Migration and Integration of Foreign Priests. Aspirations, Religiosity, and Tensions in the Narratives of Foreign Priests in Italy

Angela Delli Paoli; Giuseppe Masullo

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.04

Authors

Angela Delli Paoli University of Salerno, Italy
Giuseppe Masullo University of Salerno, Italy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.04

Keywords:

International Migration, Foreign Priests, Catholicism, Italy, Religiosity, Integration

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the individual factors sustaining the migratory flow of Catholic priests to Italy. Priests’ migration cannot be seen as the mere result of lack of vocations and shortage of priests in the host country since their agency, belief, aspirations, and motivations affect their religious identity and, consequently, their integration and participation in the host country. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper collects the voices and the narratives of selected international priests living in Italy. Priests’ interviews led to broad-range questions about the nature of migration decisions and their integration into the host society and churches that originate from differences in religiosity, vocations, and missions. That resulted in a typology of 4 types of migrant priests: careerist priests, highly educated and integrated into the host country, driven by career and salary aspiration, and showing a highly politicized vision of religion; servant priests, with a strong missionary impulse to serve the Church as a universal institution transcending abstract and real boarders; evangelist priests who feel the moral obligation to evangelize secularized countries to bring them back to the origins of Catholicism; rebel priests who feel second-class priests, discriminated both within and outside the Church, in a country where they were forced to move, for this reason questioning their sense of clear vocational directions.

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Author Biographies

Angela Delli Paoli, University of Salerno, Italy

Angela Delli Paoli is a Researcher (tenure-track) in the Department of Humanities, Philosophy, and Education (University of Salerno), where she teaches Sociology and Social Research Methods and coordinates the International Lab for Innovative Social Research (ILIS). She was a visiting researcher at the London Business School (UK), a visiting professor at the University of Finance and Administration of Prague, and a visiting lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. From 2010 to 2017, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Sociology (University of Salerno). She participated as a senior researcher and expert evaluator in several European (Horizon 2020 interim evaluation, Eurofound expert groups), national, and regional expert groups. She also acts as an independent evaluator for the European Commission General Directorate for Research and Innovation and the European Commission Research Executive Agency (REA). Her research interests are qualitative and quantitative social research methods. She has authored monographic studies, several essays, book chapters, and articles published in national and international academic journals on digital social research, digital ethnography, migration, and non-normative identities.

Giuseppe Masullo, University of Salerno, Italy

Giuseppe Masullo is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities, Philosophy, and Education (University of Salerno), where he teaches Sociology and Sociology of Gender and directs the International Lab for Innovative Social Research (ILIS), an interdisciplinary center promoting theoretical, epistemological, and methodological advances in the field of social sciences through constant dialogue with national and international scholars. His main topics of scientific interest are non-normative identities, gender, sexuality, health, and disease. His research interests focus on different targets, particularly vulnerable and stigmatized populations such as young people, migrants, and LGBTQ+, through an intersectional approach. His recent area of research includes digital society and its theoretical and methodological effects.

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