The end of “Catholic” sexuality in Italy?

Abstract

Studies on sexuality in Italy conducted in recent decades show a significant relationship between adherence to Catholicism and sexual behavior. Yet, the last 20 years has also seen an acceleration in the decline of young practicing Catholics, and more and more young people do not follow Catholic teachings regarding sex. We assess whether and in which direction the association between sex and religion has changed by comparing two identical surveys of national samples of Italian university students carried out in 2000 and 2017. We test two sides of a same hypotheses: a weakening vs. a strengthening of the relationship between religion and several sexual behaviors/opinions on sexuality. We find that the reduced proportion of young Catholics has not been accompanied by a strengthened adherence to Catholic sexual morality: today religious youth are more similar to the non-religious than they were at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, especially among individuals who are single and women, the differences between more or less religious young people continue to be relevant. Thus, despite a weakening of the relationship between sexuality and religion, it is too early to pronounce an end of “Catholic” sexuality in Italy.