Why Spanish Youth Are Leaving The Catholic Church Behind
(ANALYSIS) The Catholic Church — once widely considered a “safe space” for Basque identity in Spain — is losing its relevance as the youth are drifting away from religion. Churches are empty and the proportion of priests per inhabitant has been abysmally low.
Basque Country is located in the north of Spain and in the southwest of France. The inhabitants of this region have for centuries claimed their cultural distinctiveness from others residing in Spain and France — and have long included Catholicism as part of their collective identity.
A 2024 study revealed that enrollment in religious education has been steadily decreasing in Spain, with significantly lower participation rates reported in autonomous communities such as Catalonia and the Basque Country, where secular and pluralistic educational models are more prevalent.
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This data comes as Pope Leo XIV spends a week in Spain, visiting a variety of sites, including a landmark evening Mass at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona to inaugurate the newly completed tower. What greets the pope will be a country at a crossroads when it comes to its Catholic traditions and faith in general.
A 2023 Footprints survey with 601 respondents aged 18 to 29 showed that 31% of young people considered themselves Catholic (31%), alongside more than 40% who had secular and non-affiliated spiritual identities. This is a major decline, compared to Spain’s historically strong Catholic identity. Yet, around 42% believed in God, which “illustrated” complex religious transformations rather than complete disengagement.
According to the Spanish Ministry of Education’s 2023 report, there has been a steady decline in enrollment in religious education, which is predominantly Catholic in content, and remains an optional subject in public schools, over the past decade.
Around 22% of secondary education students nationally chose to enroll in religion classes in the 2022-2023 academic year, as opposed to 10% or less in autonomous communities such as Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Who Are the Basque people?
Basque nationalism took political shape under Basque National Party (PNV) in the early 20th century.
During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco from 1939-1975, Basque nationalism faced severe repression. The Franco dictatorship eliminated any expression of regional identity. The Basque people were violently suppressed, which resulted in growing Basque nationalism and the formation of ETA (Euskadi ta Azkatasuna; Basque Nation and Liberty) in 1959.
ETA waged a small-scale violent campaign against the Spanish government from 1959 to 2011, when it declared an end to its armed struggle.
The president of the Basque government at that time, the nationalist José Antonio Aguirre, advocated for the mixture of both the nationalist and the religious cause while fighting for the republic.
As a result, there was a rise of new groups among this nationalist sector of the church — Christian Popular Communities and the Coordinating Group of Priests of the Basque Country. They believed in the Catholic identity of the Basque Country and promoted the social, economic and theological liberation of the people of Euskadi — the Basque name of the region.
Owing to its deep historical ties to both Basque society and the rest of Spain, the Catholic Church has played a significant role in the negotiations carried out over decades of conflict.
The church had opened a debate about the different democratic approaches for addressing the conflict and the disarmament of ETA.
The Catholic Church in Euskadi held sway both among elite circles and at the grassroots level of Basque society. It encouraged peace and historically functioned as a bridge between the region’s population and external interlocutors.
Why Are people drifting away from church?
The church’s opposition to modern cultural shifts (abortion, divorce, contraception and same-sex marriage) has alienated parts of the population. A 2024 survey stated that nine out of the 10 youth in the Basque Country are in favor of same-sex marriage.
Some have accused the churches of being greedy. In 2024, members of "Defentsa Komunitatea", a youth section of the Basque independence and nationalist movement, interrupted a mass by throwing leaflets and fake money. Some churches in Azpeitia and Beasain, as well as churches in Lasao, Arroa and Aizarna, were vandalized by members of that same group.
A lot of young people in the Basque Country are getting attracted to contemporary spirituality as they see it as a diverse and fluid phenomenon that departs significantly from classical institutional religion.
At the same time, a prominent theme emerging from the 2023 Footprints survey data is the increasing religious pluralism that profoundly shapes the spiritual repertoires of Spanish youth. Since the early 2000s, immigration flows from Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe have significantly diversified Spain’s religious landscape, introducing a range of religious traditions, including Pentecostal Christianity, Islam and various minority faiths.
The trend in the Basque Country is also a reflection of a pan-European phenomenon. According to pan-European surveys such as the European Social Survey, in many southern European countries, including Spain, younger generations exhibit less attachment to religious institutions but maintain nuanced and pluralistic spiritual orientations.
Sonia Sarkar is a journalist based in India. She writes on conflict, religion, politics, health and gender rights from Southeast Asia. Her work has appeared in a range of international publications, including the South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia and Al Jazeera.