That lively 0.5 percent ” “

In the aftermath of the general elections of 8 February, with the predicted victory of the government coalition, headed by the Liberal party of Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen (95 seats won, against the 80 won by the centre-left), Archbishop Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen has commented to SIR on the diffusion of Christian values in the country, in relation to the culture and political outlook of the present time. A “DIFFERENT” POLITICAL INFLUENCE. “The political influence of Christians in Denmark works in a quite different way than in other European countries – says Msgr. Kozon –, in part because in the field of the Protestant tradition, the promotion of social values does not represent a priority question for anyone: neither for the big and longer-standing parties, nor for the Lutheran Church itself. Some Christian exponents within both camps have tried to support a Christian agenda, but have failed to get them accepted as questions of ‘high priority'”. Msgr. Kozon stresses, in this regard, that “the majority of the parties propose a liberal view on such moral issues as divorce, abortion, stem-cell research, homosexual unions and euthanasia. Only one party, founded 35 years ago, the Christian Democrats, explicitly proposes a Christian view of these questions: having been founded in relatively recent times, the party has failed to attract the majority of ‘committed’ believers, who have long found their political home in other parties. The Christian Democrats are therefore a small party, whose presence in Parliament has in some sense been barred by the 2% threshold needed to win seats (editor’s note: in the elections of 8 February, they obtained 58,071 votes, corresponding to 1.7% of the total and hence zero seats)“. CATHOLICS, MINORITY WITHIN THE MINORITY. The archbishop of Copenhagen points out that, given that this is the situation, “Catholics in Denmark represent ‘a minority within the Christian minority’, since they represent only 0.5% of the population, and therefore risk having practically no political influence at all”. “Despite the fact that there is a growing interest in religious problems in the country”, the archbishop continues, “there are still no signals that politicians intend to promote Christian moral values. The main religious concerns present in the public debate concern, for instance, relations between Church and State and also the recognition of religious minorities. It must be recognized, however, that there is growing interest on such issues as abortion, in the sense of increasingly questioning the ultra-liberal character of the existing legislation. The politicians try, in this way, to reflect and represent the appeals coming from public opinion, while trying at the same time to influence it. UNRESOLVED AND EMERGING QUESTIONS. In Msgr. Kozon’s view there does exist – even in so difficult a situation of “accentuated secularization” – some scope, admittedly reduced, for a growth of the Christian presence at the social level. “For example, with regard to euthanasia – he says – there is still a good deal of reluctance to proceed in the same direction as Holland. Similar reservations are registered with regard to adoption by homosexual couples. But perhaps the most relevant question for Danish public opinion at the present time is that of immigration: in this field both the parties of the government coalition, reconfirmed in the elections, and the Social-Democratic opposition follow the same hard line, which tries to block in every way immigration, the reuniting of families and so on. Questions of Church-State relations, and the situation of minority denominations, are being discussed with growing intensity and a change of cultural horizon could be imminent, even if – he concludes – the process could still be very long”. FACT FILE Denmark is a country with 5.3 million inhabitants, with a very high standard of living: the per-capita gross domestic product is one of the highest in the world, 39,152 US dollars in 2003. The level of immigrants is among the lowest at the European level: Turks 0.6%, Bosnians 0.3%, Iraqis 0.3%, Swedes 0.2%, and Germans 0.2%. At the religious level, 86.5% of the inhabitants are Protestants, and the Lutheran Evangelic Church is considered the State Church. The Catholic component is just over 35,000 registered baptized, even if a small number of conversions are being registered: some 60 each year. Pastoral service is provided by some eighty priests and some 230 sisters of 34 communities.