Democrazia: rischio di arretramento e opportunità di partecipazione

The relationship between democracy and the social doctrine of the Church is long and complex. The aim of this article is to reconstruct some of its chapters in order to contextualise the current heated debate on the future of contemporary political regimes. Starting from a speech given by Pope Francis in Athens, an excursus is proposed among various documents of the Magisterium of the Popes, from the last decades of the 19th century to the present day. On the basis of this reconstruction, the final section identifies three issues that could be studied and addressed through a «friendly» dialogue between social doctrine and political theory: democratic regression, the affirmation of an illiberal trend, and the link between representation and participation.