Editing Italian Americans (section)

===Religion===
[[File:Anthony of Padua RCC cloudy jeh.jpg|thumb|left|[[St. Anthony of Padua Church (Manhattan)|St. Anthony of Padua Church]] in New York was established in 1859 as the first parish in the United States formed specifically to serve the Italian immigrant community.]]

The majority of Italian Americans are [[Catholic Church|Catholics]], although Catholic affiliation among Italian American adults has fallen from 89 percent in 1972 to 56 percent in 2010 (-33 percentage points).<ref name="Nineteen Sixty-four">{{cite web |date=July 8, 2011 |title=An Italian American Mystery |url=http://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2011/07/italian-american-mystery.html |access-date=May 31, 2021 |website=nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com |publisher=Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at [[Georgetown University]]}}</ref> By 1910, Italian Americans had founded 219 Catholic churches and 41 parochial schools, served by 315 priests and 254 nuns, 2 Catholic seminaries, and 3 orphanages.<ref>''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', Vol. 8, 1910</ref> Four hundred Italian Jesuit priests left Italy for the American West between 1848 and 1919. Most of these Jesuits left their homeland involuntarily, expelled by Italian nationalists in the successive waves of Italian unification that dominated Italy. When they came to the West, they ministered to Native Americans in the Northwest, Irish-Americans in San Francisco, and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. They also ran the nation's most influential Catholic seminary, in Woodstock, Maryland. In addition to their pastoral work, they founded numerous high schools and colleges, including [[Regis University]], [[Santa Clara University]], the [[University of San Francisco]], and [[Gonzaga University]].<ref>Gerald McKevitt ''BROKERS OF CULTURE, ITALIAN JESUITS IN THE AMERICAN WEST, 1848–1919'' (Stanford University Press, 2007). See review of book by John T. McGreevy ("Off A Distant Land") in ''AMERICA'', 7, May 2007, 30–31.</ref>

[[File:Fr_Demo_Church_jeh.JPG|thumb|[[Our Lady of Pompeii Church (Manhattan)|Our Lady of Pompeii Church]] in New York was founded in 1892 as a national parish to serve Italian-American immigrants who settled in Greenwich Village.]]

While most Italian American families have a Catholic background, about 19 percent self-identified as [[Protestant]] in 2010.<ref name="Nineteen Sixty-four" /> In the early 20th century, about 300 Protestant missionaries worked in urban Italian American neighborhoods. Some have joined the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]], which still retains much of the Catholic [[liturgy|liturgical]] form. Some have converted to [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] churches. [[Fiorello La Guardia]] was raised Episcopalian; his father was Catholic, and his mother was from the small but significant community of [[Italian Jews]]. There is a small [[Charismatic Movement|charismatic]] denomination, known as the [[Christian Church of North America]], which is rooted in the Italian [[Pentecostalism|Pentecostal Movement]] that originated in [[Chicago]] in the early 20th century. A group of Italian immigrants in [[Trenton, New Jersey]], and [[Wakefield, Massachusetts]], built their own small Baptist chapel and converted to the [[Baptists|Baptist]] denomination. [[The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)]], a denomination of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]], which is headquartered in [[Monongahela, Pennsylvania]], counts significant numbers of Italian Americans in its leadership and membership.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Form |first1=William |year=2000 |title=Italian Protestants: Religion, Ethnicity, and Assimilation |journal=Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=307–320 |doi=10.1111/0021-8294.00026 |jstor=1387816}}</ref> The town of [[Valdese, North Carolina]], was founded in 1893 by a group of Italians of [[Waldensian]] religion, originally from the [[Cottian Alps]] in Italy.

==== Italian Jews ====
{{See also|Italian Jews}}

[[File:Segre.jpg|thumb|354x354px|[[Emilio Segrè]], who was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in 1959, was among the Italian Jews who emigrated to the United States after Mussolini's regime implemented an anti-semitic legislation.]]

The Jewish emigration from Italy was never at a level that resulted in the formation of Italian Jewish communities in the United States.  Religious Italian Jews integrated into existing Jewish communities without difficulty, especially in [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardic]] communities, and those who were secular found Jewish secular institutions in the United States ready to welcome them. Despite their small numbers, Italian American Jews have had a great influence on American life,<ref>Jack Nusan Porter, "Italian American Jews," in ''The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia'', ed. Salvatore J. LaGumina (New York: Garland, 2000), pp.302–303.</ref> starting with [[Lorenzo Da Ponte]] (born ''Emanuele Conegliano''), Mozart's former librettist, opera impresario and the first professor of Italian at [[Columbia University|Columbia College]] in New York, where he lived from 1805 to his death in 1838.

From a religious point of view, the figure of greatest influence is Rabbi [[Sabato Morais]], who, at the end of the 19th century, was the leader of the large Sephardic community of Philadelphia. In 1886, he became one of the founders of the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] in New York, where he became its first dean. Two other Italian Jews achieved prominence in the United States in the first half of the 20th century: [[Giorgio Polacco]] was the principal conductor of the [[Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center)|Metropolitan Opera House]] (1915–1917) and the [[Chicago Civic Opera]] (1921–1930), and [[Fiorello La Guardia]] was a member of the U.S. Congress (1917–1919 and 1923–1933) and a popular mayor of New York (1934–1945). A descendant on his mother's side of the great Italian rabbi [[Samuel David Luzzatto]], La Guardia could address his constituency in both Italian and [[Yiddish]].

Under [[Mussolini]]'s [[Italian Racial Laws|Racial Laws]] of 1938, Italian Jews, who had lived in Italy for over two millennia, were stripped of most of their civil liberties. Finding refuge in the United States as a result of the fascist persecutions during the 1930s and 1940s, roughly 2,000 Italian Jews landed in America and continued their work in a wide range of fields.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Italian Jewish Exiles in America. An Overview by Gianna Pontecorboli |url=https://primolevicenter.org/the-italian-jewish-exiles-in-america-an-overview-by-gianna-pontecorboli/ |access-date=May 31, 2021 |publisher=Centro Primo Levi New York}}</ref> Many achieved international importance, including [[Giorgio Levi Della Vida]], [[Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco]], [[Vittorio Rieti]], [[Bruno Rossi]], [[Emilio Segre]]
[[Giorgio Cavaglieri]], [[Ugo Fano]], [[Robert Fano]], [[Guido Fubini]], [[Eugene Fubini]], and [[Silvano Arieti]]. Of particular importance also are the contributions of the Italian Jewish women Maria Bianca Finzi-Contini, Bianca Ara Artom, and [[Giuliana Tesoro]], who opened the fields of university and scientific research to Italian American women. After the war, four Italian American Jews received the Nobel Prize: [[Franco Modigliani]], [[Emilio Segre]], [[Salvador Luria]], and [[Rita Levi Montalcini]]. Also of significance are the contributions of communication specialist [[Andrew Viterbi]], journalist and writer [[Ken Auletta]], and economist [[Guido Calabresi]]. The international recognition of the work of [[Primo Levi]] and other Italian-Jewish authors, such as [[Giorgio Bassani]] and [[Carlo Levi]], has increased the interest in the United States in Italian Judaism, as demonstrated by the opening in 1998 of the [[Primo Levi Center]] of New York.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Centro Primo Levi New York |url=https://primolevicenter.org/ |accessdate=March 3, 2024}}</ref>