Maria Antonia
PAIANO

 
The project aims to deepen the knowledge of the relationship between religious conservatism and the political Right in contemporary Europe through an in-depth historical study of the ‘New Liturgical Movement’, known in France as the ‘Reform of the Reform’ movement. The latter defined its profile in the course of the 1990s as a connecting area of Catholic circles from different countries (at first European and later also American), which were critical of the Second Vatican Council (and in particular its liturgical reform) but nevertheless reconciled with Rome after Marcel Lefebvre's schism (1988). In particular, it is intended to reconstruct the activity, profile and relations (also on the political side) of Catholic religious groups and communities with a traditionalist (and more broadly ‘traditional’) orientation in the diocese of Lyons during the episcopate of Cardinal Albert Decourtray (1981-1994), who seemed attentive to the perspective of the ‘Reform of the Reform’.

Maria Paiano is a professor of Christian history and ecclesiastical history at the University of Florence. She holds a PhD in the history of religions from the University of Bologna and conducts research on the relationship between religion, politics and society, with a particular focus on contemporary Catholicism.