Varieties of Religious Space. Freedom, Worship and Urban Justice

Vazquez Cintron M

Primo

Writing – Original Draft Preparation

2024-01-01

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Abstract

In recent years, there has often been talk of de-secularization. Many have said that modernity has ushered in an era in which religion is on the way out, on the verge of extinction, and secularism has won out in the game of history. If this were true, a book on 'religious space' would be little more than a niche project. One has to ask, however: can 'religious space' really be considered separate and categorically distinguishable from space in general? European cities have historically been built around a church located next to the seat of government, generating in turn the 'space' of the main public square. In most urban sites, this topographic distribution persists, and Italy constitutes, in this respect, a paradigmatic example. In Italy, conflicts over the use of disused Catholic churches, Muslim communities in need of prayer spaces, interfaith spaces and the related use of urban space as a whole, reflect pressing concerns about how to live in our increasingly plural cities and how to define the boundaries between the freedom of some and the freedom of others. Into this battleground comes law, which regulates space and all the practices that take place within it. 'Liturgy,' understood through its etymological root of ‘action in public space’, serves as a cognitive key that could support law to better qualify the objects and recipients of its regulation. If time and space are impossible to separate, looking back is the only way to fathom the future (and vice versa). Brief historical forays are therefore presented alongside contemporary legal analysis in the hopes of illuminating a path towards a horizon of spatial justice. The volume addresses in three chapters the relationship between sacred and secular space in the city; the theoretical-legal and jurisdictional issues revolving around the problem of the availability of places of worship within urban spaces; and, finally, the historical and methodological conditions for the elaboration of a constitutional 'spatial justice'.