I just got an excited and bubbly E-mail from the wife of one of the former mission presidents in Rome during the time I lived there. They're really nice folks, of course, just royally annoying with their particular drippy form of Mormonism. Anyway, she sent pictures and everything of the artists' renditions of the temple. Then I went on-line to the "Intellectual Reserve" (i.e., corporation of the church) web site to read their declaration about the church's history in Italy. Naturally it's mostly bullshit, but here's the scary part:

"With legal recognition still stalled in Parliament in late 2009, the Church took the step of hiring a Washington, D.C., lobbyist to help push through the approval. A. Elizabeth Jones, a former high-level State Department employee and ambassador to Kazakhstan, who is now an executive vice president at APCO Worldwide, is lobbying the U.S. embassy in Italy to support the Church's application. The intesa—an Italian term referring to an "understanding" with the government—would carry certain privileges including facilitating the authorization of bishops to perform civilly recognized marriages and making the renewal of visas for missionaries easier.8

On May 13, 2010, the Italian Cabinet, or Council of Ministers, approved an intesa with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, granting the Church Italy's highest status given to religions. This action elevates the legal recognition of the Church from charitable foundation to official religion. Just a few more formalities remain before the intesa becomes law."

This is why in my subject line I say "those poor Italians." You see, with the "intesa" in force, the LDS church would be able to not allow members to have a civil ceremony first that would include relatives, as in the rest of Europe. Actually, I doubt that the Italian members wouldn't stand for it, since they're used to a civil ceremony with all the family, then going to the temple for the temple so-called marriage. Still, if the parliament grants the intesa, I bet that church authorities would come down hard on Italian members to toe the line and exclude their family. If so, my guess is that there would be backlash, but that's just a guess.

Note the part where the church hired a lobbyist to push through the Italian approval. So typically corporate.