In a recent poll, just 32 percent of Italians surveyed said it was right for religion to have an influence on the laws of the state. Yet crucifixes hang in public schools.
Abortion is legal here and not much debated anymore. Yet religious sentiment runs deep enough that Friday night comes in Italy with the adventures of Don Matteo, handsome crime-solving priest. One study, in fact, showed that 27 percent of all protagonists on public television are priests, nuns or saints (though it is also hard to ignore that other large percentage on Italian television: near-naked women).
All this might sound like fertile ground for a war of culture and values like the one raging in America, where there seem equal parts of hope and fear that religion will play a larger public role in the second administration of George W. Bush.
But in Italy, the European nation where religion and state have mingled most, the disagreements are somehow less bitter and absolute than in the United States.
"There is much more collaboration - a, let us say, reasonable attitude," said one Vatican official, an American. "Not such rigidity as we have in the United States. In the United States we find that rigidity on both sides, both the conservatives and the liberals, and it's hard for people to talk to each other."
It is not that the debate over religion's influence in political life has ended here, nor that Italy is exempt from a counterpoint argued angrily these days in Europe: whether the Continent has actually become so secular that it is now outright hostile to religion.
It may be more accurate to say that the debate over church and state has not stopped for 1,700 years, in this nation with a public Christian heritage stretching back to the Emperor Constantine's conversion early in the fourth century, where a neighborhood in Rome is its own country and seat of the Roman Catholic Church. Those years seem to have lent enough time and hard experience for church and state to settle into an almost indistinct whole, where the very real secularization in Italy in the last few decades is balanced by its history, culture, architecture and, even though church attendance has declined significantly, faith.
Paul Ginsborg, a prominent historian of Italy, described the overall atmosphere, in Italian, as "la religione diffusa." The religion of everyone or, in his loose translation, "It's in the air."
And so, Italy is a land of contrasts:
¶Perhaps the most Catholic politician in Italy is not a conservative, as might be expected in America, but Romano Prodi, the former European Union chief and leader of the center-left.
¶Italians routinely ignore the conservative Pope John Paul II in matters of private morality, like contraception, divorce or marriage (far fewer Italians are marrying, in the church or out), but admire him deeply for his stands on issues like caring for the poor or his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, unpopular in Europe.
¶Crucifixes may hang in public schools, but without the heavy political overtones that come with displays of, say, the Ten Commandments in public places in America.
"Even with such symbolism, you can't say the Catholic Church is shoved down people's throats in 2004," Mr. Ginsborg said.
The splintering a decade ago of the Christian Democratic Party, often seen as a main route for the church's influence, along with Europe's deepening secularization, helped make Italy more like other European nations. Despite the teachings of the church against contraception, Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. Divorce and abortion became legal in the 1970s despite strong opposition from the church.
But abortion is a non-issue here - perhaps the best example of the more civil tone of the debate over religion and state. Here, it seems less an argument than a very long conversation.
"I don't think the situation is so bad," said Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian governmental minister, a rigorous Catholic and a friend of the pope who has become something of a lightning rod on the issue of religion in Europe. "I think we can talk."
Conservative politicians like him and the Vatican lament the decline of values and religion, some wondering whether Italy and Europe have lost touch with their Christian roots at a time when, as some see it, the West is facing a deep challenge from Islam.
Mr. Buttiglione was rejected last month for a top post in the European Union for his opinions - private, he says, and thus distinct from any public duties - that homosexuality is a sin and that women would be better off married and at home.
But many of his general views, to American ears, can sound almost liberal. In an interview, he spoke of the complexities of the abortion debate, how even unwavering anti-abortionists like himself need to understand the difficulties of asserting the rights of a fetus against those of its mother.
"I have one rule, the rule of liberal society, which is the rule of freedom," he said. "I respect your freedom and you respect mine. Within this, we can talk."
On the more secular left, many leaders bemoan the lingering influence of the church among politicians, who they say pander to the Vatican.
But many left-wing politicians have their own strong ties to the church. Even more secular ones find allies in the church on issues like helping the poor and recent immigrants.
In the rest of Europe, this mix of church and state is often regarded skeptically. But, paradoxically, Italy has in many ways less religious zeal than the United States, where the lines between church and state are much more sharply drawn, but where personal religious conviction can be stronger.
Another part of this, church officials and conservatives say, is the long history with the church as a fallible institution, stripped over the centuries of much of its mystery. "We have the pope," said Giuliano Ferrara, one of Italy's leading conservative commentators. "You know history. You can understand this process."
And so, like urban architects who struggle to make Rome a modern city without destroying the ancient, Italians maneuver deftly around their heritage - granting both church and state a more equal share than do many other countries, and with greater equanimity.
"Everybody thinks that the pope is the only moral figure in my country as far as war and social justice go," said Emma Bonino, a leader of the Radical Party, who spearheaded the campaign to legalize abortion in the 1970's. "But on personal behavior, meaning sex, meaning divorce, meaning motherhood and pregnancy, people frankly do not care."