Some preliminary remarks on the impact of COVID-19 on the exercise of religious freedom in the United States and Italy

The so-called lockdown, imposed to restrain (or at least limit) the spread of COVID-19, has, in the over four seemingly endless months since it started, had an overwhelming impact not only on our personal lives, but also on domestic regulatory frameworks. Legal systems responded individually, and with differences to the pandemic emergency, ranging from a complete interruption of the collective exercise of religious worship (Italy), to a more cautious recognition of forms of religious accommodation (United States). The present paper compares the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the exercise of religious freedom in the United States and the Italian legal contexts, and investigates how the pandemic crisis emphasized underlying judicial, political, sociocultural, and economic challenges, giving rise to a tension between competing rights and exacerbating concerns about the “special” role of religion. As the COVID situation is changing so rapidly in the United States, in Italy, and around the world, I clarify that the information in the present paper relates at the situation as at the end of June 2020.