The article examines the evolution of the historiographical literature on political Catholicism in Italy and its relations with Catholic lay organisations, parishes, the episcopacy, the Vatican curia, and the papacy. Focusing on the post-1960s literature and adopting a three-phased periodization (1970-1985, 1985-2000, 2000-2017), the author analyses the main historical interpretations of the action of politically engaged Catholics in the two decades following the end of the Second World War. The review shows how the different interpretations of the relationship between Catholic political action and religion in Italy are influenced by transformations that have occurred in historiography, politics, and the Church after the Second Vatican Council, and observes an increasing reluctance to propose explicit interpretative frameworks, however provisional.
Keywords: Historiography, Italian political Catholicism, Catholic Church, lay associations, relationship between politics and religion, Second Vatican Council