Citation: Guglielmi, M.; Breskaya, O.; Sbalchiero, S. Catholic Parishes and Immigrants in Italy: Insights from the Congregations Study in Three Italian Cities. Societies 2024, 14, 77. https:// doi.org/10.3390/soc14060077 Academic Editor: Gregor Wolbring Received: 31 January 2024 Revised: 23 May 2024 Accepted: 28 May 2024 Published: 29 May 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). societies Article Catholic Parishes and Immigrants in Italy: Insights from the Congregations Study in Three Italian Cities Marco Guglielmi * , Olga Breskaya and Stefano Sbalchiero Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padova, 35123 Padova, Italy; olga.breskaya@unipd.it (O.B.); stefano.sbalchiero@unipd.it (S.S.) * Correspondence: marco.guglielmi@unipd.it Abstract: As shown by sociological studies, the Catholic Church in Italy is very active in conducting advocacy and providing political representation to immigrants. It is also highly effective in carrying out services for immigrants, as well as fairly receptive to sharing places of worship with them. However, these sociological observations have been mainly conducted at the national level rather than by exploring the life of parishes through an empirical lens. This article aims, by applying the congregations study methodology, to fill this gap by detecting faith communities as the basic social units of religious life at the city/country level. In doing that, we discuss quantitative data collected in 377 Catholic parishes in the cities of Bologna, Milan, and Brescia. The findings suggest that Catholic parishes: (i) illustrate a low proportion of immigrants in their communities; (ii) show high activity in providing services for immigrants; (iii) are not politically engaged in advocacy for foreign persons at the local level; and (iv) similarly position themselves as politically conservative and liberal while expressing commitments to immigrants. This study confirms the sociological argument regarding the solidarity approach of the Catholic Church in Italy toward immigrants, while highlighting some ambivalent aspects related to cultural diversity and grass-roots political engagement within parishes’ life. Keywords: Catholic parishes; congregations study; cultural diversity; immigrants; Italy; political engagement 1. Introduction According to sociological studies [1], the Catholic Church in Europe is largely engaged with immigrants, mobilizing itself for material assistance and addressing the main chal- lenges through various networks and organizations. In this scenario, the Catholic Church in Italy is very active in conducting advocacy and providing political representation to immigrants. It is also highly effective in carrying out services to foreign persons, as well as fairly receptive to granting them spaces in their own places of worship. However, these sociological observations have been shaped in the literature [2–5] mainly through the elab- oration of a national level of study and a theoretic angle rather than by exploring empirical evidence at the parish level. The National Congregations Study (NCS) approach provides the opportunity to fill this gap, since it is designed to analyze faith communities as the basic social units of religious life [6]. On the other hand, by detecting religious communities as formal organizational entities through the administration of a questionnaire [7], the NCS revealed some critical issues—as we will discuss in the article. It actually captures practices and stances within the life of parishes or congregations, but it neglects the activities of diocesan offices, goal-oriented religious institutions, and informal/formal associations related to parishes. The congregations study presented in the article examines empirical data collected in 2020–2021 in 377 Catholic parishes in the cities of Bologna, Milan, and Brescia as well as their surrounding municipalities; however, the entire survey addressed more than 500 con- gregations belonging to different religious traditions. This article starts with the outline of Societies 2024, 14, 77. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14060077 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies