“The future of religion, the role of the Churches” is the title of the symposium that ended in Vienna on 6 December. Organized by Paul M. Zulehner, dean of the Institute of pastoral Theology at the University of Vienna, the symposium represents the conclusion of the thirty years’ work begun by Zulehner in 1970 on the religious conduct of the Austrians. During the symposium, at which the empirical data produced by this study were discussed, the fourth volume on the results of the research project was also presented: “Religion in the Life of the Austrians: 1970-2000”. The first volume, with the title “The Church and the Clergy”, appeared in 1974. This was followed by the second volume, “Religion in the Life of the Austrians” (1981) and the third, “From subject to free agent” (1991). Some 40 experts from Austria, Switzerland and Germany took part in the meeting: they comprised both theologians and sociologists of religion, Catholics and Protestants. The Symposium analyzed the current concept of religion, the revival of religious experience after the wave of secularization, which had a strong impact in the 1970s, and the role of women in religions.
