hinduwoman

According to

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archive...997-9-18.shtml

Hinduism is not recognized as a official religion by Italian government. So Hindu organizations do not have tax-deductible status. Conversions and name changes to Hindu names cannot be legalized. Apparently Buddhists are not recognized either.
True, or does it extend to all non-Catholic religions?

The Other Michael

Hi hinduwoman,

When I went to Italy a couple of years ago I was traveling with people associated with either Church of God or Church of Christ (whichever one is associated with Harding University). At dinner with some of their Italian friends/coreligionists they were discussing the problems their local congregations had with the Italian bureaucracy. The Catholic Church is, as you might suspect, really entrenched after all these centuries, and there are laws that are very much slanted towards giving the Catholics benefits that are denied to other Christian sects/other religions.

So it wouldn't surprise me that they've decided to discount anything non-Christian, since even small Christian sects that aren't Catholic have problems.

cheers,
Michael

BioBeing

Church of Christ. My wife's alma mater/church

catmar

Hey - can't complain too much about Italy, though. Thanks to the influence of the church, we have some pretty good repressed Catholic directors of Italian horror/giallo movies - Dario Argento, Fulci, Bava just to name a few!