ASPETTI COGNITIVI DEL BRICOLAGE RELIGIOSO

The research on religiosity in Italy reveals that although the Italians hardly give up to their Catholic identity, most of them live a subjective religion. Nevertheless, at present we don't have the theoretical instruments to study this complex phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that the religious subjectivism is worth of studying on its own, but not as a deviation from Church religion. I begin by considering the contribution of the Theory of Religious Economies. Then I show that such a contribution is not sufficient, and I suggest that if we want to understand the motivations of subjectivism, we should consider how it answers to some contradictions and weak points of traditional religious offers. I finally posit that we can understand the ideological role of the religion today if we study this kind of personal religion. This role can be hardly revealed if we focus our attention only to the main stream Catholic religion.