Uncertain faith: A multi-method approach

Abstract

More than 25 years after the previous survey, the state of religion in Italy in 2017 was surveyed. This time a more challenging mixed methodology was used following both quantitative (with 3238 questionnaires administered according to criteria of statistical representativeness) and qualitative (with 164 in-depth interviews, in various Italian locations) criteria. For over half a century, there has been talk of secularization and the end of religion. What is being recorded all this time, actually, is a decline in religious practice. Meanwhile, there has been an expansion of a kind of religious area that goes beyond Church membership. There is also talk of uncertain faith meaning that a troubled and reflexive kind of belief continues to exist. At present, a new conceptual category is emerging more and more, that of Church as religion, meaning that the Church itself has become religion and begun to replace the content of faith.