The role of Mario Piacentini and Mario Falco in the drafting of the Italian fascist laws on religious minorities and Jewish communities, highlighting the danger of nationalism for the freedom of religion or belief.

The contribution aims to demonstrate how the thesis that sees racism in the genetic code of fascism finds a clear counter-proof in ecclesiastical politics of the Mussolini era; and it shows that the fascist ecclesiastical policy finds its ideological roots in the nationalism of the first decade of the twentieth century, in which the forces that pressed for the protection of national identity soon came to see with suspicion the religious minorities existing in Italy.