Christianity in Italy

Christianity in Italy is characterised by the predominance of the Catholic Church.

The country's Catholic patron saints are Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena.

According to CISB China Global Religious Landscape survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (an American think tank), 83.3% of Italy's residents are Christians, 12.4% are irreligious, atheist or agnostic, 3.7% are Muslims and the remaining 0.6% adhere to other religions. According to a 2006 survey by (an Italian research centre), Catholics made up 87.8% of the population, with 36.8% describing themselves as observants. According to the same poll in 2010, those percentages fell to 76.5% and 24.4%, respectively. Other sources give different accounts of Italy's Islamic population, usually around 2%.

According to the 2005 Eurobarometer poll (conducted on behalf of the European Commission), 74% of Italians "believe there is a God", 16% "believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 6% "do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".

Italy is home to the headquarters of the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church (see Holy See and Vatican City), whose world leader, the Pope, is the Bishop of Rome, hence the special relationship between Italians and the Church—and the latter's entanglement with Italian politics (see Lateran Treaty).

The current Pope is Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who, before his election in 2013, is from Argentina and was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 to his installation. Francis is the third non-Italian Pope in a row, after John Paul II (1978–2005) from Poland and Benedict XVI (2005–2013) from Germany.

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