a patriotic atmosphere permeated by Mazzinian references." Religion Influenced by his Jansenist upbringing, Mazzini's thought is characterized by a strong religious fervour and a deep sense of spirituality. A deist who believed in divine providence, Mazzini described himself as a Christian and emphasized the necessity of faith and a relationship with God while vehemently denouncing atheism and rationalism. His motto was Dio e Popolo ("God and People"). Mazzini regarded patriotism as a duty and love for the fatherland as a divine mission, stating that the fatherland was "the home wherein God has placed us, among brothers and sisters linked to us by the family ties of a common religion, history, and language." According to A. James Gregor, "Mazzini's creed for the New Age thus radically distinguished itself from the orthodox Marxism of the nineteenth century. His Socialism was alive with moral purpose, rather than class identity, infused with exalted intent and specifically inspired by a sense of national, rather than class, mission. It saw itself, unabashedly, as a new religion, a 'climb through philosophy to faith.' It was a religion predicated on a 'living faith in one God, one Law, general and immutable ... and one End." In his 1835 publication Fede e avvenire ("Faith and the Future"), Mazzini wrote: "We must rise again as a religious party. The religious element is universal and immortal. ... The initiators of a new world, we are bound to lay the foundations of a moral unity, a Humanitarian Catholicism." However, Mazzini's relationship with the Catholic Church and the Papacy was not always a kind one. While he initially supported Pope Pius IX upon his election, writing an open letter to him in 1847, Mazzini later published a scathing attack against the pope in his Sull'Enciclica di Papa Pio IX ("On the Encyclical of Pope Pius IX") in 1849. Although some of his religious views were at odds with the Catholic Church and the Papacy, with his writings often tinged with anti-clericalism, Mazzini also criticized Protestantism, stating that it is "divided and subdivided into a thousand sects, all founded on the rights of individual conscience, all eager to make war on one another, and perpetuating that anarchy of beliefs which is the sole true cause of the social and political disturbances that torment the peoples of Europe." Thought and action Mazzini rejected the concept of the "rights of man" which had developed during the