One-Hundred Years of Solitude : Mormonism in Italy, 1867-1964
International Journal of Mormon Studies
2011
4
United Kingdom
International Journal of Mormon Studies
2011
119-148
"After establishing one of the first non-Roman Catholic missions in Italy in 1850, less than two decades later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recalled its missionaries and had no official presence in the peninsula for 100 years. Traditionally, the explanation for this has focused primarily on the domestic situation in Italy, including a combination of economic hardship, cultural disinclination, political and especially religious opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which prevented Mormon missionaries from finding success initially, and from returning subsequently. While these factors influences the decision to abandon Italy, the absence of the LDS church from 1867 to 1964 was less a product of circumstances in Italy, and more a result of historical events in the heartland of Mormonism and of cultural attitudes regarding Italians and Roman Catholicism which were widespread among Mormons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." [AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT]