AHC: 1453 or Later- Pagan "Roman" Empire

Maybe after a French Revolution analogue, where the faith is the enemy and they return to Roman "traditions?"

The problem with that, though, is that nobody believed in the Roman pantheon any more, so worshipping them would have just come across as silly make-believe, kind of like how nobody took the obviously made-up Cult of the Supreme Being seriously.

Now, I guess deism is kind of like the philosophical paganism of late antiquity, so you could claim that a state with a deist leader would count. That would be the closest you could get, though, and most of the population would still be Christian anyway.
 
Mussolini goes even more crazy and actually declares Italy as "Rome Restored," even going so far as to re-establish old titles and entities. He manages to weasel his way out of WWII/no Hitler from butterflies, and he manages to see his Rome grow a bit in Africa before he dies and passes on his "republic" to an "adopted son," seeing himself as the second coming of Caesar.

This individual is like Himmler and has an obsession with old paganism, but this time Roman rather than Germanic. His cronies soon become invested in it to gain good graces with him and there are rumors the Imperator has converted officially. By his death, the "Senate" is almost totally "pagan."

Italy is a pariah state by this point and becomes almost like a more developed N. Korea with its propaganda levels (after losing Africa of course.) After a few Imperators, eventually one converts officially to the growing State Religion of Glorious Rome and a small percentage of the populace do as well to gain favor in government positions. Internal and international Catholic outrage begins and this is the first step in Rome's collapse, but you have your scenario completed.


Wait, this is pre-1900. Crap.

RUN! THE ADMINS ARE COMING!
 
Mussolini goes even more crazy and actually declares Italy as "Rome Restored," even going so far as to re-establish old titles and entities. He manages to weasel his way out of WWII/no Hitler from butterflies, and he manages to see his Rome grow a bit in Africa before he dies and passes on his "republic" to an "adopted son," seeing himself as the second coming of Caesar.

This individual is like Himmler and has an obsession with old paganism, but this time Roman rather than Germanic. His cronies soon become invested in it to gain good graces with him and there are rumors the Imperator has converted officially. By his death, the "Senate" is almost totally "pagan."

Italy is a pariah state by this point and becomes almost like a more developed N. Korea with its propaganda levels (after losing Africa of course.) After a few Imperators, eventually one converts officially to the growing State Religion of Glorious Rome and a small percentage of the populace do as well to gain favor in government positions. Internal and international Catholic outrage begins and this is the first step in Rome's collapse, but you have your scenario completed.


Wait, this is pre-1900. Crap.
Very hard anyway. Mussolini personally did not care for the Church at all, but he was willing to go out of his way to reach a compromise with the Holy See for political reasons, and proved good at it to be fair. After that, Catholicism was regarded as integral to the Fascist notion of Italian identity (even if Fascism clashed fundamentally with the most basic tenets of Christian ethics).
 
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