On December 10th 2024, at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC), the book Religiositat i gestió de la diversitat a Catalunya (Religiosity and management of the diveristy in Catalonia) was presented, a piece commissioned by the General Directorate of Religious Affairs and consisting of ten articles written on the basis of the data collected in the ‘Baromètre sobre la religiositat i sobre la gestió de la seva diversitat 2023’ (Barometer on religiosity and the management of its diversity 2023).
The event began with a presentation by the Director General of Religious Affairs, Ramon Bassas, who introduced the book as an ‘X-ray of the religious fact’ in Catalonia. This was followed by a conversation between the sociologist Marina Subirats and the philosopher, theologist and professor at URL Francesc Torralba. This dialogue was moderated by the journalist Laura Mor, and discussed several of the issues raised by the Barometer data and dealt with in the book, such as new forms of spirituality, changes in the transmission of faith to the new generations, the link between language and religion and the relevance of religion in everyday life, among others.
The Observatory has participated in the writing of the book by contributing two articles: ‘Quin coneixement de la realitat religiosa té la població catalana?’ and ‘Religiositat i llengua: creure en català’.
Dr. Torralba began his speech by explaining that there is currently no definition for ‘belief’, ‘religion’ or ‘practice’ due to the rise of non-institutionalised beliefs, the same beliefs to which people sometimes adhere uncritically. We are experiencing a decline in what we know as traditional and habitual beliefs.
Dr. Subirats was not surprised by the decline linked to Catholicism, but she was surprised by the great tolerance of Catalan society towards religions, especially given the rise of the extreme right and racism in Europe. The survey data show a much more welcoming and tolerant version of Catalan society than is sometimes conveyed by the media.
The unstoppable growth of religious illiteracy is worrying, according to Torralba, since it is necessary to have a certain religious knowledge in order to be able to interpret history. Subirats recalled that all religions have a history, they are not parallel to each other and therefore it is necessary to offer education about religion, as long as it does not come from the church, he added. The barometer shows that 74% of those surveyed would be in favour of the teaching of such a subject.
Torralba explained that the process of secularisation does not only consist of ceasing to believe, but also in the loss of the capacity of influence of the agents linked to the institutions. According to Subirats, religions have opted for a very conservative side, they have become rooted in the past. Religion was about religion, making community. Now practices are more individual. Secularisation has led to leaving behind values that were essential to society, thus resulting in individualism.
Torralba also questioned what it means to be a churchgoer and whether one can be a believer without belonging to an institution. Being a believer is often associated with going to mass or saying grace, for example. Although now a practice could also be getting up early to meditate or hugging trees. There is a breakdown of practices that makes it questionable what they really are and what we consider them to be. Subirats added that many of the practices were and are the fruits of social pressure. Traditionally, women were more believers than men, they were more dominated and only had to pray to God. There has been a subtle change in trend, now the number of religious women has gone down and the number of men has gone up. Torralba emphasised that there is now a lot of fear of religious labelling and a lot of attention is given to anything new. Even so, 60% of those surveyed consider themselves to be Catholic, even though faith has little impact on their decision-making and in many cases it is cultural Catholicism, he said.
Dr. Subirats stressed that society’s habits have changed and that the church has not evolved in this respect. Society has broken away from traditional models because it was looking for freedom. The great common religion has become consumption, we are all participants. Torralba linked this by saying that young people do not have role models like previous generations, they idolise characters whose qualities can be questioned. And that the new generations only have their own bodies, they have nowhere else to act, another aspect that leads to individualism.
La lengua tiene un gran rol para reconstruir un “nosotros”. Según Torralba, lo más importante es que haya pretextos donde vernos, y que la ocasión es la lengua. La tendencia a las burbujas de aislamiento y a los círculos cerrados se puede evitar mediante el diálogo entre generaciones, ya que la lengua en sí misma es un pretexto. La doctora expresó que las religiones son vehículos de alta cultura y que la lengua es otra religión en el sentido de vínculo.
Language has a great role to play in reconstructing a ‘we’. According to Torralba, the most important thing is that there should be pretexts for us to see each other, and that occasion is language. The tendency towards bubbles of isolation and closed circles can be avoided through dialogue between generations, as language itself is a pretext. She said that religions are vehicles of high culture and that language is another religion in the sense of bonding.
