"The Catholic religion still has significant influence on Spanish culture," as Astrid Grue, an anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), argued during a seminar she gave together with her colleague Heiko Henkel at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra. The Religion and Civil Society project organized the seminar.

The Danish expert said that the presence of Catholicism remains strong although it has been losing ground in the public sphere, which she attributed to the fact that, in the twentieth century, the Church became involved in political issues. As noted, a different context would probably have influenced how society perceives the Catholic identity today and would have favored the expression of Catholic views in the public sphere.

Religious and secular varieties in Europe

Grue's statements are part of research conducted, along with fellow anthropologist Heiko Henkel, on religious and secular varieties in Spain, Denmark and Turkey, which they presented at the ICS. Henkel explained that they selected these three countries for "the way in which their majority religions interact with their national tradition. Spain corresponds to Catholicism, Denmark to Protestantism, and Turkey to Islam."

In connection to this, Henkel noted that, "in Denmark, religion was incorporated into the state after the Protestant Reformation such that church and state are not two separate traditions. In Spain, religion is separate from the state. Turkey is interesting because of its ambivalence; religion is both inside and outside of the state."

Both Heiko Henkel and Astrid Grue work in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Henkel specializes in topics such as religiosity of citizens, Protestantism in Denmark and Islam in Turkey. Grue, for her part, is finishing her thesis on Catholicism in Spain and, in particular, Opus Dei.