Religion in Spain - Attitudes

Attitudes

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005,

• 59% of Spanish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
• 21% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
• 19% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force."

While Roman Catholicism is still the largest religion in Spain, most Spaniards— and especially the younger— choose to ignore the Catholic teachings in morals, politics or sexuality, and do not attend Mass regularly. Agnosticism and Atheism enjoy social prestige, according to the general Western European secularization. Culture wars are far more related to politics than religion, and the huge lack of popularity of typically religion-related issues like Creationism prevent them from being used in such conflicts. Revivalist efforts by the Catholic Church and other creeds have not had any significant success out of their previous sphere of influence. According to the Eurobarometer 69 (2008), only 3% of Spaniards consider religion as one of their three most important values, even lower than the 7% European average.

Evidence of the secular nature of contemporary Spain can be seen in the widespread support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain — over 70% of Spaniards support gay marriage according to a 2004 study by the Centre of Sociological Research. Indeed, in June 2005 a bill was passed by 187 votes to 147 to allow gay marriage, making Spain the third country in the European Union to allow same-sex couples to marry. This vote was split along conservative-liberal lines, with Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and other left-leaning parties supporting the measure and People's Party against it. Proposed changes to the divorce laws to make the process quicker and to eliminate the need for a guilty party are also popular.

The recent waves of immigration, especially during and after the 1990s, have led to an increasing number of Muslims, who have about 1 million members. Nowadays, Islam is the second largest religion in Spain, after Roman Catholicism, accounting for approximately 2.5% of the total population. Hindus and Sikhs account for less than 0.3%. Other religious faiths represented in Spain include the Buddhist and Bahá'í Communities. Jews account for less than 1 percent of the population, mostly in Barcelona, Madrid and Murcia. Protestantism has also been boosted by immigration, but remains a small testimonial force among native Spaniards. Spain has been seen as a graveyard for foreign missionaries among Evangelical Protestants. Protestant churches have about 1,200,000 members.

Along with these waves of immigration, an important number of Latin American people, who are usually strong Catholic practitioners, have helped the Catholic Church to recover part of the attendance that regular Masses (Sunday Mass) used to have in the sixties and seventies and that was lost in the eighties among native Spaniards.

During the last decade, the involvement of the Catholic Church in politic affairs, through special groups such as Opus Dei, the Neocatechumenal Way or the Legion of Christ, especially personated through important politicians in the right-wing Partido Popular, has increased again. Old and new media, which are property of the Church, such as the COPE radio network, have also contributed to this new involvement in politics. The Church is no longer seen as a neutral and independent institution in political affairs and it is generally aligned with the opinion and politics of the Partido Popular. This implication has had, as a consequence, a renewed criticism from important sectors of the population (especially the majority of left-wing voters) against the Church and the way in which it is economically sustained by the State.