Posts By: admin

Escape from Catholic Religion Instruction Isn’t Stopping

The UAAR has once again knocked on the door of the Ministry of Education and Merit and the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano with a general civic access, recovering data on attendance at Catholic religious education (IRC) in Italian state schools. Students who chose not to attend religious education, which are still archaically and disrespectfully called “exempted,” reached a record number of 1,164,000 (+68,000), rising from an average of 15.5% in 2022/23 to 16.62% in 2023/24. Analyzing the provincial… Read more »

Five years of Advance Treatment Directives

Five years to celebrate, but UAAR reports that something isn’t adding up: municipalities aren’t promptly sending updated data on living wills to the Ministry of Health. February 1, 2025, marked an important anniversary. Five years ago, in 2020, the Database of Advance Treatment Directives, also known as living wills, was established. The Ministry of Health’s database, which should contain the advance treatment directives filed by Italian citizens, however, does not reflect the country’s true end-of-life situation. The Union of Rationalist… Read more »

The most clerical region of the year? This time it’s Lazio

Bishops blessing schools, hospital wards, and sections of highways; institutional representatives attending Masses and religious events; rivers of money flowing from state coffers to flood those of dioceses and parishes: the year now drawing to a close, in obsequious continuity with previous years, has also been a flourish of “clericalism.” This is the picture that emerges from “Clericalata della settimana”, the section of the website of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), which monitors the actions and statements… Read more »

UAAR Donates Books to Support the Alternative Activity Program

The 2024/25 edition of the campaign “Books for Those Who Have a Right to Them” has officially begun. State primary schools that apply can receive textbooks to distribute to children participating in the Alternative Activity program. After a year, the UAAR (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics) is once again donating textbooks in order to support the Alternative Activity program. Such a program serves to provide an alternative to Catholic religious instruction in Italian state primary schools. While the imposition… Read more »

8×1000 State Funds for School Buildings: UAAR Publishes the Data

Given the Government’s culpable and “religious” silence, the UAAR (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics) has made all information about school building projects which are funded by the 8×1000 state allocation easily accessible. An interesting fact emerges from analyzing the allocation rankings for 8×1000 state funds earmarked for “School Building” projects: over €20 million will ultimately be allocated to the renovation of public schools. A total of 57 school buildings will benefit from such a funding which will be directed… Read more »

UAART Prize 2024: Guido Mitidieri is the Winner of the First Edition

The conceptual artist and Florentine architect Guido Mitidieri is the winner of the inaugural UAART Prize with his diptych Agony of Identity (2020). The winning artwork was selected by a professional jury of over 280 entries and seven finalists. Promoted by the social promotion association UAAR (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics), the aforementioned competition—which was open to all forms of visual art—aims to construct a secular imagery which surrounds themes of death and grief. Mitidieri’s work was deemed as… Read more »

Flooding in Emilia-Romagna: 77 Out of 100 Voters Want the Region and Municipalities to Use 8×1000 Funds

Citizens within the Emilia-Romagna region wish for institutions to promote the “State / Natural Disasters” option within the 8×1000 tax allocation. Therefore, such citizens are calling on whoever will govern the region to actively coordinate and support the municipalities that are affected by the floods in accessing the 8×1000 funds. Solely six days before the regional elections, these are the results from a BiDiMedia survey which was commissioned by the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR). The sample on… Read more »

The “Family Portraits” Campaign Begins, With UAAR Joining In

Today marks the launch of the “Family Portraits” campaign, a campaign that takes place both online and in the streets of Rome. The aforementioned campaign is organized by an informal network of civil society associations. This campaign restores the term “family” to its broadest meaning, aiming to reflect the real-life experiences of people. Indeed, families are diverse, fluid, chosen and varied. By utilizing social media, billboards and moving images our aim is to represent the diversity and plurality of relationships… Read more »