della pandemia che colpisce l’Italia e il mondo”, in http://www.agensir.it).

^[33] At this regard, after the Angelus of 15 March, the Pontiff stated that: «In questa situazione di pandemia, nella quale ci troviamo a vivere più o meno isolati, siamo invitati a riscoprire e approfondire il valore della comunione che unisce tutti i membri della Chiesa. Uniti a Cristo non siamo mai soli, ma formiamo un unico Corpo, di cui Lui è il Capo. È un’unione che si alimenta con la preghiera, e anche con la comunione spirituale all’Eucaristia, una pratica molto raccomandata quando non è possibile ricevere il Sacramento» (ibidem).

by Domenico Bilotti^*  

domenico_bilotti@yahoo.it

It seems commonly recognized that Italy has now overtaken South Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran considering the deceases and the contagions due to the so called Covid-19 (corona-virus)^[1].

It is substantially correct to report this information in a dubitative way because there are some different elements in undoubtedly counting the exact amount of verified infections (the timing for diagnoses, the criteria to declare the ascertained contaminations, the communication between public medical authorities and the governmental agencies in charge^[2]).

In South Korea, even inside nationalist Christian and Lutheran groups, largely secularized and well-learnt about the scientific progress, the idea of death is often linked to the inescapable process of life^[3] and many early deceases were originally considered among the closest communities as a result of a dangerous spirit or a bad inexplicable illness passing across people and the smallest internal towns – it results even in a very low profile use of pharyngeal tests since the beginning^[4].  The same complexity raised about first Southern American and African cases^[5]: initially, tribal communities opposed (and they probably still do) diagnostic technologies. Actual circumstances anyhow made the declaration of pandemic by the World Health Organization definitely obligated^[6].   

If it is formally deserved that the more incisive measures should be taken by each country, it is likewise obvious that an international epidemic phenomenon inevitably recalls a much deeper level of coordination and cooperation in disciplining border transfers. On the other hand, the States affected by the most unpredicted increase in contagions and deceases need to face the emergency still considering the specific local conditions of propagation and healthcare assistance. A particular focus should be adopted regarding the weakest social parts easily subjected to a more invasive risk of lethal infections. 

In Italy an impressive protest raised in many national prisons with documented events of violent jailbreaks, massive public forces’ reactions, widespread disorder^[7]. The prison system in Italy has never shown this level of tension since the period of political turmoil (ending in the first half of the Eighties), when an absolutely various and heterogeneous coalition of political activists, organized crime high and low profile imprisoned and not classified incarcerated people chose to react against a restrictive and perceived inhuman criminal treatment^[8]. In these days, the themes of the protest can basically be summarized in two different aspects: the concrete situation of the medical nationwide surveillance and assistance and the rules contained in two consecutive decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic^[9]. New provisions actually concern many relevant aspects as the regime of the regional mobility in zones classified like “risk areas” or, more simplistically, “red zones”. These administrative orders, although necessary, are generally missing the opportunity to give the national public opinion a cohesive sense of organization and conformity in numerous crucial branches (for instance, the internal regulation of judiciary courts^[10]and public schools or similarly a comprehensive program to avoid deliberate violations to the local restrictions^[11], by now generalized). 

Many observers have considered that this still not totally clear strategy is an alarming joint negligence of both the public opinion, not enough responsible to respect even widely acceptable limitations, and the political power, so much divided by an undeveloped Parliament majority and a quite opportunistic coarse opposition^[12]. It is not properly the case to become involved in mere propagandistic claims about the morality of thoughtless flights to not heavily infected regions and the inner overindulgence in selling out pubs and clubs during a so extreme global condition. At the same time, it seems a crocodile tears consideration to condemn the general division in political parties who have not shown in recent years the unitary and universal identification on defending constitutional principles and common goods^[13]. Many cultural, social, religious and associative recreational agencies are fortunately demonstrating a more alert approach in containing the sense of panic and public fear and even more in collaborating to affirm virtuous praxes. We can positively consider a not limited spectrum of useful behaviors: shared grocery shopping, hygienic preventive prophylaxis, joint smart-working, social use of Internet connections to have reunions, meetings and even moments of worship and meditation.      

Rather, from a constitutional point of view, it is very important to analyze models of legal intervention and administrative reforms in order to identify and to eventually adapt a correct institutional process. It is even more relevant to recognize a distinctive contingency that has affected Italy in tackling (or trying to tackle) the “corona-virus case”. Italy is for the moment the first country considering the percentage of mortality after ascertained infections. Biologists, virologists, scientific specialists, have so far excluded a typical and more aggressive mutation of the virus itself; so, it definitely means that the country has demonstrated a list of undervalued criticalities and the overcrowding of prisons is exactly in the same line, although it has not gained – but it could easily gain in the nearest future in default of more balanced provisions – a specific impact on corona-virus contagions. 

The Iranian Republic is a Twelver Shia Islam State^[14] and since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 has progressively known an interesting development in criminal law sciences often legislating in the direction of capital punishments as the appropriate penalty to major crimes (maybe a too much expansive list including hypotheses of rape, corruption, homicide, terrorism, foreign drug trade)^[15]. The criminal system of the Republic has adopted more recent rules in the last version of the Criminal Code, realized and reassessed by the Guardian Council, but it is not an opinion that those rules still do not seem a liberal body of concessive norms. The main structures of the jailing procedures still yearn for a religious basement and the stigma of some assumed dangerous conducts is however linked to a preliminary Quran condemnation (female adulteries, blasphemy, schismatic religious confraternities)^[16]. On 3 January 2020, a US drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani^[17], the major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: the deputy most important role in the concrete order of the Iranian Law. Even in a so chaotic internal framework, between numerous and unpublicized political clashes and a tremendous crisis of fair trades also in providing medicines and therapies, Iran has temporally released more than 54.000 prisoners in a comprehensible effort to combat the enormous spread of corona-virus diseases in crowded jails.  Security prisoners sentenced to more than five years will not be let out: a reassurance conceived to avoid a general sense of impunity. 

This effort could obviously fail because the virus is dramatically beating not only the weak masses, the aged population and the already seriously ill categories. 

In Iran a leading figure of the Expediency Council, Mohammad Mirmohammadi, died as a result of an infection and State media did not recognize it as a specific grave symptomatic case. Everyone can die, but the Iranian Republic pointed to the prison overcrowding eventually being an affecting condition to regulate the newest infections. It is not properly an amnesty^[18], as we look at it in the tradition of the rule of law^[19], but it is certainly a political judgment against the collective harmfulness of a penitentiary promiscuous and over-fulfilled context. The Italian criminal law basement does not have anymore a so identifiable religious root, but it is anyway well accepted that many judiciary institutions have at least a canon law ancient foundation (the concept of legal pardon^[20], the structure of the trial^[21], the functions and the purposes of the punishment for the declared guilty criminal^[22]). The proposal of a general provisory release from prison, strictly modulated around the lowest kinds of misbehaviors, could simultaneously be relevant from a religious-charitable point of view and useful considering the extreme danger of a chronic overcrowding. It is reasonably hopeful that Italy could respectfully study a reformist block of rules concerning the execution of the criminal law sentences encouraging alternative kinds of detention for minor violations^[23] and an ambitious program to guarantee the health of people subjected to legal restrictions in segregating communities, from the prisons to the other and not less problematic forms of internment. I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me^[24]. 

^* Professor of History of Religions at the University «Magna Graecia» of Catanzaro.

^[1] A detailed cartography available on http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus.

^[2] Y. Chen, R. Woo, China Doctors Seek Tougher Discharge Criteria After Positive Coronavirus Tests, Reuters, online edition, 3^rd March 2020.  

^[3] G. S. Han, Nouveau-riche Nationalism and Multiculturalism in Korea. A Media Narrative Analysis, Routledge, London-New York, 2015. 

^[4] A. Bendix, South Korea has tested 140,000 people for the coronavirus. That Could Explain Why its Death Rate Is Just 0.6% – Far Lower than in China or the US, in Business Insider, online edition, 6^th March 2020. 

^[5] Considering the above suspicion African hike, A. R. A. Shaban, D. M. Mumbere, Rolling Coverage of the Coronavirus Outbreak in Africa, Africa News, 11^th March 2020.

^[6] Official statement on http://www.who.int: “WHO Characterizes COVID-19 as a Pandemic”, 11^th March 2020. 

^[7] Y. Gostoli, Six Immates Die as Prison Riots over Coronavirus Rules Grip Italy, al Jazeera, online edition, 9^th March 2020; Z. Tidman, Italy Prison Riots: Six Die Amid Protest over Coronavirus Restrictions, Independent, 9^th March 2020. 

^[8] M. Mafai, Perquisizioni, vetri divisori, quant’è difficile essere la madre di un brigatista, la Repubblica, 11^th February 1981. 

^[9] DPCM, 4^th March 2020 and DPCM, 8^th March 2020, DPCM 9^th March 2020, available on http://www.gazzettaufficiale.it.

^[10] G. D. Caiazza, Emergenza sanitaria: in via di definizione il Decreto Legge relativo alle misure eccezionali nel comparto giustizia, in http://www.camerepenali.it, 8^th March 2020. 

^[11] C. Melzi D’Eril, G. E. Vigevani, Coronavirus: il decreto tra obblighi, divieti, raccomandazioni e semplici consigli, il Sole 24 Ore, 8^th March 2020.

^[12] A raucous but concise reconstruction in G. Cavalli, Irresponsabili, presuntuosi e incapaci, Left, 9^th March 2020.  

^[13] A predictive lecture about this faded conception of politics was advanced, in the public law field, by L. Ventura, Il governo a multipolarità diseguale, Giuffrè, Milano, 1988. 

^[14] S. A. Dudoignon, The Baluch, Sunnism and the State in Iran. From Tribal to Global, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York, 2017, pp. 180-181. 

^[15] S. Alasti, Juvenile Death Penalty in Islamic Countries: the Road to Abolition is Paved with Paradox, in P. Hodgkinson, Capital Punishment: New Perspectives, Routledge, London-New York, 2013, pp. 73-74. 

^[16] M. J. Fischer, Legal Postulates in Flux: Justice, Wit and Hierarchy in Iran, in D. H. Dwyer, ed., Law and Islam in the Middle East, Begin & Garvey, New York-Westport-London, 1990, pp. 115 ss. 

^[17] K. Zraick, What to Know About the Death of Iranian General Suleimani: The Killing of the Powerful General in Baghdad Could Have Drastic Consequences around the World, in New York Times, 6^th January 2020.  

^[18] D. Pulitanò, Diritto Penale⁵, Giappichelli, Torino, 2013, pp. 573 e ss. G. Zagrebelsky, Amnistia, indulto e grazia. Profili costituzionali, Giuffrè, Milano, 1974; V. Maiello, Clemenza e sistema penale, ESI, Napoli, 2007. 

^[19] Specifically considering the religious background of Western constitutionalism, C. J. Friedrich, Transcendent Justice. The Religious Dimension of Constitutionalism, Duke University Press, Durham, 1964. For an interesting overview of the American legal system on religions, K. Greenwalt, Secularism, Religion and Liberal Democracy in the United States, in Cardozo Law Review, 2009, pp. 2383-2400. 

^[20] M. Ascheri, I diritti del Medioevo italiano: secoli XI-XV, Carocci, Roma, 2000, pp. 234 ss. 

^[21] Especially mentioning even the different theological context, E. Corecco, L. Gerosa, Il diritto della Chiesa, Jaca Book, Milano, 1995,pp. 94-95. 

^[22] M. Ventura, Pena e penitenza nel diritto canonico postconciliare, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 1996; R. Botta, La norma penale nel diritto della Chiesa, il Mulino, Bologna, 2001. 

^[23] The same suggestion was largely extractable in European Court of Human Rights, Torreggiani and others vs. Italy, 8^th January 2013. 

^[24] A reference to Matthew 25, 36 (English Standard Version).