Funding to the Italian Catholic Church from the Italian state includes direct funding and other types of economic and financial burdens, including:
the otto per mille (Eight per thousand, shares allocated and distribution of unallocated shares) funding for non-State-owned Catholic schools and universities differentiated funding and contracting for Catholic religious education teachers in public schools funding for Catholic media funding for infrastructure owned and used by the Vatican State funding for religious assistance in public hospitals tax exemptions and concessions
These funds and charges are arranged both by bilateral agreements held by the Italian Republic and the Vatican State, such as the Lateran Pacts and related revisions (Agreement of Villa Madama) and customs conventions, and by Italian national and local laws.
Education and research
Pubblic non State-owned catholic schools
Non-State-owned schools, about 63 percent of which are run by the Catholic Church, currently receive public money in the form of:
direct subsidies, for the management of preschools and elementary school
funding of projects aimed at raising the quality and effectiveness of educational offerings in middle and high schools grants to families ("school vouchers" for schools of all grades).
Funding is delegated from the State to the administrative regions by Legislative Decree No. 112 of 32/03/2021, Art. 138, in which the scope of contributions to non-State-owned schools is delegated.
Article 33 of the Italian Constitution
Article 33 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic affirms that "Institutions and private individuals have the right to establish schools and educational institutions, without charge to the State."
This article has several political interpretations, including mainly:
the State, while recognizing the right to establish non-State-owned schools, cannot and should not bear any kind of burden of non-State-owned schools the State must support families' freedom of choice of educational institution by funding non-State-owned schools in the same way as public schools
However, since 1992 various national and regional laws, decrees and ministerial circulars (including DM 261/98, DM 279/99, law 62/2000, DM 27/2005) have established direct and indirect funding for non-State-owned schools.
It has also been pointed out that the average cost of educating a student in a non-State-owned school, compared with that of a State school, is lower. This difference in average expenditure, assuming zero fixed costs, would result in savings of 6 billion euros annually to the Italian state.
Direct grants
Ministerial Decree 261/98 and Ministerial Decree 279/99 (Minister of Education Luigi Berlinguer, Democrats of the Left), consolidated in the single law text «Concessione di contributi alle scuole secondarie legalmente riconosciute e pareggiate» (Granting of contributions to legally recognized and peer secondary schools) are the regulatory bases that allow the regular granting of funding to non-State-owned schools.
The D'Alema bis government's Law 62/2000 ratified the full entry of non-State-owned schools into the national education system, which must therefore be treated equally to state schools in economic terms as well. The law also provides:
the application also to non state-owned schools of the tax treatment reserved for nonprofit entities, if they meet the requirements of Article 10 of Legislative Decree No. 460 of December 4, 1997 (art. 8) the de facto establishment of state school vouchers (funding of 300 billion lire as of 2001) (art. 12) the increase of 60 billion lire in the funding for grants for the maintenance of parochial elementary schools (art. 13) the increase of 280 billion lire in the appropriation for the costs of participation in the implementation of the integrated pre-school system (art.13) the appropriation of a fund of 7 billion liras for schools accommodating the disabled (art. 14), since for Italian schools the accommodation of the disabled is mandatory
In 2005 the amount of grants to non state-owned was 527 million euros (circolare ministeriale 38/2005).
Buoni scuola
The Buoni scuola ("school grants") was sat up in 2000 by second D'Alema government by law 62/2000 (art. 9–12) regarding school equality with a special funding that providing an amount of 250 mln liras (about 130 thousand euros) for the year 2000 and 300 mln liras (about 160 thousand euros) per year starting from year 2001, put into law by second Berlusconi government by the law 289/2002 (art. 2, com. 7) that sat up a spending cap of 30 mln euros for the three-year period 2003–2005.