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Buddhism in Italy: An Overview

By Marion Dapsance | | Buddhistdoor Global

Italy is probably the last European country where the Catholic faith is still evidently predominant. According to a 2012 survey on global religious practices published by the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center, 83.3 per cent of Italians identify as Christians, of whom 81.7 per cent are affiliated with the Catholic Church. Within that 81.7 per cent, a fraction probably identify as Catholic merely for historical or social reasons. Indeed, according to a 2005 Eurobarometer poll, “only” 74 per cent of Italians believe there in God. Some 16 per cent think there is “some sort of spirit or life force,” and just 6 per cent are complete atheists. The Pew Research Center indicates that 3.7 per cent of the population are Muslims (the presence of Islam can be almost entirely explained by immigration), and only 0.6 per cent belong to other spiritual traditions. It is in this tiny fraction of the population that the few Italian Buddhist practitioners can be found.

The introduction of Buddhism in Italy followed a similar pattern to the rest of the West—although at a slower pace, since Italy had practically no immigration at the beginning of the 20th century and no colonial ties with Asian countries, unlike Britain and France.* Scholar Martin Baumann’s assessment still perfectly applies to the situation of Buddhism in Italy: a purely theoretical interest in Buddhism among Italian intellectuals in the late 19th century, the first waves of individual conversions at the turn of the century, under the influence of the Theosophical Society—and we know how distorted the image of Buddhism was among Theosophists—and, finally, the establishment of consistent Buddhist communities, under the authority of Western and Asian masters, from the 1920s onward. The Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s and the subsequent global popularity of the 14th Dalai Lama have also had a positive impact on the appreciation of Buddhism in Italy, as in the rest of the world. Certain Italian personalities also fostered the development of Buddhism in this country. The most famous among them is probably Salvatore Cioffi (1897–1966), an American citizen of Italian descent who became interested in Buddhism after reading the Dhammapada. Cioffi traveled to India and then to Sri Lanka and Burma to learn more about his new faith. He officially converted to Burmese Buddhism in the late 1920s, became a monk, and took Lokanâtha as his Dharma name. He was one of the first Buddhists to organize group pilgrimages to Bodh Gaya in the 1930s.**

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Lokanâtha was arrested and imprisoned by the British authorities for his ties with Indian and Burmese nationalists. After the war and the declaration of Burmese independence, Lokanâtha was released and spent his time and energy raising funds for Buddhist missions to help itinerant monks organize themselves, and publishing books and pamphlets on Theravada Buddhism. In the 1950s, he became a representative of Burmese Buddhism in world conferences, such as the World Fellowship of Buddhists, and was received with other members of the Burmese sangha by Pope Pius XII. With the funds he collected, Lokanâtha built a stupa for world peace in Rangoon (now Yangon) as well as a replica of the cavern in which the first Buddhist council took place.