The negative perception of Italians of their state has been formed by the deep conflict between Church and state that emerged during the Napoleonic occupation of Italy and reached its peak with Italian unification in the late nineteenth century. To the Vatican, territorial integration of the Italian nation state posed an existential threat, both at the political level (loss of territory) and at the spiritual level (diffusion of liberalism). From unification onwards the Vatican did all it could to harm the legitimacy of the Italian state. This chapter analyzes the Vatican strategy to delegitimize the Italian state and its right to tax. It shows how the willingness of Italians to pay their taxes still suffers today from the Church–state conflict.
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