Secularization in Europe: Causes, Consequences, and Cultural Diversity

Abstract

This paper explores the timeliness and relevance of secularization theories in Europe. It seeks to understand how the classical theories of secularization—rationalization, societalization, functional differentiation, and existential security—and their theoretical innovations—namely, cultural diversity—help describe religious phenomena in a specific set of European countries—Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain. In this context, cultural diversity shows the strongest negative correlation with religiosity. These findings arise from the correlation between the different theories of secularization, the independent variables, and an index of religiosity, the dependent variable. Cultural diversity, as a good predictor to explain secularization in Europe, shows how contact with different religious and non-religious worldviews enhances a mutual fragilization that can lead individuals from uncertainty to the rejection of religious beliefs.

Perceived Barriers to Providing Spiritual Care in Palliative Care among Professionals: A Portuguese Cross-Sectional Study

“…Western society has become more pluralistic over the last few decades. While institutionalized religion has declined because of secularization, a variety of religious and spiritual viewpoints have emerged in the West as a result of migration, globalization, and the rise of new forms of spirituality [ 44 ]. As a result, professional caregivers increasingly care for patients and clients who have different spiritual beliefs than their own, which may occasionally make it more difficult to provide spiritual care [ 45 ].…”

The Catholic Church’s Formula for Adaptation to Modernity and Contemporary Models of Secularism

“…However, he added, this did not cause religion to disappear (Casanova 1994, p. 7). Even if the debate on secularization theories has currently reached a "dead end" (Moniz 2023), the question of the role of religion in contemporary secular states seems to be still open and vital, and might be considered in many aspects without discussing general secularization theories.…”

“…Modernity is to be understood as a set of fundamental political, intellectual, and religious ideas prevailing in the West, significantly different from those prevailing in traditional societies of the Medieval era: as a set of ideas focusing on the autonomy of man (Eisenstadt 2000, p. 5). Therefore, the definition will not discuss whether transformation to Modernity is a coherent, linear process functioning in all societies (a version of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and later Fukuyama) or an unpredictable process that might lead to different results (a version of Eisenstadt) (Feldhay 2022;Moniz 2023). For the purpose of this paper, it is enough to indicate the following crucial ideas of (Western) Modernity: individualization (the individual becomes as or more important than the community), sovereignty of the people (as opposed to the monarch), democratization, rationalization (looking for rational rather than religious explanations of phenomena), autonomy of science from religion, a plurality of worldviews, and a focus on individual economic development.…”