Losing Their Religion: Attitudes towards the Church

The Fundación Gadeso is probably an organisation you are unfamiliar with. But much of the information about social and economic issues in Mallorca comes from the foundation.

Gadeso (Gabinete de Estudios Sociales - office of social studies) was formed in 1975 and became a foundation in 2002. It has been an important source of monitoring social and economic activity since the collapse of the Franco regime. It is an uncontroversial organisation, but it does consider controversial issues, such as corruption. One of the few links from its website - www.gadeso.org - is to a blog called the observatory of corruption which lists everything that is currently happening in respect of corruption allegations in Mallorca.

Also on its website there is, at present, a reader poll inviting responses to the significance of Christmas. The possibilities range from a religious festival to signifying nothing. Gadeso has just undertaken a survey of religious attitudes in the Balearics. This survey, unsurprisingly enough, finds a divergence in opinion across age groups, but it is one, were attitudes not to change as Balearic youth enters adulthood, which highlights the waning dominance of Catholic religious orthodoxy: well under a half of those in the 16-20 age group say they are believers.

Religious belief is one thing, another is the attitude towards issues with a religious dimension. On every issue, a majority of the youth group agrees with divorce, sex outside marriage, passive euthanasia (meaning the refusal or withdrawal of treatment), gay marriage and adoption, and abortion. Only one of these issues, divorce, gets almost unanimous support across different age ranges, but there is a further, more obscure issue which receives very little support, regardless of age. A mere 27% of all those surveyed agree with the system of financing the Catholic Church.

In theory, the Church is meant to depend upon funding through the tax system, i.e. from a percentage of income tax that taxpayers opt to donate to the Church (0.7%). It does of course have sizable assets, being the second largest land and property owner after the state, but its, if you like, working capital comes from this percentage. Or does it?

As long ago as 1987, when the so-called "church tax" was introduced, the Church agreed to be self-financing within three years. It never happened. In 2006 the Zapatero administration announced, belatedly perhaps, that government subsidy of the Church would come to an end, but that the Church would benefit from an increase in the tax to the current level, so it was still not to be self-financing.

Another research organisation, the nationwide Europa Laica (Secular Europe), estimated last year that the Church receives, via different means, some six billion euros of funds from different governmental bodies. The organisation supplied a caveat to its estimate, owing to what was described as a lack of transparency on behalf of both the Church and the government. But its estimate included 3.8 billion euros for private schools that follow the national curriculum and which have Catholic religious education. It also included some 100 million euros that came from taxpayers who had opted not to pay the church tax but to divert the money for social and charitable purposes; there are a large number of Catholic charities. There was also the matter of some 900 million euros of lost tax income because of exemptions.

On this latter point, however, there may well now be a tightening of the tax noose. Three parish churches, those of Son Servera, Felanitx and Pollensa, were recently presented with a combined IVA (VAT) bill of 344,000 euros for building works, following a decision by the Balearics' Supreme Court.

What this all suggests though is that, despite other confrontations with the Church, the Zapatero government hasn't been as aggressive when it comes to funding. The implication of the Gadeso survey, however, is that perhaps it should have been. Whether it has the opportunity to be so in the future depends upon whether there is a future. The Partido Popular (PP) has vowed to turn back the secularism of Zapatero, and this may also include instituting a more favourable financial regime.

Though the Gadeso survey reveals differing attitudes among age groups, they show broad support for many of the government's social policies in the Balearics and echo support elsewhere in Spain. Gadeso is important in that it acts as a barometer of attitudes. Politicians, especially those from the PP, might do well to take some notice of them.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.