The essence of the Catholic presence in Italian society is so pervasive to the point it has become almost invisible, natural, as the air we can breathe. It is no coincidence that a significant portion of the historiography of the modern state has devoted its attention to earlier periods, especially the XV and XVI centuries, when the modern state was born in the major European monarchies, leaving Italy behind. The historiography of the Catholic Church, many times, also focused its attention on the heresy and the debate before the Trent Council, and not the Church that came to be consolidated in the later period. It would be good, to ask not so much about what was said or thought about the relationship between laics and Catholics, or between institutions of state and church authorities. I propose some questions about the effects on the common sense on the politicy and justice that the parallel presence of the State and the Church produced in the mentality of people, convinced that there is a Catholic anthropology. It makes common sense the third main character in the relation´s story between state and church.
Catholicism; Italian society; political system; legal system.