THREE SUGGESTED PATHS RESEARCHS IN THE OPEN DIALOGUE ON RELIGION IN

SPAIN AT PRESENT TIMES

This matherial is prepared by Eliseo Rabadán (Philosophy teacher in Santa Clara High School), for
being added to the magazine of the Project Between Religions and Ethics. A common ground . The
goal of this matherials is to be placed in the magazine to be shared by any colleagues or students in
the partners schools interested in these items when the meeting at Turkey 19-23 february 2011

LINK TO ANA AND GEMA GROUP OF COMENIUS IN SANTA CLARA

http://iessantaclaracomenius.blogspot.com/

PART ONE
We have in Spain a long Catholic tradition and, despite some people or some political groups,which
are telling us that people in Spain are only sociologically or antrhtropologicaly practicants of the
majoritanian religion , Catholicism, we can show how many times statistical mathematical
methodologies are failling when some relevant items are being manipulated.
We have the data of our questionary made in the school for the project Comenius , and these show
really the fact that most of the students are Catholic.
 El Cristo de Comillas(Cantabria)

Festivities such as Nativity of Jesus Christ have a deep relevance for most people in Spain. The
Passion and Death of Jesus is also so deeply in the Culture of Spanish people, taht we can see all
over the country the Holy Week celebration . We have in our City of Santander the Semana Santa
with its Cofradías making a hole week processional parcours of the main streets and with sacred

ceremonies in main Churches of the City

http://desdesdr.blogspot.com/2010/01/cartel-de-la-semana-santa-de-santander.html

The most famous is in this sense, the Sevilla . But we also have , in each of the thousands villages,
any amount of people living in them, Sacred Ceremonies and Festivities , concerning the God and
Divinity of Mother Mary , and all Saints in the Catholic Traditions :

Santiago Apostol

Map of Camino de Santiago

the protector os the Spanish Nation. The Sacred Heart of Jesus

http://www.virgendegarabandal.org/miryam.htm

The Inmaculada Concepción

http://www.churchforum.org/como-era-rostro-virgen-maria.htm

or the Virgen del Pilar at Zaragoza City , just to make mention of

some of most known and venerated in our country <iframe title="YouTube video player"
width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dkzieS5kYEU" frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen></iframe>

Cordoba City, the Cristo de los Faroles

http://www.diariocordoba.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=511087
Christ of the Great Power
http://sentimientogaditano.blogspot.com/2010/12/hermandad-de-jesus-de-medinaceli-de.html

video of Santiago Walking Way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEPvXhC4ffA

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width="640" height="390"></embed></object>

Sevilla has the Virgen de los Reyes , Madrid la Virgen de la Almudena, Andalucía the Virgin of

Macarena http://www.elalmanaque.com/abril07/5-4-07.htm

and Catalunia has the Montserrat Virgin

http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/tilander/respendo.htm

We must now make clear the idea that it is not different Virgins( Mother of Jesus Christ, the Son in
the Hipostatic Union of God in Catholic Chistianity), but different ways peoles have to refer this
key element of our lithurgy and dogma inside Theology) Cantabria, where Santa Clara High School
is at the capital City of Santander, has the Bien Aparecida Virgin.

We have and will make the visit trip to see the Santo Toribio de Liébana, about which our teachers
Ana Nuñez and Gema Gutierrez have made the presentation reseaqrch to prepare the visit to this
sacred place very relevant for Christians,not just in Spain but for all Christiandom. A piece of the
Crhist Cross is conserved in the Church at Santo Toribio

We , the teachers team and our students in Santa Clara, actually are working to make creative
suggestions upon these questions, inorder to show how the main moral and ethical values of
Christianism all over the History , actually have relevant and imprtant contents to the present
political society, and it is not impossible to share them and to enrich the political Laws with these
contents, whcih can however make more rich a society that is able to take them into account as a
fountain of moral justice principles

PART TWO

Religion, faith and customs in Spain: annotations to the latest survey of CIS.
by Francisco Torres García http://www.arbil.org/(65)torr.htm
What is the real situation and religious sentiment in Spain? How far we are in a society that is progressively
moving away from religious belief? How far has advanced the process of conversion and reduced to mere
religious social elements supported culturally by the momentum of tradition? A survey of CIS is to introduce us to
a society that is predominantly Catholic but stating that while he doubts the existence of God, has moved away
from religious practices and only maintains the cultural elements of Catholicism

The twentieth century Western society is virtually a secular society where religious beliefs, mostly Christian, are
being reduced to private areas of the maintenance of certain attitudes and habits of a cultural nature that has
been erased any transcendent reality . The process of secularization, which began in Western Europe in the
eighteenth century and pragmatic development began in the nineteenth century, is now in its final stages,
although with small but significant pockets of resistance reinforced by Pope John Paul II .

This secularization has become especially acute in Spain. A country that has gone from being an enclave of
Catholicism to the late sixties to a country where Catholicism is on the decline. Spain, within its geopolitical
hinterland, was a specific case within the continuous advancement of the process of secularization in the
Christian West. The process went much more slowly on our soil in other places, mainly due to the maintenance of
religious unity in the bankruptcy of the sixteenth century, the strong influence that the Church kept on society until
well into the twentieth century andpresence of large nuclei of practicing Catholics with a missionary vocation and
witness that slowed but not stopped, the momentum of public authorities for the sake of secularism. After the civil
war in Spain was the curious case within Western Europe, the partisanship of political power by the
implementation of a process of social re-Christianization. Ambitious project that aimed to stop, permanently, the
process secularization of our society to strengthen its Catholic roots. Obviously, that political action, strongly
supported and seamless for three decades by the Church, could only delay the final secularization of our
society. It is in the seventies when it starts, again, to accelerate the process of secularization which had its
momentum, supported by the government, in the last two decades of the twentieth century.

The current situation of the Faith and religious beliefs in Spain has been debated over several decades,
especially the social influence that the Church has had in Spain and is now being eroded. But what is the real
situation of the Faith and religious beliefs in Spain today? Official figures seem staggering. A recent study by the
Center for Sociological Research has addressed the issue in depth and could be held but at the same objections
that you want no doubt that mark, without any doubt, the tendency of Spanish society.

The 2443 CIS study of January 2002, published in its Bulletin No. 29 on "Religion and Society", merely
empirically confirm the findings of many commentators and ratify the constant weight loss of religious beliefs in
society Spanish. Although the work refers to any type of religious belief is to emphasize that it is basically a
reflection on Catholicism in Spain, since only one percent claiming to be believers in another religion while 80%
continue to report on religious Catholic. But throughout the study and this review will explain that it is a social or
cultural Catholic and not a practicing Catholic faith. Also worth noting that 12% is declared non-believer and that
respondents had the perception that their parents and the Spain of his parents was mainly Catholic, to an extent
exceeding 95%.

The Spanish, under study, still considered predominantly Catholic and willing to maintain a certain social
practices inherited from the Catholicism in which they were raised.However, there are only nominally
Catholic. Continue to value the Church well, but point out, other institutions like the monarchy or NGOs offer them
more confidence, though behind the Church and religious organizations are, in confidence, the Army, Mass
Communication, Parliament, the courts, unions or banks. It still retains, however, the Church an important ability
to influence, another issue is that the exercises or not. 43% of the Spanish continued to believe that it is very or
somewhat influential, but not forgetting that 73% feel that much less than ten years ago and, after one decade,
will be reduced significantly if we continue the current process.
That the media propaganda and prevailing discourse that advocates the reduction of religion to the realm of the
strictly private with no ability to influence politics and society have taken a toll evidenced by the fact that over
70% of estimated Spanish vote when a party should not be taken into account the religious beliefs themselves,
which means that the vast majority of those who consider themselves Catholics realize that they, as such,
obligations incurred when the address mark of public life in influencing government decisions.

Catholic theorists, cultural Catholics, Catholic religious speech right because the data provided by the rest of the
study did not cease to draw the reality of Catholicism in Spain. Only, only, 42% of the Spanish firmly believe in the
existence of God. The obvious question is, how can Catholics declared 80% of the Spanish if only 42% believe in
the existence of God?. The conclusion is obvious: because they declared themselves still considered socially
correct value. There are also those who doubt, and that 31% said: "rather believe in the existence of God." But no
less clear that at least 8% of those who declare themselves Catholics doubt the existence of God.

Spain has declared a Catholic society, but most do not meet the common requirements: only 25% attend Mass
weekly, though 40% admit to attend on occasion. This means that at least 15% of those who declare themselves
Catholics never attend mass. More illuminating is the low participation of those Catholics in other religious
activities or organizations: 60% never has.

80% of Spanish is considered a Catholic. It does, no doubt, by the weight of tradition, by the inertia of the
education received and the process of Catholicization that came after the civil war. However, 56% of Spanish
people are considered little or no religion.Importantly, but that becomes more revealing if we enter the age
assessment. What happened with the Spanish born in the last thirty years have been educated in religious
matters with parameters very different from their parents? The survey is too daunting at this point, 75% of those
born after 1970 is considered little or no religion, and that bearing in mind that the vast majority were for ten or
fifteen years, religious education in schools and colleges This leads us to wonder about the kind of religious
education is taught and the real purpose is. The differences with previous generations are abysmal.Even at the
risk of an interpretation that would score about those born around 1940 to 60% today is still considered "very or
somewhat religious", rising to 75% for those born a decade earlier. Perhaps that is why, in that sediment,
highlighting the fact that 22% of the Spanish continue to see that religious education should be
mandatory. Deductions are these data to the will of the readers.

What is really of Catholicism in Spain? It must be something more than 20% of practicing Catholics who have
these beliefs. Is also the social dregs and willingness to maintain certain cultural and social patterns with
Catholic: 64% continued to prefer the Spanish Catholic marriage even when the opposition to divorce is virtually
nil, practically 80% baptize their children and 56% think that the teaching of religion is important for the education
of their children, but only care about religious beliefs, when making important decisions, to 33% of the Spanish.

The final question, of course, no published work raises is whether this situation is now irreversible. The data
suggest that there is still a predominantly Catholic sediment between the Spanish, who made up 38% believe
that religious beliefs are becoming more necessary and more than 60% of the Spanish maintain ties with the
Catholic, which can be strengthened . Clearly the implementation of a process of re-Christianization, as so often
has sued John Paul II, may vary considerably the situation of Catholicism in Spain, but this is impossible if
Catholics do not participate as such in the Spanish public life.

Francisco Torres García.

PART THREE

Ethics and religion in present day Spain: Problems and perspectives for the
21st century http://gradworks.umi.com/32/86/3286459.html
by Campos Mariscal, Cruz, Dr, UNIVERSIDAD DE CASTILLA - LA MANCHA, 2007, 0 pages; 3286459

Abstract: There are three different starting positions on the relationship between ethics and religion in the last third of the 20th century. Two authors may be
analyzed for each of the main positions: A. Sánchez Vázquez and E. Guisán (ethics for laicism), J. L .L. Aranguren and A. Cortina (lay ethics) and G. R. de Y
and M. Vidal (religious ethics). And, to complete the analysis of the situation, the thesis checks diverse ethics that, without being appropriate for Spain, have
important influence on the question: ethics of liberation, ethics of the theology of God's death, projects of world ethics and civil ethics. The second part is a
systematic reflection on the possible relationships: (a) rejection or mutual exclusion, (b) incorporation of each one in the other, and (c) mutual recognition an
respect with the possibility of prospering mutually. Four in-depth problems emerge from these possibilities of relation between ethics and religion: ethics and
metaphysics, reason and faith, moral autonomy and immanence and transcendence. The third part develops the conclusions and indicates the problems of
for laicism, lay ethics and religious ones. It also proposes the perspectives in which the relationship between ethics and religion must be set out: ethics dema
autonomy, provides rationality and can achieve a horizon of sense, offerings of happiness, utopias, hope and Christian charity. Between ethics and religion t
are questions that are particularly sensitive: the reference to metaphysics or not, the necessary overcoming of the concepts of 'nature' and 'natural law', auto
universality and the permanent question of whether values are constructed, invented or discovered. Relationships between ethics and religion cannot be ima
outside an area of respect and dialogue. This approach must be continued until its possibilities are exhausted with the commitment to the reality of confrontin
human problems. At the same time, we cannot forget that human dignity is not questionable and that ethics has nothing to say when religion speaks about
resurrection and eternal life.