From the May-August 2010 Issue
New Religious Freedom Law In Spain
Jose and Anneke de Segovia
The De Segovia familyThe Spanish government plans to approve a new Law of Religious Freedom before the summer, so that it goes to Congress in the current parliamentary session. “The Law is not in the freezer”, assured Fernández de la Vega, Deputy Prime Minister. Why does the government plan to reform the 1980 Law of Religious Liberty?
Certainly some reform is necessary, not least in the light of special accords signed with Protestants, Muslims and Jews in 1992. Seventeen years on, much of the content of those accords has still to be put into practice.
It is to be welcomed that the government seems serious about creating a level playing-field with the Catholic Church when it comes to opening new places of worship, or to prison, hospital and military chaplaincy access. At the same time, Justice Minister Caamaño said it was necessary to ban religious practices which threatened public order, so control is clearly part of the legislation’s aims as well.
More control?
The most controversial aspect therefore of the impending legislation is the setting of parameters for this ‘harmonious co-existence’. Caamaño gives some examples: “Religious education in schools: there is an increasing demand for a much more diverse type of education than is presently offered.” On hospital chaplains, he said guidelines and standards were necessary, while he recognised the mixing elements in the Armed Forces, where an image of Mary had been made ‘Captain-General´! He also questioned who should be allowed to enter prisons and on the issue of State funerals seemed to open the door to a greater variety of religious options.
The Minister said the 1978 Constitution was right to opt for a neutral system with no State religion, though recognising the historical importance of the Catholic Church in Spain. However, he admitted that it said nothing about the role of religion in public life. In practice, this has always defaulted to Roman Catholic ritual. Caamaño said the 1980 Law is now outdated, given the political and religious changes seen in Spain since then.
Inequalities
Ex-Socialist minister, Gustavo Suárez, thinks the current Law of Religious Liberty generates serious inequalities between the different religious groups, by dealing with each one via unilateral pacts. Suárez believes it is time to change the way the government deals with religious groups, and that it should cooperate with them all on the same basis.
Suárez says the pacts add very little to the exercise of the right of religious freedom, and should be done away with. The current law recognises five categories of religious groups: first, the Catholic Church; second, those with a history of existence in Spain and regional representation across the country, which have signed agreements with the State (Protestants, Jews and Muslims); third, similarly represented groups that haven’t signed agreements with the State (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists and Mormons); fourth, groups with no historical presence in Spain but registered with the Ministry of Justice; fifth, those which are not even registered.
Suárez points out that the Catholic Church enjoys huge privileges because its agreement with the State goes back to that signed by Madrid and the Vatican in 1979. However, all other groups are measured by what is known as ‘historical roots’, a sociological criterion that has to do with the number of followers, the length of time it has been in existence in Spain, how widespread it is today, and the extent to which it represents different social strata.
More secular, more diverse
Three out of four Spaniards still consider themselves Catholic, but only 13.5% of them bother to attend Mass on Sundays or special holidays, according to the latest figures from the Centre of Sociological Investigation. According to this survey 76.4% are Catholic, 12.7% nonbeliever, 7.5% atheist, and 1.5% other religions.
Although 73.5% of Spaniards still say they are Catholics, only 27.7% of them claim to be practising. More than half (56.1%) say they hardly ever go to church, except for weddings, funerals and first communions. Within the practising minority, 15.6% say they attend church several times a year, and 11.5% go at least once a month. Finally, 2.4% say they go several times a week. 14.5% of the population say they have no religious belief, 9.6% are unsure or apathetic about the issue, which leaves roughly 1.5 million Evangelicals, 1.2 million Muslims, 600,000 Orthodox, 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and so on. Somewhat confusingly, these figures find themselves in an increasingly secularised society which at the same time has a more diverse religious composition. But religion is not the Gospel! Spain still needs to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ!