Abstract: "Immigrants’ religions as new religions" (in lingua inglese)

Pino Lucà Trombetta

Immigrants’ religions as new religions [Abstract]

The presence of immigrants and the resulting mushrooming of Islamic, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Sikh and Buddhist communities are modifying the structure of the religious market in Italy.
In this communication I pose the following question: “Will these religions attract only immigrants and their offspring, or, and at what extent, they will be able to subtract believers to the predominant Catholic Church?”.
Dealing with Islam and Buddhism and using data from field researches, I focus on two processes that might transform the immigrant’s religious offers and make them attractive to Italians: the growing globalisation of immigrant’s cultures and the multiethnic composition of the religious immigrant communities.
The first, through the constitution of transnational nets, supports the survival of ethnic communities in the host Country; the second compels the religion to surmount ethnic borders and local traditions. But, above all, I argue that both processes are transforming the traditional religions into post-modern ones; making them less alien to the Italian sensibility and allowing, under certain circumstances, marginal conversions of former Catholic Italians.