A research project on the “Religious Cultures in Rome”, conducted by the Municipality, has yielded new facts and figures about the three major religious communities here — Catholic, Jewish and Moslem — their interrelations and attitudes toward one-another.
The latest statistics showed that Roman Jews constitute the city’s largest single religious group after Catholics. There are nearly three million Catholics in Rome, 15,000 “official” Jews and at least another 15,000 “unofficial” Jews who do not pay the community tithe. There are only 4,000 Protestants. Moslems number between 15-20,000 and hail from 22 different countries. Many are illegal immigrants who speak little ltalian.
The survey was undertaken because, in the opinion of the city fathers, Rome, no longer an exclusively Catholic domain, must come to terms with and understand the needs of its other religious and ethnic groups.
The results were made public at a press conference at the City Hall. It was attended, among others by Msgr. Pietro Rossano, Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, representing the Catholic Church Prof. Paolo Ricca, of the Waldensian Theological Faculty, representing Protestants; Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff of the Jewish community; and Prince Amini, president of the Moslem community.
INTOLERANCE’ INDEX COMPILED
The researchers compiled an “intolerance” index. About 17-18 percent of the Roman population expressed intolerance of others, disinterest or refusal to have relations with other religious or ethnic groups. The highest percentage of rejection was expressed toward Moslems (39 percent), followed by Protestants (31 percent); Chinese (27 percent) — although there are hardly any Chinese to be seen in Rome — and finally Jews (26 percent).
According to the survey, Christian-Jewish relations in Rome are far better than either community’s relations with the Islamic population. Of the Christians who responded to the survey, 72.6 percent described their relations with Jews as satisfactory whereas only 36.6 percent felt the same way about Moslems.
Among Jews, 79 percent considered their relations with other Romans to be good to excellent. Only six percent of the Jews said they felt “rejected” or “considered different” by their Christian neighbors. Moslems, on the other hand, seem to live in near total isolation. Sixty-three percent admitted to having no Jewish or Christian friends.
Of all the groups, Jews showed the greatest willingness to engage in interreligious dialogue (50 percent) while only 24 percent of the Christian respondents were interested in joining interfaith groups.
STEREOTYPES OF JEWS UNCOVERED
Christian and Moslem stereotypes of Jews were uncovered by the survey. The most prevalent stereotype among Christians is that Jews are pious but stingy. Moslems saw Jews as “exploiters. “The Jews have a self-image: 94 percent of them felt that others see them as excelling in business, close-knit and ever ready to help fellow Jews; 79 percent think others see them as stingy but intelligent.
The survey showed that Jews consider the family to be “sacred” and feel a need for religious identity to a far greater extent than Christians.
Jewish attachment to Israel is strong in the Roman community. Only five percent of the Jews interviewed had no interest in Israel; 45 percent had lived in Israel for a time; 28 percent visited there once and 22 percent said they planned to visit Israel. As many as 44 percent of Roman Jews said they could speak, write or at least understand modern Hebrew.
One conclusion that emerged from the survey is that the Roman population’s basic tolerance was paralleled by a lack of curiosity about others.
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