99577 - Religious entities and Third sector law

Learning outcomes

The course aims to make students aware of the complexity, purpose and implementation of the rules that define the legal status and activity of the many different religious entities in the Italian legal system. On the one hand, it is necessary to take into account provisions of various nature – State ones and denominational ones, unilateral and bilateral ones at different levels – that reveal how the system of sources, precisely through its width and articulation, intends to protect and enhance the religious factor together with the principle of horizontal subsidiarity, placing itself in the wake of the Constitutional Charter. On the other hand, these same provisions regulate matters so relevant today – such as the recognition of ecclesiastical entities and their modification and extinction events, financing, administration, religious or worship activities and activities of different nature, including commercial ones, the position of the worker in trend organizations, etc. – that cannot but be the object of in-depth knowledge by jurists: who, within the legal professions, must develop the ability to address issues – even purely technical ones – regarding the galaxy of entities of religious origin or inspiration that are not easy to resolve, combining common law with the elements of specialty that are recognized to them. Particular attention is paid to the discipline of civilly recognized religious entities in light of the 2017 Third Sector reform, which presents important elements of innovation but also problematic aspects of an interpretative and applicative nature.

Course contents

The course will develop the contents reported below, divided into thematic areas and modules.

 

The following subjects will be covered in Module 1:

I. Organizations of religious denominations and their discipline

• Preliminary introduction. The religious element in the Italian Constitution (artt. 2, 3, 7, 8, 19 and 20)
• Laws nn. 206 and 222 of 20 May 1985 within the system of the sources of Ecclesiastical law
• Constitutive, modifying and extinguishing events of ecclesiastical organizations
• Administration of ecclesiastical entities and civil relevance of the controls provided in Book V of Codex Iuris Canonici
• Religious or worshipping activities and other activities
• Ecclesiastical entities as entrepreneurs and their subjection of ecclesiastical entities to insolvency procedures
• Entities of the Catholic Church and entities of religious denominations other than Catholicism
• Activities of the Holy See in the Italian legal system: central entities of the Catholic Church and the guarantees of the Lateran Treaty
• Ideologically oriented organizations in light of Italian and supranational law and case law

II. Funding of religious denominations: the Italian system

• Evolution of financial relationships between State and religious denominations
• Ecclesiastical properties: public law and private law revenues. Particularly the ‘eight per thousand’ system
• Funding of religious denominations other than Catholicism
• Financial support of the clergy and its system

 

The following subjects will be covered in Module 2:

III. Religious organizations and the reform of the Third Sector

• Historical evolution and constitutional aspects
• The reform (d.lgs. nn. 112 and 117 of 3 July 2017)
• The Third Sector entity
• Tax liability, controls and transparency of the activities
• The non-profit nature of ecclesiastical entities
• The discipline of social enterprises and the ‘branch’ for general interest activities of civilly recognized religious organizations

IV. The patrimony of the Holy See

• Administration of ‘Vatican finances’ in the 20th century
• Ecclesiastical goods of the Holy See
• Offerings of the faithful: Peter’s Pence and the management of Papal Funds
• The Institutions of Finance of the Roman Curia
• The season of Pope Francis’ reforms. The reorganization of the Institute for the Works of Religion

Readings/Bibliography

A. BETTETINI, Ente ecclesiastico, beni religiosi e attività di culto. Profili giuridici, Second edition, Giuffrè Francis Lefebvre, Milano, 2024, pp. 1-68 and pp. 139-200.

 

AA.VV., Gli enti ecclesiastici nella riforma del Terzo settore, a cura di P. CAVANA, G. Giappichelli editore, Torino, 2021, pp. 240 (only the essays by P. CAVANA, Gli enti ecclesiastici nella riforma del Terzo settore. Profili ricostruttivi e applicazioni pratiche, pp. 1-62 and P. LO IACONO, Gli enti ecclesiastici e gli enti religiosi quale archetipo della personalità giuridica (La valenza funzionale della personificazione tra normativa pattizia e Codice del Terzo Settore), pp. 63-122).

 

Students who attend the course will follow a facilitated exam program. They will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment. 

 

In the course of the lessons, the teachers will supply and recommend teaching aids and further learning material, following students' specific requests and interests. The material will be gradually uploaded on the Professor's website and made available to students.

Teaching methods

The course will develop through lectures, seminars and meetings with experts.

The course participates in the project on the innovation in teaching of the University. With the adoption of the blended learning teaching mode, in addition to the classroom lessons, part of the teaching activity – equal to 33% of the overall duration of the course – is provided online.

Lectures will be given in the Ist semester. As a consequence, students obtaining their attendance certificate in the current academic year are allowed to take their exam only from the month of January. The exam program coincides with the course contents.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures or through notices, also on the Course website. The teachers use slides (or other supplementary material) that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform.

The students who attend the course will be invited to take part actively in the analysis of the themes studied in class: they will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

Assessment methods

Only the student who has already taken the exams of Constitutional law and Private law is admitted to the oral exam

The verification of learning consists in a final exam which will explore the acquisition of knowledge and skills requested through an oral examination sustained directly with the teachers.

The exam will cover the issues described in the “Course contents” section. The examination entails the assignment of a grade.

Through such exam, the knowledge learned and the critical and methodological skills acquired by the student will be assessed.

In addition to the possession of a mastery of expression and of an appropriate technical language, the student will also have to prove to be able to move confidently within the system of the legal sources on the matter, to have a clear perception of the received information and to have understood and adequately deepened the themes that were addressed in class and explained in the reference textbooks, which will have to be described and argued properly. Learning such skills is easier during the course, the attendance of which is recommended in order to improve the learning process and therefore the student’s performance during the exam. 

Namely, about the oral exam:

 As previously mentioned, the aim of the oral exam is to assess the actual achievement of the learning outcomes: therefore, both the knowledge of the relevant legal issues and the student’s capability to apply it in order to realize the required logical-deductive connections will be taken into account.

By way of a mere example, the assignment of the final grade will be based on the following criteria:

Sufficient knowledge of a very small number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that only emerge through extensive support by the interviewer, with the use of a language that is not incorrect but is not completely accurate either → 18-19;

Fairly good knowledge of a limited number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that are autonomous only on purely executive issues, with the use of a correct but not fully confident and exhaustive language → 20-24;

Good knowledge of a wide number of the topics addressed during the course and capability to develop autonomous analytical skills, with an efficient and confident use of a technically specific language → 25-29;

Extensive and substantially exhaustive knowledge of the whole program addressed during the course, capability to develop very good legal reasonings and to critically analyse and connect different topics, with a fully confident use of a technically specific language that shows a mature ability to develop original reflections → 30-30L.

The students who attend the course will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teachers – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives. 

Students have to book the final exam on the web application AlmaEsami.

 

Thesis

For the assignment of thesis the student must go to the reception of the teachers to discuss and decide the theme.

Teaching tools

During the lessons the teachers will indicate and provide texts and supplementary materials to complete the preparation.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures and through notices on the Course website.

The teachers use slides that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform in order to help them understanding the issues and the institutions explained during the lesson.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teachers their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

Office hours

See the website of Alberto Tomer

See the website of Manuel Ganarin