Stefano Martelli

This article offers some data and reflexions collected by two sociological researches led in an area of North Italy: Bologna and its land (2001-2002). In the first research the object was the socioreligious practices of piety to the tombs in four cemeteries of the Diocese (one cemetery in the town of Bologna, two in the country and one in the mountaine). In a second time a survey about the ways to celebrate funerals was led in all the parishes of the town, which is the most secularized area in the Diocese. The collected findings show the persistence in the bolognese population of the social practices to commemorate the deads, and the large diffusion of christian simbols; yet one can note a lot of difficulties in the transmission to children of these practices, so that visit to the cemetery of young people are infrequent. Furthermore one can note a differentiation in the funerals: less people asks the mass celebrated in its parish and more people prefers the simple blessing, given to the dead in the chapel of the hospital or of the cemetery. These difficulties in the socialization arise some questions on the future of the cult of deads in this secularized area, while one can note a lot of socio-cultural changes, as the «naturalization of the death», or its rimotion from the “post”-modern culture, and the presence of religious minorities, as muslims; and all these tendences are new challenges to the Catholic church.