THE ARCHIVE

Based in a suburban street in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Molina’s church is typical of the evolution and diversification of the religious landscape of Barcelona over the past 10 years, and the newly visible presence of different religious groups in local communities. The city has undergone a shift from relative religious uniformity to a new level of plurality, and the city’s residents and government have had to adapt accordingly.

A report issued in April by the Ajuntament’s Oficina d’Afers Religiosos (OAR) established this diversity as fact, when it revealed that the number of non-Catholic places of worship has superseded those of the Catholic Church. The study revealed that there were 198 non-Catholic places of worship registered in 2008, whilst the number of Catholic churches in the city was 141. The figures suggested that other Christian and non-Christian religions such as Islam, Evangelism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Judaism and Buddhism seemed to be growing and, for the first time in the city’s history, the Catholic Church had lost its numerical advantage.

The power the Catholic Church has enjoyed in Spain is well known. Under Franco, Roman Catholicism was the only religion to enjoy legal status, the only one allowed to advertise services and the only religion with the right to own property and publish literature. It took the revised 1978 Constitution to finally confirm the religious freedom of the Spanish people and to begin the separation of church and state. The accommodation of religious plurality on an official level became increasingly important as Spain underwent the process of democratisation, and the need to incorporate principles of religious freedom into the government’s official framework was acknowledged in 1980 when the General Act of Religious Liberty was passed. The law established a provision in the granting of legal recognition to other religions, and alongside it the Register of Religious Entities was founded in which all new religious groups with a presence in Spain must sign.