'Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones

Indo-Tibetan Buddhist doxography: an approach to its developments and its influence on Western classifications of Buddhism

Jorge Bartolomé Herrero — 2024-09-23

The doxographical genre (Siddhānta) represents one of the most revealing literary expressions of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Yet in many cases Western approaches to its study have been problematic, which has had a detrimental impact on the Western conceptions on the classification of Buddhist schools of thought. So far, the attempts to remedy the distortions have focused on specific aspects such as revisiting the interpretations of the schools or emphasising the non-historical character of Buddhist doxographical schemes. The present paper aims to make a new proposal for a general review focusing on confronting two aspects: 1) how the Western model developed on the basis of a single Indo-Tibetan scheme; and 2) the existence of a great plurality of proposals within the Buddhist sphere. The first part of the exposition will introduce both the characteristics of the Buddhist doxographical genre and the problems inherent in any doxographical approach, ending with a presentation of the Western model and its main distortions. During the second part, a summary overview of the main developments of the doxographical genre in India and Tibet will be given, highlighting the emergence of the classical model whose impact on the first Western approaches to Buddhism constitutes the last section of the paper.

Routes to Persuasion. Negotiating Attitudes in Contemporary Neo-Pentecostal Discourse

Ewelina Berdowicz — 2025-01-20

Since the 1980s, Christianity in Europe has undergone major changes which apply mostly to both the ritual and leadership style. The former stands for religious practices focused on evoking supernatural phenomena whose emergence aims to empower an individual to take a particular action whereas the latter concerns efficient management, based on the modus operandi typical of the corporate environment. John Wimber and Charles Peter Wagner are claimed to have been the key figures responsible for the aforementioned shift. Wimber introduced the so-called Signs and Wonders Movement, followed by a world-famous preaching strategy known as power evangelism. He gave rise to the birth of the Third Wave Pentecostalism, also recognized as Neo-Pentecostalism. Wagner on the other hand, initiated the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), that is, a theological belief and movement at the same time whose core themes include transforming societies through strategic-level spiritual warfare (SLSW) and in consequence, advancing the kingdom of God. Interestingly, those two approaches complement each other what can be observed when exploring the discourse. The principal objective of this study is to investigate how the present-day Polish and Italian evangelists following the strategy of power evangelism negotiate attitudes and how it affects recipients’ self-image. Data were collected by means of participant observation, surveys as well as written and spoken text analysis.

Disappearance of Gautama Buddha as the bodhisattva in the jātaka fables of the Uji Shūi Monogatari

Efraín Villamor Herrero — 2024-09-23

The Jātaka tales constitute one of the most prolific and influential literary traditions in human history. Introduced from the oral transmission of ancient India, the composition of this text aims to unify its protagonists as the bodhisattva, a concept that attributes past lives to Gautama Buddha. These fables performed a significant role in the transmission of Buddhism throughout Asia. From early on, some versions of them, translated into classical Chinese from Sanskrit texts, were introduced into pieces of medieval Japanese literature. The Uji Shūi Monogatari (13th century), a Japanese anthology that is well-known in the Western world, includes a few of the oldest Jātaka tales of Indian Buddhism. However, the traditional figure of the bodhisattva is omitted from the narratives. The transformation of Buddhist thought is evident in the adaptation of these stories from India to Medieval Japan.

Why is the mādhyamaka not a form of nihilism? Understanding the abandonment of Nāgārjuna's discussion

Berta Sáenz Almazán — 2024-09-23

Mādhyamaka or Middle Way, the reformulation of the Buddha’s teaching introduced by Nāgārjuna in the 2nd century, caused profound misunderstanadings in its reception context, and it still does among Western readers. The interpretation of its being another form of intellectually fruitless and ethically irresponsable nihilism has always accompanied this demanding philosophy. We will try to answer this objection by resorting to some tools the Middle Way provides.

In particular, we will understand what Nāgārjuna meant by abandoning philosophical discussion; we will clarify the self-image of being a practical, useful discourse despite not conceptually capturing the truth; we will explore the new relationship this way of reasoning establishes with mainstream philosophy; and we will review some of its current nihilist misreadings. As allies to clarify the words of the most famous mādhyamika, Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, we count on Jeffrey Hopkins, C.W. Huntington, Juan Arnau, Giuseppe Ferraro and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche among others.

Genital Self-Sacrifice among the Yucatan Mayas in the Postclassic

Manuel Alberto Morales Damián — 2024-09-23

The objective of this essay is to establish the function of the collective ritual of shedding blood by piercing the phalluses with a rope. Although genital puncture is a ritual with a long tradition, recorded since the Preclassic, the study is limited to the Postclassic period. The visual evidence of the Tro Cortesianus Codex (Madrid) and the succinct descriptions of some New Spain documents are analyzed, particularly, the Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. Epigraphy and iconography are used, but only as tools to establish the symbolic meaning of each of the aspects involved in the ritual, since the focus of this essay is the history of religions. The contribution of the work consists fundamentally in the detailed explanation of the ritual process, highlighting the understanding of space, time, objects, and the subjects that participate in it. The function of genital self-sacrifice by cording, from the postclassical Maya cultural perspective, displays virility, guarantees fertility, justifies authority, and strengthens community ties.

Sufi Saint, Saintliness and Holymanworshiping

Mohammed Dahiri — 2024-09-23

Sufism is a strictly Islamic current whose followers devote themselves to the practice of an ascetic-based mysticism in a religious environment of great rituality. A fundamental characteristic of Sufism is the indispensable participation of a master of spirit who assumes the role of guide in the formation of the devout novice, facilitating his progression on the Way. Some of these characters, possessors of great charisma and possessors of extraordinary and exemplary virtues, came to arouse, first in their students and then in the followers of their doctrines and teachings, such a level of admiration that they came to be considered saints. The article analyzes the characteristics and circumstances that concurred in these singular people, as well as the essence of the quality that adorned them, holiness. In addition, a related phenomenon, which occurred in rural and suburban areas of Morocco and elsewhere in the Maghreb, is also addressed: santonismo. The latter would be the cult that would be given to a certain person, the saint, by sectors of the population that were not very Islamized in which certain pre-Islamic atavisms would survive.

Štefan Nemecskay's travel diaries as a legacy of spiritual quest

Zuzana Vargová — 2024-09-23

Journeys and travel to Italy have developed in the Slovak environment since the 19th century. The paper focuses on the research of the journey, which is given in his magazine-published travelogues by the priest and Catholic writer Štefan Nemecskay, a representative of the second generation of scholars around Anton Bernolák. Although the starting point for the analysis was the categorisation of aspects of the literary representation of Italy established by M. Beller (it not only helps to summarize the previous knowledge about the country or the form of the travelogue, for example the degree of predominance of factual facts over the subjective representation of individual experiences), but the ambition of the paper is primarily to reflect a unique author's strategy based on emphasizing the spiritual dimensions of life and reviving man’s relationship with God.

A look at religious practice in virtual contexts during COVID-19

Grecy Pérez Amores — 2024-09-23

By exploring some of the transformations that occurred in the daily religious practices of different communities during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examined the responses of these religious communities, which were mediated by ICTs. The research aimed to delve into the processes of adapting religious rituals and celebrations, focusing on virtualization and digitization. Additionally, it analyzed the role of mass media in shaping narratives about religious practices during the pandemic. Finally, we sought to understand how religious communities addressed conflicts and existential uncertainties during that period. Questions such as: ¿What implications did the pandemic situation have for religious communities? ¿To what extent can we speak of a redefinition of sacred spaces? How did technology help resolve cultic difficulties faced by religious congregations? And what was the mass media’s portrayal of these religious practices? To answer these questions, we employed virtual ethnography of spaces mediated by ICTs and conducted interviews to collect offline religious experiences. The results revealed that the resilience demonstrated by individuals within these religious communities reflected their ability to reformulate and adapt religious practices using digital tools.

The Islamic religion in prison and Moroccan women prisoners in Spain

Joaquina Castillo-Algarra — 2024-09-23

The main aim of this paper is to investigate how Moroccan women prisoners interpret and practice their religion in prison and the consequences of this in their lives, on an individual level and on a group level, in short the role religion plays for them in prison. Based on the qualitative method, and by using in-depth interviews as the investigative technique, the results show that, in general, religion brings important benefits such as psychological well being, helping the women prisoners to adapt to prison life, alleviating the pain of separation from their children and giving them hope for the future.

However, the Islamic religion is the principal point of difference among the Moroccan women prisoners, according to the degree of influence that they exercise over each other which is influenced by various factors: where they come from, their socialization process and for the time that they have spent in prison. Based on these factors three distinct profiles for Moroccan women prisoners have been identified which differentiate them as women and as prisoners. In short, our results show that religion is key to understanding the identity of these women in prison. Our work opens a new line of investigation that encompasses religion, gender, nationality and prison not addressed until now.

"Non-religion" and "liminal religiosity": Research Proposals for the Study of Institutional Religious Disaffection in Latin America

Fabián Bravo Vega — 2024-09-23

The following article aims to present two analytical tools for understanding the process of disaffection from religious institutions in the context of Latin American modernity: the concept of "non-religion" and a strategy focused on the liminality of the religious (‘liminal religiosity’). The main argument holds that religious disaffection, understood through the growth of the unaffiliated population and other associated phenomena, implies the existence of a heterogeneous space rather than a residual and negative category. To achieve this, and through a methodology of literature review, a critical examination is made of the main theoretical nuclei of the social sciences regarding the religious phenomenon, identifying some underlying patterns such as a normative conception of secularization and the predominance of a Western modern narrative that would hinder problematizing new trends in regional religious change. It is concluded that these proposals can be valuable tools to the extent that they are complemented by less restrictive models based on more versatile theoretical-methodological devices and an understanding of religious minimalism situated within the singularity of Latin American modernity.

Arif, Nasr M. y Abbas Panakkal (eds.) (2024): Matrilineal, Matriarchal, and Matrifocal Islam: The World of Women-Centric Islam, Palgrave Macmillan, Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, 319 pp. ISBN: 978-3-031-51748-8. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51749-5

Adday Hernández López — 2025-01-20

Ratzinger, Joseph (2023): Vivir como si Dios existiera. Una propuesta para Europa, Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, 331 pp. ISBN: 978-84-1339-139-7.

Cristhian C. Camargo Camacho — 2024-09-23

Reseña del libro Vivir como si Dios existiera. Una propuesta para Europa, de Joseph Ratzinger, en la que se señalan los principales elementos de interés en el texto en torno al pensamiento teológico político del papa Benedicto XVI.

González, Elías (2023): Religarnos. Más allá del monopolio de la religión, Barcelona, editorial Kairós, 445 pp. ISBN 978-84-1121-125-3.

Renée De la Torre — 2025-01-20

Critique du livre Religarnos. Au-delà du monopole de la religion, par Elías González

Varela, Ma Ángeles; Barnés, Antonio; Nila Martínez, Alicia y Rafael Ruiz Andrés (eds.) (2022): Autores en busca del autor. Volumen II, CEU Ediciones, Madrid, 275 pp., ISBN 978-84-19111-40-1.

Ekaterina Katilina Espi — 2024-09-23

C'est un compte rendu.

Aguirre, Rafael (2024): La utilización política de la Biblia. Epílogo de Julio Trebolle, Verbo Divino, Madrid, 256 pp. ISBN: 978-84-9073-987-7.

Carmen López Alonso — 2024-09-23

Salvador González, José María. Thalamus Dei. The Bed in Images of the Annunciation. Its Iconography and Doctrinal Explanation. Madrid: Dykinson y Sindéresis, 2024, 185 p. ISBN: 978-84-10120-23-5

Herbert González Zymla — 2025-01-20

Vesely, Patricia (2019): Friendship and Virtue Ethics in the Book of Jobs, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 284 pp. ISBN: 978-1108476478

Salomo Sihombing — 2025-01-20

Bárczi, Zsófia; Gallik, Ján; Hlavinová Tekeliová, Dominika y Lenka Tkáč-Zabáková (2020); Spiritual-Religious Literature. Through the Lens of Comparative Imagology, Masaryk University Press, Brno, 110 pp., ISBN 978-80-210-9764-3.

Enrique Santos Marinas — 2024-09-23

Peña Fernández, Francisco (2022): La temprana sombra de Caín, Almuzara Universidad, Córdoba, 184 pp., ISBN 978-84-11311-62-5.

Emilio González Ferrín — 2024-09-23

Postsecularización y diversidad religiosa en España

Rafael Ruiz Andrés — 2025-01-20

La secularización ha conformado uno de los ejes articuladores en la construcción de las Ciencias Sociales, particularmente relevante para aquellos análisis que han explorado las trayectorias religiosas en los contextos que calificamos como “modernos”. De hecho, la centralidad que la categoría “modernidad” —y sus implicaciones— posee para disciplinas como la sociología (Stolz y Voas, 2023) es equiparable al peso del debate de la secularización en los estudios sobre religiones.

Homologies: On the Critique of the Religion of Heaven and the Critique of Earthly Religion

Juan Manuel Cincunegui — 2025-01-20

This article explores structural analogies between the spheres of theology, epistemology, and politics from a dialectical perspective. The starting point is the recognition that the "reification" or "objectification" of totality is expressed as the negation of otherness.

In the theological sphere, structure is defined in terms of "immanence-transcendence". In this realm, the immanent frame may be closed in on itself, as in the case of physicalist naturalism, which presents itself as "the totality (the physical universe) containing all totalities," or it may remain open to its exteriority or transcendence. In the epistemological sphere, the circle of representations that constitutes the subject-object correlation, the mind-world relation, the interior-exterior topology, can be interpreted as a primitive and insurmountable totality, the so-called "correlational circle," or it can remain open to its background. In the political sphere, capitalist modernity, as a historical totality, can present itself as the "end of history" and express itself as the negation of its exteriorities - the excluded populations, non-human nature, and future generations - or it can submit to the verdict of injustice of its victims and take responsibility for the unintended effects produced by its blindness.

These structures reveal a transhistorical question concerning the problem of the objectivity of the world that arises from our finite condition. But they also pose a historical question concerning the self-understanding of modernity, the intrinsic logic of the capitalist order, and the horizons of the post-secular era.

A Sociological-Conceptual Genealogy of Post-Secularization

Javier Gil-Gimeno — 2025-01-20

Recent analyses by José Casanova, Jürgen Habermas, Gordon Lynch, Hans Joas, Robert Bellah, David Martin or the latest Peter Berger -among others- have focused on the limitations associated with the general theory of secularization, which for decades became the paradigm from which to understand and interpret the relations between the secular and the religious. Through the theory of post-secularization, it has been possible to re-grade the sociological view of these relationships, emphasizing the vitality and plurality of forms that the religious currently acquires. Starting from this presupposition, the objective of our work is to carry out a sociological-conceptual genealogy of post-secularization centered on the analysis of some of the main theoretical contributions that have contributed to the development of this new approach to secularization. This genealogy will not be limited to the analysis of the work of authors who have articulated their proposals as a response to the inadequacies of the general theory of secularization, but we also want to study briefly some contributions of classics of sociological thought -specifically Durkheim and Weber- whose reflections already pointed to a post-secularization horizon. Thus, after the introduction, we will present a first section focused on the study of modern polytheism according to Weber and the sacred thing in Durkheim's work. Subsequently, we will present three current theoretical analyses, namely those of Habermas, Casanova and Lynch, which will help us to outline the conceptual contours of post-secularization.

Legislative proposals for a better regulation of religious diversity in Spain

Fernando Amérigo Cuervo-Arango — 2025-01-20

The different contemporary sociological studies dealing with religiosity in Spain show us a plural and diverse society, very far away from the homogeneous catholic majority of 1980, when the Constitutional Law on Religious Diversity was approved, being the essential tool for the constitutional development of religious liberty and the management of religious diversity. The doctrine has highlighted the lack of coupling between the Constitutional Law and the new social reality. Hence, the claim of the necessity of establishing a new Constitutional Law on Religious Conscience. Such possibility entered the political agenda during the last term of the Government of President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, not being legally set in force. Afterwards, the question disappeared from the political agenda of the successive governments, it was necessary to retake such initiative for a better management of religious diversity. However, even acknowledging that the development of a new Constitutional Law would be the best option, we must not dismiss the possibility of establishing a new Law on the basic principles of the management of religious diversity without overturning the actual Constitutional Law. Moreover, the Government could correct, through the publication of different Royal Decrees, its lack of coupling to the social reality by including developments of the content of the fundamental right to freedom of religion. Such Royal Decrees would allow to set in force in Spain the reasonable accommodation as the best technique for the management of our religious diversity.

Catholic Church in Spain, 21st Century: Cycles, Dimensions and Structures

Fernando Vidal Fernández — 2025-01-20

This study synthesizes the state of Catholicism in Spain in the second decade of the twenty-first century, in an evolutionary perspective. To this end, we give an account of the cycle in which its dynamics and model of Church is found, as well as the dimensions and its structure. In short, the Spanish Catholic Church is initiating a profound cultural change in a new cycle promoted from Rome that seeks a new synodal relationship within the Church, and the promotion of the culture of encounter in the relationship with modern institutions. In terms of size, the Catholic community is made up of 55% of Spaniards in 2024 (in 55 years, since 1970, it has lost 40 percentage points). 15% of Spaniards are practicing Catholics and 28% of Spaniards are Catholics who never or almost never participate in the Eucharist. In total, 26.28 million people in Spain. With regard to the structure, we find a tendency to strengthen almost all its parish, social, educational and cultural institutions, with such a number of centres and activity, that it constitutes a singularity in civil society due to its size, capillarity and incidence. The future of religions is uncertain because it depends largely on how they develop the charism, but, despite the reduction of their members, it continues to be not only the greatest reality of Spanish civil society, but it is foreseeable that it will continue to be so throughout the twenty-first century.

Buddhism in Spain: a Post-Secular and Post-Religious Avant Garde?

Francisco Díez de Velasco — 2025-01-20

Being Buddhist is perceived in different and even antithetical ways. Those who consider it a religion have no problem, for example, registering their religious communities in the Register of Religious Entities (RER) of the Spanish Ministry of the Presidency and/or Justice. On other occasions, however, they clearly show that they should not be considered a religion and, therefore, when they institutionalise themselves, they do so as cultural associations and not as religious entities or communities. There are also groups that are committed to a Buddhism that they explicitly call atheistic, which, therefore, proposes that it is an option that could be judged as antithetical to what is usually understood as religion and that is fully encompassed in what we could call the post-secular and post-religious magma.

Buddhism in Spain offers good examples of this problem of characterisation or definition, which adds a peculiar perspective given the great diversity that characterises groups, schools, but also individuals who consider themselves or identify themselves, albeit in a lax or tortuous way, as Buddhists. It allows us to offer elements to think about the invisibilisation (and stigmatisation) of religion in current societies, using the Spanish case as an example.

The Osha Rule in the Canary Islands: a case study from the perspective of postsecularization

Grecy Pérez Amores — 2025-01-20

This work approaches, from the perspective of post-secularization, the socioreligious reality of the Canary Islands, starting from the study of the community of practitioners of the Osha-Ifá Rule. This line analyzes how the visibility of the rituals and practices of this religion in the public sphere poses a challenge to the normative recognition of plurality. Is post-secularization a paradigm for a fruitful approach to the socioreligious transformations that occur in the context of the archipelago? In this context, we reflect on the role of religious practices related to healing and folk medicine as an area of conflict between the local population and these communities. This conflict is echoed in traditional media and digital social networks. The universe involved in these practices utilizes local resources and engages in debates about ecological relationships, interspecies connections, and spirituality. The goal is to study this dynamic process where modernity and religiosity coexist and mutually influence each other. Both a processual perspective, focusing on performativity, and a postsecularization approach that bridges theory and empirical research can contribute to recognizing contemporary ways of living and understanding the sacred and spiritual aspects.

The Death of the Others: A Comparative Analysis of the Management of Islamic and Jewish Funeral Spaces in the Community of Madrid

Daniel Gil-Benumeya — 2025-01-20

The funeral issue can be understood as a total social fact involving historical, social, political, symbolic, legal, or economic matters. This study conducts a comparative analysis of the demands and needs regarding funeral matters of the Jewish and Muslim communities in the territory of the Autonomous Community of Madrid as a case study. Both religions share a history of uprooting and persecution in Spanish society, which has been essentially Catholic for centuries, as well as a process of recovery and re-legitimization in contemporary times. In the current postsecular context, laws recognize both communities' right to practice thir respective funeral rites, which have elements that are discordant with the majority social practice, and to have their own cemeteries of those enabled by public administrations. However, Jews and Muslims experience differential access to this right in the Community of Madrid. The objective of this work is to address the reasons for this difference, which are related to the recent history of both communities, their processes of institutionalization, their sociodemographic characteristics, and the symbolic problems that their presence raises.

Legal Keys to the Public Management of Religious Diversity in the Field of Health

Salvador Pérez Álvarez — 2025-01-20

Patients demand the effective exercise of the different manifestations of their religious freedom when they are interned in public health institutions. I am referring to requests that must be attended to by the relevant authorities, in order to promote the full enjoyment of their religious freedom in this context. The subject of this paper is analyze the legal keys to the management of the right of patients to consume food and to wear clothing and symbolic representations in their dependencies based on their religious beliefs.

The Management of Religious Diversity and Gender in Spain

María José Parejo Guzmán — 2025-01-20

Spain is a country with a long Catholic tradition, a Church that has had a significant influence on our society for centuries, clearly reflected, for example, in its conservative position on issues of gender and sexuality.

As a result of the 1978 Constitution, some changes began in our country in this area, establishing gender equality as a fundamental principle. It also began a clear process of secularization and modernization in Spain, which would weaken the influence of Catholicism in society and foster, in our secular society, a clear disinterest in all things religious, with an evident decrease in religious practice, which led to a significant evolution in attitudes towards gender and gender equality.

At the end of the 20th century the concept of post-secularization would emerge and religion would regain relevance in the public sphere and in social life. This paper will face the legal challenge of analyzing, in the context of religious diversity and complexity of the religious phenomenon of this post-secular era, the role of women and their possible discrimination or not in this field in our 21st century Spain in order to study the limits that the legislator can impose on incitement to violence against women that is based on religious and/or cultural beliefs related to gender.

The Management of Diversity: Prohibitionist Parcours in Muslim Clothing in Europe

Laura Mijares — 2025-01-20

In this article, the authors analyse the trajectories of the increasingly restrictive regulations regarding the Muslim female population and their embodiment in public spaces, especially in educational and work establishments. These laws and norms have two fundamental characteristics. The first is that they are firmly inserted in local contexts, in which they play different roles, sometimes related to mere partisan or electioneering conjunctures; the second is that their scope goes far beyond the prohibition of clothing, since they are linked to the construction of representations and citizenship. Both circumstances are integrated in a systematic construction of racism, as a constitutive part of the capitalist moment, which incorporates other levels, apparently in a contradictory way, but with a great coherence in the prohibitionist objective.

Repoliticizing the Religious: The Catholic-Inspired Neoconservative Mobilization against Moral Politics From The Post-secularity Framework

Joseba García Martín — 2025-01-20

Controversies over so-called 'moral policies' have gained increasing visibility in Spain over the last decades. In the face of these policies, enacted amidst a steep process of secularization, a field of Catholic-inspired laity organizations with a neo-conservative ideology (CISO-N) has emerged to defend the Catholic normative framework. Waging a double battle, cultural and political, these organizations provide new angles to analyze the relationship between religion and politics from the theoretical perspective of post-secularity. CISO-Ns deprivatize Catholicism in the public sphere through strategically secularized protest repertoires and discursive frames. They thus align with the Vatican strategy of ‘new evangelisation’, which promotes a «veiled re-Christianization» of institutions and society protagonized by the laity. CISO-N members can thus be characterized as ‘citizen-believers’ and activists. Drawing on the literature on post-secularization and social movements, and on a 7-year qualitative study, we trace the protest cycle and evolving organizational structure of the OLIC-N field over a 40-year period. Next, we compare two protest events organized by the OLIC-N «moderate» and «radicalized» blocs during the last phase of the cycle, characterized by increasing levels of 'affective polarization' caused by the «mainstreaming» of feminist postulates, and the institutionalization of 'cultural backlash' dynamics since the arrival of VOX to political institutions. Our data show that the mobilization of the 'organized laity' is not always, or not necessarily, an «ally» of the pluralization of democratic systems, indicating the need to rethink some of the postulates of postsecularization.

Religions for the Public: Religious Diversity and Heritage and Tourism Promotion in Contemporary Spain

Miguel Ángel Carvajal Contreras — 2025-01-20

Although some classic authors of the Social Sciences predicted that the inevitable process of secularization would entail the loss of religious practices and the importance of ritual in contemporary societies throughout the 20^th century, this process has not finally ocurred in the right terms in which it was thought to happen. We are, therefore, facing a stage of post-secularization. If Catholicism has marked life and morality in Spanish society for centuries and the 20^th century witnessed a very marked promotion of it during the Franco regime, once at the end of the 60's legislation began to allow the expression public awareness of religious diversity, the multiple confessions became more visible until reaching the current situation, in which their presence can be seen both in the public space and in the media. In our article we intend to show how this visibility, which concerns both Catholicism itself and the rest of the cultural heritage linked to them and their tourist promotion, which allows that the visitor comes into contact with the various religious through a greater knowledge of their legacy of their places of worship.