alternatehistory.com

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!
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