From the NSS newsline letter, 2006 Sep 29, http://www.secularism.org.uk

SPAIN CUTS FUNDING FOR CATHOLIC CHURCH (Abridged)
In a move that took many by surprise, the Spanish government has announced that it will cease
paying a subsidy to the Catholic Church, which last year totalled about 30 million euros. In addition, the church will lose its exemption from value-added tax (VAT) on purchases of goods and property, as required by the European Union, and will have to supply the government with an annual report to justify the spending of monies granted to them through the voluntary income tax levy.

The new measures will not affect the hundreds of millions of euros in payment to religious school teachers and in subsidies paid to maintain Spanish cathedrals.

Since taking power in April 2004, the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has had a stormy relationship with the Catholic Church, introducing legislation making divorce much easier, legalising gay marriage and eliminating the requirement that religion be an obligatory subject in schools.

The pope attempted to chastise Zapatero during a recent papal visit to Spain, but the Prime
Minister shrugged off the criticism and then compounded the “insult” by not attending the Pope’s mass.

Tags: europe, religion, roman catholic church, secularisation, spain
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The Christian Research group have published the results of their fourth English Church Census. I have integrated these stats into my Statistics of Religion in Britain page, and here is a summary:

• Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday (6 in 100 of us now do).
  
  
• Between 1998 and 2005, half a million people stopped going to church on Sunday.[2]
  
  
• Daily Telegraph's religious affairs correspondent, Jonathan Petre, says "While 1,000 new people are joining a church each week, 2,500 are leaving."[2]
  
  
• 29% of churchgoers are 65 or over, compared with 16% of the population [2]
  
  
• Nearly all Church 'growth' is due to immigrants. A massive influx of Polish workers have filled churches.

"The fastest rates of decline were among Roman Catholics and Methodists; whereas the Pentecostal Churches showed significant growth over the period. As a result, Methodism has dropped to fourth place behind Pentecostalism. If these rates continue, the C of E will overtake the RC Church within the next four years." [3]

"London has 11 per cent of all churches in England, and 20 per cent of all churchgoers. It has 53 per cent of all English Pentecostalists, and 27 per cent of all Charismatic Evangelicals. Also, it caters for 57 per cent of all worshippers in their 20s. “I couldn’t believe that figure myself, and had to check it again,” said Peter Brierley, the director of Christian Research."

A full table of data on Sunday church attendance from 1979 to 2005 is now on www.vexen.co.uk/religon/rib.html#Sunday Attendance

Sources: (fuller references are on the page)
1. The Christian Research English Church Census 2005
2. National Secular Society Newsline, 2006 Sep 22
3. Church Times, 2006 Sep 22
4. Jonathan Petre, Daily Telegraph religious correspondent, 2006 Sep 21.

Tags: church of england, religion, roman catholic church, statistics
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