Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 68 No. 4, 1998.
Original scientific paper
Aspects of Religiosity in Croatia
Gordan Črpić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Stjepan Kušar
Abstract
The phenomenon of religiosity in Croatia in this work we looked at through four possible perspectives: religious belonging and ritual practices, religiosity (where we mean a more emotional relationship toward God, or something sacred), orthodoxy, and through the public role of the Church in society. All instruments and dimensions we accommodated in accordance with the Croatian situation and needs. We found, during our research from 15.11.1997 - 10.01.1998 that 89,7% of the Croatian population define themselves as »catholic«, 2,9% orthodox, 1,1% Muslim, 0,3% different sects, atheists and agnostics 2,1%, and 3,7% people who defined themselves like unbelievers. (Some Croatian territory was unapproachable for us. It is a part of East Slavonia, and Baranja, where there were still international protection forces.)
According to Church attendance, 30,3% of Croatian citizens attend the religious service at least once a week. We also found a high percentage of unbelievers and atheists who want some religious ceremony in some situations in their life, like a birth, marriage and death. About 60% of the whole catholic population goes to confession at least once a year in keeping with Church Law.
With regard to religiosity, in particular meaning, 75,9% of Croatian citizens see themselves as »religious people«, 8% of them think they are »non religious«, 2% are »convinced atheists«, and 12,4% of them have no opinion about religiosity, non-religiosity and atheism. For 75% of them, religion plays a very important role in their life, and the greatest influence in formulating a religious sense in the family for 72% of them. The same situation we have with a relationship toward God. For ¾ of the population, God is a fact which is important in their life. 30,3% of Croatian citizens pray every day, and family praying is practised by 10% of Croatian families at least once a week. 60% of the population say that they don’t have a Bible, or they don't read it. 5,7% of the catholic population reads the Bible very often, and 0,7% of them read it every day. With regards to the receiver of one's prayers, mostly people refer to God 88,6%, Jesus Christ 82,2%, and to the Virgin Mary 80,3%. In our research we investigated the direct religious experience, the appearance of, and contacts with God, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, angels or saints. 5,5% of the whole population said that they have had, at least once in their life, one extraordinary meeting like this. With regard to appearance, we asked about the »Međugorje« phenomenon. We found that 41,6% of the population think that it is a »sign of God's presence in the world«. The second largest group of people, 31,4% of them, are those who have no opinion about it.
Orthodoxy. With regard to orthodoxy, 47,7% of the population said that they believe everything that their Church teaches, but 35,3% of them said that they accept only part of this teaching. With regard to some eschatological questions, like questions about death, heaven, hell, the devil, reincarnation, and soon, about 60% of the population has no opinion, or they don't think about death. About 15% of the nominal catholic population accept the concept of reincarnation, and what is interesting, this percentage does not decrease with regard to mass attendance. Most believers see heaven as a »community with God«, 47,4% of them. Most of the population sees the devil non-personally, as a tendency to evil, the bad part of human beings, 44,2% of them. Generally, we could say that we have a relatively high acceptance of doctrine which people recognise as »Catholic«. But on the question of the substance of this knowledge, it is remarkable that there is a great lack acquaintance with catholic knowledge and accepting of religious beliefs which are sometimes completely contrary to catholic teaching.
Public role of Church. The Catholic Church, with regard to opinions of Croatian citizens, given and still gives has the best answers to questions of religion and religious needs - 75,5% of them think like this. The same percentage think that the Catholic Church gives them an adequate cultural identity. Less adequate answers are given by the Catholic Church in regard to social problems and the situation in our country today. The Church has considerable space for public action. People think that the Church has a lot to say about the environment, ecology, and development (about 80%), and they give it less possibility to say something about government policy (33,8%), which tallies with European tradition.
From this research we can identify three categories of believers in Croatia: »practical believers«, at a level of 25%, then »traditional believers« at a level of 50%, and »nominal believers« at a level of 15%. There are some indications which show us that the whole Catholic believers population is in some kind of transformation process in religious and social areas.
As a result of recent transitions we would expect to find a significant number of unchurched people, since the Church stopped being a carrier of national identity. A very interesting discovery in our research is a great similarity, from a religious point of view, with the Mediterranean catholic countries; Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Also interesting is the discovery of some peculiarities of generation born between 1941-1950 which show us a significantly higher number, related to the whole population, of atheists and also those who reported that they had seen God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary. We thought that we could explain this by the influence from official atheistic ideology which was stronger when these people were young children, and growing up in this atmosphere. Their normal religious socialisation was obstructed by this ideology. Later atheistic ideology wasn't so aggressive, and religion socialisation was normal.
At the moment, the core members of the Church in Croatia are mostly older people, women, and politically right oriented people. The processes of pluralisation and individualisation, and secularisation strike root deep in Croatian society, which is a great challenge to catholic mentality, and in a specific way to hierarchy. Facing them is an enormous challenge, to lead the Church in a new situation. Their task is to make adequate religious socialisation of young people possible, because it isn't enough just to give them information in school catechism. There needs to be a culturally adopted catechism and a family pastoral, because the family is still the basic transmitter of religious values. Secularisation is also obviously present in our society, the influence of Church authority is weak and the individual has become the ultimate authority. Religion remains as an interesting subject but institutionalised forms of religion are less interesting. We don't expect conflict between laymen and clerical hierarchy. Over all we can expect increasing indifference tο the teaching of clerical hierarchy, and development of religiosity in the direction of intimate religiosity based on personal religious experience. The duty before the Church is to build a living community which will develop a spirit of solidarity and closeness, not only between members of the Church, but also with people who are outside the Church community. It is the only way if one wishes to remain an authentic Christian.
Keywords
religiosity; ritual practice; believing; public role of the Church
Hrčak ID:
31585
URI
Publication date:
27.4.1999.
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