Closing down churches, or just the buildings

MADRID, 1/15/08

Concern over new legislation being considered in Catalonia governing the opening and use of places of worship continues to grow. The law is confusing because it does not distinguish between places of worship which already exist, and new ones. This means an anti-clerical Mayor, or one with any kind of political agenda, could close churches that have been open for hundreds of years.

Another regulation contained in the new law is that when licences are granted, preference will be given to “multi-faith” centres. This is not only absurd, but clearly discriminatory against any place of worship which represents one religious community. The law also talks about the “temporary occupation of a public street” which, if included in legislation on places of worship, in effect restricts the freedom of speech and religious practice. A Council could easily use such legislation to ban outdoor evangelism, concerts with Christian content, or indeed any event of a religious nature.

Another consideration is whether or not the authorities may determine what is, and what is not, a meeting-place with ´religious aims´. According to existing legislation, such a decision can only be made by the religious group themselves, and not by a local Council. Neither can the regional assembly decide when a building becomes, or ceases to be, a place of worship. This has important fiscal consequences, as recognised religious communities are exempt from certain taxes.

The Christian pressure group, ´E-Cristians´, is also challenging the authorities on two other fronts. It claims that recent education regulations introduced in Catalonia break the Spanish Constitution and European human rights law on the grounds that the State must not indoctrinate, and has also lodged a complaint about the 400,000 leaflets on under-age sex that the authorities want to hand out in schools, hospitals and other public buildings.

Lleida, Girona, Salt and Badalona are four places where Evangelicals have already suffered some kind of opposition from the local authorities. Last month, Salt Council (Salt is a town in Gerona Province) closed an Evangelical church building due to the fact that it did not possess the now notorious “licence to operate”. Jaume Torrado, the Church´s pastor, comments: “It seems that certain politicians, either ignorant of or deliberately dismissive of the real legal arguments, have set out on a witch-hunt in classic Francoist style.” Torrado speaks of what he calls “democratic repression” to describe the recent wave of Evangelical Church closures across Spain.

At the end of the day, the authorities can close church buildings, but they cannot close the Church, nor prevail against it.

(Source: Forum Libertas / ACPress.net)


Immigrants changing religious map of Spain

LA CORUÑA, January, 2008

One of the effects of the large numbers of immigrants entering Spain is the rapid increase in the number of religious groups. Most of the 14,000 registered religious organisations are Catholic, but those representing minority faiths are growing fast.

Spain is Roman Catholic by history and tradition, at least over the past five hundred years, but is becoming less so. Not just because the number of atheists is growing, up to 4.9% of the population at the latest count, nor yet that of agnostics, now at 11.7%, but because there is a proliferation of non-Catholic religious groups. In 2005, according to government figures, there were 12,453 Catholic organisations (today up to 12,585), while non-Catholic groups totalled 1,388 in 2005, but are up to 1,895 today.

Most of these non-Catholic groups are Protestant or Evangelical, but there are also Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist, Jehovah´s Witnesses and Mormon groups. And the figure is set to rise, not least because of the recent government decision to recognise the Scientology ´Church´ as a legal entity, with the same rights as all other recognised groups.

Despite all the growth, it is somewhat amusing to discover that if one adds up the number of followers claimed by each group, it comes to a figure higher than the total population of Spain, although there may be people who claim to practice more than one religion. In round numbers, the Spanish population is 44 million, of whom 34 million are officially Catholic. However, it is impossible to know how many of them are actually still in the Catholic Church in any meaningful way, given that the Catholic Church doesn´t recognise apostates. Government figures suggest about half of all Catholics are non-practising.

Behind the Catholics come the Muslims, who number over a million in Spain at present, and the Protestants, who represent a community of about 400,000 people, which has increased considerably in recent years with the huge wave of immigration from Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. The Federation of Evangelical Organisations calculates that there are a further 800,000 foreign Protestants who live in Spain for at least six months a year, most of them from northern Europe. This would put Protestants in second place, with a total of around 1.2 million.

There are about 40,000 Jews in Spain, and 9,000 practising Buddhists, as well as all those people who follow other minority faiths. The Scientology group claim to have around 10,000 followers in Spain.

(Source: La Voz de Galicia / ACPress.net)


Third wave of secularization washes over Spain

MADRID, February 10, 2008

Religious practice is on the wane. In 1998, 83.5% of Spaniards called themselves Catholics. By 2007, this figure had fallen to 77%. Despite the drop, one could still think of Spain as a Catholic country, yet more than half of these supposedly ´Catholic´ people almost never attend Mass (56% of them), while 17% go most Sundays, as the concept of ´practice´ would suggest, or more regularly.

Overall, the proportion of practicing Catholics, of those who call themselves Catholics, has fallen from 79% in 1974, to just 24% in 2005. According to a survey carried out in 2002, 68% never follow what the Church says on political issues, 65% turn a deaf ear on sexual teaching, while 61% ignore Church teaching on marriage and relationships. 46% see christening as a custom not a requirement, and 55% say their religious beliefs play little or no part when it comes to making important decisions.

Alfonso Pérez-Agote, Sociology lecturer at Madrid University, says we are experiencing the third wave of secularization in Europe. The first occurred during the 19th century and lasted until the Spanish Civil War. The second washed over from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s. The third wave is upon us today. People born and brought up under the second wave do not feel Catholicism is part of their culture. Many feel uncomfortable with having been christened, and want to leave the Catholic Church. The social value of ´having your children done´ is diminishing all the time. Marriage used to be the legitimization of sexual relations but this view began to be eroded in the 1980s. People didn’t ´need´ to get married to have sex, so started getting married when they had children instead. Now many people don’t even get married then.

Young people aged between 15 and 24 who call themselves ´agnostics´, ´atheists´ or ´indifferent´ make up 46% of this age-bracket. Only 10% say they are practicing Catholics. Catholic religion and culture is losing ground in the new Spain.

(Source: El País / ACPress.net)

Express divorce leads to record-breaking break-ups

MADRID, February 10, 2008

If evidence were required to back up claims that secularization is gaining ground, then the rocketing divorce rate provides just that. In the first nine months of 2007, there were twice as many divorces as in the whole of 2004, and more than in 2005.

The idea of ´till death us do part´ has become an attainable utopia for many. The new ´express divorce´, passed in the second year of the current government’s term, has led to marital separation records being smashed. Last year left more than 100,000 couples on the rocks of the divorce courts. The ´express´ part is not that couples are rushing to get away from each other at an ever increasing rate, but that the period of reflection between separation and divorce, has been done away with for those who want to go straight for divorce.

Things get worse. Apart from divorces, both those where an amicable arrangement is reached, and those which are acrimonious and contested, there are separations and annulled marriages. In 2005, 135,121 couples decided to end their relationships, and if the trend continues that figure will pass 150,000 when the full figures for 2007 are known. Since the ´express divorce´ law came into force, divorce petitions have increased while those for separation have dropped. It seems easier to get out altogether in one go. In 2007, the regions with the highest number of break-ups were Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia.

(Source: La Razón / ACPress.net)