Young and religious among an atheist majority: ‘It’s a lifestyle that encompasses all areas of life’

Catalonia is not a particularly religious place. In fact, alongside Navarra, it was found to be the least-religious territory in Spain, as 41% of the population is not religious. 

In the years since dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975, two trends stand out when it comes to religion: the generation gap - now most young Spaniards are not religious, while a staggering 78.1% of 18- to 24-year-olds considered themselves Catholic in 1990 - as well as the diversification of religion due to an increase in migration. 

Indeed, of the four people 30 and younger Catalan News spoke with for this article, Nagia, Gagandeep, Gisela, and Dolma, only one was a Christian. And while they might not practice the same religion, faith is a defining factor in their lives, unlike most others in their cohort.  

  

Nagia, Islam: “People don’t understand that you can be Catalan or Spanish and Muslim”

Nagia is a 29-year-old Muslim from the coastal town of Pineda de Mar. Her father is Moroccan and her mother is Catalan, and even though she didn’t grow up in a strict Muslim family - she actually went to Catholic school - she says Islam now determines who she is and how she relates to others. 

“I don’t consider religion to be just a part of life and that’s it - it’s everything. It’s a lifestyle you choose that encompasses all areas of my life,” she explained. 

She says being a Muslim here, where only around 4.4% of the population shares the same religious beliefs, isn’t always that easy. As a teen, she felt like she stood out at school for fasting during Ramadan. At her last job, her colleagues were understanding, but sometimes she’d have to ask for certain days off in order to celebrate Muslim holidays. 

She also noticed that people began to treat her differently once she started wearing a headscarf. People, she laments, see her as a foreigner even though she is from here.    

Gagandeep, Sikhism: “Religion for me is a kind of support in every sense for my life”

Gagandeep, now in his mid-twenties, is a Sikh who moved to Hospitalet, beside Barcelona, in his early teens. Like Nagia, his faith is everything to him.  

“Religion for me is a kind of support in every sense for my life,” he told Catalan News. “It's not like it's just based on some routines or habits but also the relationship that I have with my Guru, with God, with the universal force.”

Although there are only around 35,000 Sikhs in Catalonia, Gagandeep says he hasn’t been discriminated against because of it: “I think, luckily, in Barcelona we have an environment that is quite inclusive.”

In fact, he says that there are often more non-Sikhs than Sikhs at the temples in Barcelona, Gurudwaras, where free vegetarian meals are served to anybody and everybody. “It’s basically a social hub for everyone to have a get-together and to practice meditation and to learn about Sikhism.”

Dolma, Buddhism: “It’s not a religion for me but a spiritual path”

“It’s not a religion for me but a spiritual path,” Dolma, the 22-year-old daughter of Bhutanese immigrants from Barcelona, said. “It makes you open to finding inner peace and gives me happiness and well being and makes me more empathetic with others.”

She believes there are misconceptions here about what being a Buddhist means, and she can sometimes get ignorant questions about it. “Fervent Buddhists meditate for hours every day. People ask me, so you meditate all day long? No, you can meditate all day, for two hours, or ten minutes!”

Dolma argues that the open nature of her faith - “It is not a strict religion” - makes it attractive to others, young and old, and that because of this it will continue to grow in adherents.

Gisela, Christianity: “I practice religion every minute of my day”

Gisela’s a 30-year-old Catholic from Barcelona. She says her family is religious, but possibly not as much as she is. 

“I practice religion every minute of my day. I pray, go to church…” she said. “People think religion is just doing things, but it’s a way of being and living and enjoying and seeing life.”

She doesn’t see her faith as an impediment to relating to others who don’t share it. “I have all kinds of friends,” she told Catalan News. “Some who are religious, some who are not.” When she talks to people who aren’t religious, she doesn’t feel the need to be right or impose her beliefs on them, she explained. 

Gisela is aware, however, that Christianity, while still the majority religion here, isn’t as easy a sell as it used to be. People associate her religion with strict rules and norms, she says, but according to her, “God is love.”