Laicity is the supreme constitutional principle of the Italian Republic. The Constitution is inspired by ‘secular’ values such as equality before the law without religious distinction, equal religious liberty for all confessions, Church-State separation, the organisation of bilateral relations between the different denominations, and the prohibition of discrimination between worship and religious associations. The Constitution also recognises the specific contribution of the religious factor and encourages its realisation, because it contributes to the spiritual progress of the country and to the development of individuals’ personalities. Nonetheless, experience shows that the constitutional project has not yet been fully realised due to a combination of juridical, historical, social and political factors.
Up until today, Latvia’s religious landscape has been influenced by ruling ideologies and political systems. When the Republic of Latvia was established in 1918, the Lutherans were active in the country’s political life through the intermediary of their political parties, as did other denominations. In the early 20th century, they were numerically the largest denomination in Latvia, accounting for 55 % of the population. Subsequently, the Lutheran Church suffered heavily during the Soviet occupation: 12 Lutheran pastors were killed in 1940; many others were sent off to Siberia. Repression continued in the 1950s: a significant number of Lutheran churches were deconsecrated and transformed into warehouses, shops, sports halls and clubs. However, the Lutheran Church survived and Lutheran clergy were very active in the anti-Soviet movement during the 1980’s.
In contemporary Lithuania religion is becoming more public, but at the same time more individual and private. Generally, in the Lithuanian public sphere religion means Roman Catholicism. The reasons for this are manifold. Firstly, demographical data (2001 and 2011 population censuses) shows that more than 77 % of the population consider themselves Catholic. Furthermore, the Catholic Church can be considered a “national Church” in that it supported the nation’s struggle for independence from the Soviet Union, thus gaining a special status within society.
The recent redefinition (2013-2015) of the relationship between the State and so-called recognized religions is currently the major issue animating the religious landscape in Luxembourg. This reform comprises a substantial reduction of the State’s future financial support for religions. It also brings about public recognition of Islam, its representatives having been invited for the first time at the negotiating table. Next to these moves monopolizing media attention, a recent major development seems to go largely unnoticed by the authorities and by public opinion: the staggering success of the Pentecostal ‘megachurches’ originating in the Protestant-evangelical movement.
No tourist visiting Malta would nowadays repeat what a traveller to Malta, quoted by John Wignacourt in his 1914 book The Odd Man in Malta, said in 1914 — ‘Malta would have been a delightful place if every priest were a tree…’! Contemporary Malta is much greener than what it was when the Knights of St John were given the arid island in fief in 1530 AD, even though current debate often focuses on the current government’s alleged lack of concern for the environment in its drive to appease the developers. But also because the number of priests has dwindled significantly over the last half a century, and the cry of ‘Malta Kattoliċissima’ (“Malta the most Catholic”) no longer holds sway.
In recent decades Dutch society has undergone deep changes in the field of religion. On one hand the links between individuals and religious communities have considerably loosened, whereby religion has lost its former socio-cultural role, mainly as a result of secularisation. Nevertheless, among those who nowadays indicate no religious affiliation, still more than 40 % do not declare themselves atheists or agnostics (de Hart, Geloven binnen en buiten verband. Godsdienstige ontwikkelingen in Nederland, 2014). On the other hand, after WW II new (non-Christian) religious communities have marked the religious outlook of the Netherlands, with Islam as an example.
In Poland, religious freedom is guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution and by international instruments incorporated into Polish law. The country is also party to most European and universal human rights documents. In 2003, the number of Catholics was estimated at 34,443,998 (90.1 % of the entire population), the number of Orthodox Christians at 510,712 (1.34 %) and the number of Protestants at 162,102 (0.42 %). Surveys of the Centre of Public Opinion Research (CBOS) and the Catholic Church Institute of Statistics have shown that 90 % of the Polish population consider themselves a religious person, whereas the latest CBOS survey (2015) reveals that 50 % of the population participates in mass at least once a week (58 % in 2005). The same survey indicates that the proportion of people who do not attend Church services has increased from 9 % in 2005 to 13 % in 2015. Daily prayer is also in steep decline: from 66 % in 2005 to 43 % in 2015.
Though the quantity of studies on religious/non-religious tendencies in today's Portugal is not overly abundant outside the Catholic remit, available are official and other reliable statistical data, and a number of well-structured analyses thereof, providing insights into the religious phenomenon in this country. Notwithstanding, the main issue is whether the more recent, few-decades-spanning information is by itself sufficient for supporting medium to long-term tendencies anticipation in this domain. This text takes the view that the Portuguese national historical context may to a good extent explain the degree of observed trend stability as regards religions-secularism in the country. The Portuguese law of religious freedom dates just from 2001. Signs are that only now an effective multiplication of creeds is underway, whose future impact cannot yet be soundly discerned.
A country of twenty million Latin-language speaking inhabitants, Romania is situated on the crossroad of different politic, religious and cultural influences. In the Moldavian and the Walachia principalities, the role of the Byzantine, the Ottoman, and the Russian Empires was essential. As for Transylvania, it was influenced by Vienna, Budapest and Rome. Unavoidably, this historic heritage is closely related to the Romanian religious situation. In ancient Moldavian and Walachia principalities, the dominant Church (87 %) is the Orthodox. In Transylvania, different denominations share the believers with the Orthodoxy: Roman Catholicism (5 %), Greek-Catholicism (Uniatism) (1 %) and the Protestantism, or more precisely Calvinism (3 %), Unitarianism (anti-Trinitarians) (0.3 %) and Lutheranism (0.5 %). Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Unitarianism, and Lutheranism followers are mainly among the Hungarian community.
Over the last two decades, Slovakia has been considered a predominantly Catholic society. State institutions and legislation have progressively created a system of Catholic-Lutheran asymmetric dualism operating at the core of Slovak national identity. Since the establishment of the Slovak Republic in 1993 the Catholic Church, the largest religious body in Slovakia, has experienced a significant increase in influence and power, in spite of the slightly decreasing proportion of citizens who declare to be Catholic. According to 2011 census data, the Roman Catholic Church represents 62 % of the population (68.7 % in 2001), the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) 5.9 % (6.9 % in 2001), the Greek-Catholic Church 3.8 %, and the Reformed (Calvinist) Church 1.8 %. People declaring “no religion or faith” account for 13.4 % of the population (13 % in 2001), respondents providing “no data” for 10.6 % (3% in 2001). Thus the general tendency is one of slowly declining adherence to mainline Churches, whereas the proportion of people expressing no religious profile has increased.
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The Slovenian national area is one of those areas in Central Europe that entrusted its “nation building” to elites of prevalently Catholic origin as it simply had no other elites. Even a century later these countries, as a rule, still carry the burden of the complex relation between the Church, society and politics, with the majority of their population declaring themselves Catholic. At the end of the 19th century, the clash between Catholicism and modern European society gave birth to political Catholicism. In the Slovenian territory, it ended with the conservative triumphant rise to power in the aftermath of democratization and election reform in the Habsburg monarchy in 1907. In the interwar period, political Catholicism consolidated its rule in the Slovenian territory, which was now part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Spain has undergone deep transformations in the religious field since the democratic transition initiated after the death of Franco in 1978. This article provides a general overview of the main changes that occurred both in the religious landscape and in public policy governing religious diversity. After describing the broad societal transformations that have shaped the State’s relations with organised religious communities, this paper will provide a more exhaustive account of the current religious configuration of the country. It will then outline the primary ways in which the State conducts governance of religious diversity, followed by a more detailed description of the situation of religious education.
Secularity in Sweden is ambiguous. Even though it may be considered as a particularly secular context, the religious and the secular in Sweden can be described as intertwined. This could explain some of the contradictions and paradoxes in the Swedish religious landscape. Sweden is often thought of as a secularized country, sometimes as the most secularized in the world. Indeed, if believing in God and going to church are central features of religiosity, Sweden may be described as an exceptionally secular context. For example, when compared to other countries, church attendance in Sweden is extremely low. In the large quantitative study known as ‘World Value Survey’ (2010-2014), in which scholars have measured what people have consider to have been important values over the past decades, only 3 % of Swedes answered that they attend church every week.
A country, which has two established churches, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, does not seem to be a propitious setting for secularism to flourish. To this point can be added a number of other matters that seem to be inimical to the idea that secularism can prevail in the United Kingdom. There is, for example, the fact that large numbers of State schools in the present day continue to have partly religious foundations, historically once solely Christian or Jewish but now also including the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh faiths. Equally there the fact that one of the established churches, the Church of England, has the legal right, which it exercises, to have bishops and archbishops as members of the House of Lords, one of the two chambers of the United Kingdom Parliament.
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