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The Church-State relationships in EU Member States are in a process of a radical transformation. This is the result of a rapid political integration and also of the major transformations of the modernity. Religion is still part of the European public space even if, according to modernity premises, it should be only a private matter. According to Max Weber and other authors, secularization diminishes the role of the religion in society. However, these theories are being contested in recent years, due to the interpretation of statistical data and to the emergence of fundamentalist religious movements spreading around the world. Consequently, secularization is a tendency and not an "iron law". As regards the current role of the religion, Silvio Ferrari developed the theory according to which there is a common European model. This model does not exist yet, but certainly we live in an era defined by the continuous searching of such a model. There is no European identity without common values. Some of these values, like toleration, do have a profound religious foundation. European integration is based on the action of different actors, including interest groups located in Brussels. The Churches and the religious organizations are also part of this category of actors and they try to be part of a process by which a common space for consultation will emerge.

Summary in English.

Any reflection on the relationship between religion and politics in the Catholic thought cannot do without reminding the Augustinian distinction between the civitas Dei and civitas terrena. The goal and foundation of any just political community should be the orientation to wards the common good. In the contemporary catholic thought, Johann Baptist Metz proposes a political theology revolving around the concepts of the value of the human person, the necessary refusal, on the part of the Church, of any mundane ideology and the necessary use of the socially critical potential of theological thought. Hans Küng criticizes any politicization of theology. He insists on the development of an internal pluralism within the Church and advocates a self-limitation of the magisterial intervention in the world in the name of a necessary "eschato logical reserve". Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict the XVIth , invested with the magisterial authority, relies heavily on official documents of the Catholic social doctrine. He emphasizes the necessity of founding the state on the central value of justice and its acting according to the principle of subsidiarity. In this context, the Christian faith and the Church in particular may have a pedagogical role, as it may guide reason to follow the right priorities. All three thinkers agree on the public significance of the Christian vision of society and on the fact that it may help society both by its critical and by its constructive dimension.

Ethnic, religious, and economic factors in the Chechen conflict. Summary in English p. 315.

Pierre Manent is viewed as a French thinker that develops in modern times the liberal tradition of political thinking. One of the most important issues of Manent's thinking that was not enough underlined it is the relationship between religion an politics and how this evolved from the beginning of Christianity until the main consequences of modernity. Manent view on religion and politics is the core of this paper analysis. The main contributions of Manent, such as Naissances de la politique moderne. Machiavel, Hobbes, Rousseau (1977), Histoire intellectuelle du lib.ralisme (1987) La cit. de l'homme (1994), Cours familier de philosophie politique (2001), La raison des nations. R.flections sur la d.mocratie en Europe (2006) are analyzed from this perspective. Our conclusion is that in the way Manent deals with the relationship between politics and religion there are some constants that may be found in all his work. These are: the relationship between the Church and the different forms of political organization in Europe (Civitas, Imperium, monarchy); the fact that Christianity is one of the few current relevant concepts for political, due to the failure of totalitarian ideologies; the idea that secularization in Europe is not irreversible; we live in "an age of separations", and Church-State is one of these separations; we witness the religion transformation process and the .tat la.que cannot survive to .tat-nation; the role of Islam in modern societies and his perpetual finding of a political form; the relationship between Judaism, state and nation; the issue of the Christian identity of Europe.

This focus article discusses the recent book by Robert D. Putnam and D.E. Campbell, which has recently won the 2011 Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political Science Association. Framing this piece of research in the context of the extremely rich and influential work developed by Robert D. Putnam for about fifty years, Sergio Fabbrini illustrates the main findings of American Grace with reference to the recent developments and the assets of the US democracy. Luca Ozzano draws attention to the consequences determined by the relationship between religion and political participation on the foreign policy developments and, more generally, on the complex world of international relations. The third review, by Giuliano Amato, develops a broader reflection on the effect of religions on the current difficulties of our democracies, in America and in Europe, focusing on the notion of post-secular society. Finally, a quick but dense response by Robert D. Putnam highlights the main points from these threefold review, individuating some new possible questions and puzzles for future researches. Adapted from the source document.

Multiculturalism's main assumption is that 'diversity matters', and within contemporary multicultural societies the different religious experiences of the members are perceived as one of their most relevant features, one that might also lead to a number of dangerous and (at least seemingly) unsolvable conflicts. In the first and second sections of this article, I consider Bhikhu Parekh and Tariq Modood's positions concerning the relationship between multiculturalism and the variety of religious experiences, while in the third section I discuss the main theoretical problems that remain open. Essentially, such problems have all to do with the lack of an explicit addressing the issue of religious diversity from an effective intercultural perspective. Lastly, I try to bring back the variety of religious experiences to a different theoretical paradigm, which aims at importing some of the conceptual achievements of contemporary complexity theories into the social sciences' discourse. In doing so, my goal is not to elaborate a single model able to give definite answers, but rather, to the extent to which it is possible, to secure its flexibility, as well as its ability to adequate to the inputs coming from an unceasingly changing 'reality'. Adapted from the source document.