Why is Roman Catholicism dying in Spain while its still alive in former colonies esp in Latin Americ

Griffith

Banned
Related to another question I posted on reddit that I suggest you check out before reading on.


https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...amily-line-to-remain-catholic-wasnt-f.396264/

Now I'm wondering why Spain is suffering the same trend as France. As one poster stated above that France was once the "elder daughter of the Church", Spain was once considered the "bulwark of Catholicism" and the Spanish prided themselves as cleaning the Church doctrines at the cost of money, blood, and even sinfreeness to keep them pure.

Nowadays much like France the Church is simple a sick man. Church attendance is among the lowest in Europe and most Spaniards who are Catholic enough to go to Church, only 3% consider religion as among their 3 most important values in life which VERY LOW even for modern secular Europe in which the mean for most countries is 7%. Even among the churchgoers, most are quite oppose to many Catholic practices and laws such as gay marriage.

I even saw a study on Latin America stating there are now far more church going Catholics in that region today than there are total baptized Spaniards (including those who never go to church after baptism and outright reject the religion). Nevermind Latin America's total of cafeteria catholics and apostates who still consider themselves culturally Catholic.

I am wondering what is the reason for this? Why is it former colonies who somewhat hold a grudge against Spain are far more devout? I mean South America nearly holds half of the total world Catholic population (counting Cafeterias and apostates) but it was the Spanish who spread the religion in the region. Considering how Spaniards are somewhat tested in the region , if not outright hated in some countries, I'm quite surprised Catholicism thrives in South America.

I mean if we want to make the slap in the face even worse, the Philippines which was probably Spain's most neglected colony has a far higher percentage of total Catholics (of all sorts) than Spain and the church attendance of the Philippines easily dwarfs Spain's own both in percentage and sheer pure numbers.

Hell to make things worse, Morocco which was one of Spain's last colonies and the only long-held one that Spain could never convert and even failing to leave a significant permanent Catholic presence, has a MUCH MUCH higher percentage of people who go to church (well more accurately mosques). Even in terms of genuine devoutness beyond weekly mass going, Morocco far outweighs Spain's total Catholic population and we're not counting the totality of Morocco's Muslim population including lax moderates and lazy liberals who don't care about Friday Mosque lessons.

So why is Spain lagging so behind that even the one colony that has a completely different religion and with a slightly smaller population (Morocco at 30 million vs Spain's 40 million) actually is far more devout than Spain is? Why do Latin America and the Philippines follow the Church fanatically despite the mother colonizer (who was responsible for spreading the religion in those regions in the first place) practically stopped caring about being defenders of the Church?

I mean Morocco is particularly embarrassing because it is the region where the Medieval Spanish EXPELLED their Islamic enemy and traditional historical rival the Moors to as they were fighting for freedom and to preserve Christendom in the region. I mean the entire Spanish identity and the interrelated religious fundamentalism that defined the Spanish Empire was all because of the Reconquista and the hardships the Spanish Catholics experienced for the sake of religion and I can't tell you all the sources that rates the Reconquista as the dominant turning point that would lead to Spain becoming a European superpower. Spanish identity is so strong imbued with this particular holy war that you cannot read a single book on Spain without it referring to that era of faith (including books on historical periods that have nothing to do with Islam such as the Spanish Civil War).

I mean its as though the expelled defeated Moors got the last laugh in the long run through Morocco!
 
This belongs in PolChat.

To answer your question, it's because Spain is a more developed country than Latin America. And it's a trend in developed countries that religious-ness goes down.
 
1) Constantinianism. When the Church is associated with the state, it will inevitably become a prop of some bad actor. This will ruin its popularity.
2) Cosmopolitanism. Diverse experiences tend to rub against exclusivist religions. It also increases openness to foreign ideas, increasing competition and driving out weak religious beliefs.
3) Uruguay is super secular.
 
Like there has already pointed Catholic Church has seen very reactionary in Spain. And its connections to Franco's regime didn't help issue.
 
I mean Morocco is particularly embarrassing because it is the region where the Medieval Spanish EXPELLED their Islamic enemy and traditional historical rival the Moors to as they were fighting for freedom and to preserve Christendom in the region. I mean the entire Spanish identity and the interrelated religious fundamentalism that defined the Spanish Empire was all because of the Reconquista and the hardships the Spanish Catholics experienced for the sake of religion and I can't tell you all the sources that rates the Reconquista as the dominant turning point that would lead to Spain becoming a European superpower. Spanish identity is so strong imbued with this particular holy war that you cannot read a single book on Spain without it referring to that era of faith (including books on historical periods that have nothing to do with Islam such as the Spanish Civil War).

I mean its as though the expelled defeated Moors got the last laugh in the long run through Morocco!

I am very curious as to what idea of contemporary Spain you have. You sound like you think we're still living in 1516.

In all fairness, catholicism stopped being relevant as a way of defining spanish identity in 1812. Franco's dictature was an ill-fated attempt to react against that that vanished within months of Franco's death.

Oh, and Morocco was colonized because Spain wanted its part of the african pie, not because of religious reasons. In fact colonial authorities were always pretty respectful of local religion and there was never any serious attempt at conversion- again, because it was 1920, not 1520.
 
This does belong in PolChat, but my thought is that it's just more of the ebb and flow than something the Spaniards *did.* All of Europe is leaving the Church, not just Spain. Plus, there is the fact that really nowadays the only church that is actually growing are the Pentecostals. It's just the culture.
 
Spain's economic development after the 1950s was far greater than Latin America. In 1950 the per capita GDP in Spain was similar to Peru, Colombia and Mexico, and much lower than Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay and even lower than Chile's. The spectacular growth in postwar Europe made Spain a much more advanced economy so that by 1973 it's per capita GDP was more than double that of Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, and it had surpassed Chile and Argentina.

Latin America's growth remained slow and while Spain's was not as strong during the 1973-2000 period as it had been previously, it still enjoyed a much higher rate of growth than its former colonies. By 2000 its real GDP per capita was 170% of the richest former colony in America, Argentina, and more than 10 times greater than the poorest former colonies in Central America.

As a result of this increasing wealth, Spaniards began to follow Western European norms, with smaller families, more urbanisation, increased women in the workplace and much more socially liberal attitudes. Even without Franco, this was the case in Italy, which experienced a similar rate of growth. However, Spain seems to be more socially liberal than Italy, certainly in its attitudes towards sex and sexuality. In Spain frontal nudity is shown on tv, whereas in Italy it is not. Also, in Spain gay marriage has been legal for years, where as in Italy civil unions only became legal recently. In many respects, Spain surged ahead of many of its European peers in being socially liberal, perhaps as a reaction to Francoism.

The effect of the hordes of bikini clad European tourists descending on Spain's beaches beginning in the 1950s probably also had an effect on the Spaniards. By the 1960s millions of Brits, Germans, Dutch and other Europeans were coming to Spain's coasts and islands, whereas in Latin America only Mexico and Cuba (before 1959) experienced large numbers of tourists.
 
Top