Andrea Pin is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law, University of Padua

Covid-19 is posing very serious challenges. Time will tell if Italian society, culture, and faith learn the lesson.

As I explained earlier, the lockdown in Italy has pushed people to find new ways to socialize and practice their faith.  From being the primary means of communication only among millennials, the internet has become a viable solution for people of all ages.  Meanwhile, people chitchat from their balconies. It has become so popular that people routinely stop tele-working, cooking, or watching Netflix, or whatever they were doing, at fixed times to go to their windows and sing together. They may even flash-mob together only to clap and cheer up. The result has been a transgenerational blending of technology with old-fashioned window-to-window conversation.  Media, opinionmakers, politicians, and influencers keep encouraging people to stay home and reassuring them that “#wellbefine” (“#andratuttobene”).

The blend of technological and vintage civic rites that have spontaneously developed are not blasphemous, inappropriate, or wrong.  But they are facing two formidable challenges. Time—and death. (more…)