Il volontario cristiano nelle Ong italiane. Un’identità in bilico tra radicamento evangelico, appartenenza alla Chiesa e processi di istituzionalizzazione (1979-1990)

The 1980s marked a period of profound crisis for Italy’s Catholic- based international solidarity organisations. Between 1979 and 1985, new legislation granted non-governmental organisations (NGOs) formal recognition and access to substantial public funding. This placed them in an unprecedented situation: for some, it represented the risk of compromising the purity of their founding ideals, while for others, it was seen as an important acknowledgment of the expertise gained in the field of international cooperation. The debate that followed focused above all on the very identity of international Christian volunteering, which at the beginning of the decade found itself confronted with an international, social and religious context radically different from the one that had animated passions and ideals in previous decades.