Latest Council to give land for Evangelical Church
ERAS DE RENUEVA, LEÓN, 02/28/2007 (D. de León/ACPress.net)

Not all is doom and gloom for evangelicals in Spain when it comes to dealing with their local Councils. León Council in northern Spain has granted the local Evangelical Church a plot of land for them to build new church premises.

The Church has been given 3,000 square meters of land on which to construct a church and accompanying hall for other activities. The Christian Center will be able to undertake a wide range of activities, which their current building - in central León - does not permit them to do. The Church will hang on to their old building for other purposes.

Although León is largely a rural province, there are about 3,000 evangelical Christians, the highest number being concentrated in the regional capital. Christian work in León goes back to the early days of foreign missionary work in the 19th century. Other religious minority groups are now waiting on the Council to see if any land might be forthcoming for them, too.

Source: D. de León Editing: ACPress.net


Just over Half of Europe Regards Religion as Important
March, 2007 - LUXEMBOURG (ASSIST News Service)

In a recent survey conducted by the statistical agency of the European Union, Eurostat (Luxembourg), 53 percent regarded religion as a significant element of their lives. Approximately 46 percent of the 27,000 interviewees in the 27 EU member countries attach no importance to religion. But as about three quarters of the 453.6 million EU citizens claim affiliation with a religious community
this means that at least one in four are only nominal members. About 49.5 percent of all EU citizens are Catholics, 12.7 percent Protestants, 8.6 percent Orthodox, 15.7 percent Muslims, 0.4 percent Jews and 25.4 percent non-religious. The Eurostat survey found significant differences between individual member states. Religion is most important to the Maltese (88 percent), Poles (87 percent) as well as Cypriots, Greeks and Romanians (86 percent each). By contrast more than 70 percent of the population in Belgium and the Czech Republic regard religion as insignificant. In Germany the old East-West-divide is still reflected in religious attitudes. Whereas 53 percent of the population in the West say that religion is important, the figure is only 26 percent in the former Communist East. On the whole European women are more religious than men. Religion means a lot to 58 percent of the women but only 45 percent of the men.

Source: ASSIST News Service


Children getting 'in the way of my career'
Madrid, April 4th, 2007

Six out of ten Spanish women think having a child would prove an obstacle to their careers. 8% say that becoming a mother would lead to “discrimination” at work, while 21% agree that maternity would threaten their chances of promotion. These are some of the conclusions drawn from a survey of 10,000 women carried out last year by the Centre for Sociological Research. 28% of professionals who are mothers said they had to reduce their hours, a further 28% had to 'interrupt' their career for at least a year, while another 17% gave up their jobs to look after their children. 64% of those interviewed believe the ideal family model would be one in which both parents had jobs that occupied a similar amount of time, whereby they could share the task of looking after their children equally.

However, in real life, only 47% of them said they had experienced such a model. The older the women, the less their family situation corresponded to this 'ideal'. An even greater generational difference is the number of younger women who live with their partners without getting married. 90% of the over-45s did not live together until they got married, but this figure drops to 60% of those aged between 30 and 34, and falls below 40% among those aged between 25 and 29. Also a greater number of younger women have had children using IVF techniques.

Source: EFE Editing: ACPress.net


Losing the faith in Spain
Madrid, April 4th, 2007

Immigrants moving into the Madrid region generally integrate well, feel happy despite their minimal earnings, but gradually lose their religious beliefs, according to the second report on Social Integration of Immigrants carried out by the Francisco de Vitoria University Trust.

The survey is based on interviews with 1,124 immigrants from the top ten nation groups represented in the Spanish capital (Ecuador, Rumania, Morocco, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, China, Dominican Republic, Bulgaria and Argentina). The main trend noted in the survey is that most of them were positive about their integration, and about the lack of discrimination they faced. But the survey also found that the religious practice of immigrants tended to diminish after they arrived in Spain.

Most of them have a strong religious background but find it hard to maintain it in Spain. 86% of immigrants had a faith when they arrived, but a few years on only 69% still held to it, while 15% had lost it or were in the process of losing it. 9% had felt a rejection of their beliefs. The most common religions represented are Catholicisim, Islam and the Orthodox faith. The least religious of the groups is the Chinese, whilst the greatest proportionate loss of faith in any of the ten communities has been among Bulgarian immigrants.

The report was published to coincide with the World Day against Racism, and studied the effects of immigration among adults who had been in Spain at least 6 months. The average length of residency among all those interviewed was 5.3 years.

Source: Agencias Editing: ACPress.net