A varied landscape

Switzerland’s religious landscape is undergoing a profound transformation process, which impacts society at various levels. Increasing pluralism and individualism in religious practice and belief; secularization, namely, religion’s loss of relevance at individual and societal level along with the emergence of new religious traditions (resulting from migration and disseminated by the media) are the country’s prevailing trends. Notably, the number of those who feel distant from all forms of institutionalised religion is increasing. State and society are thus called to address new challenges and questions on the political, administrative, educational and juridical plane. To learn more about the emerging questions and identify the best solutions, in 2007 the Swiss Confederation promoted a national research project named "Religious communities, State, and society" (NRP 58), that encompasses 28 projects. Now the findings of the research – that lasted several years – have been published with annexed recommendations to policymakers, institutions and civil society. The document, by Christoph Bochinger, is titled "Religion, State and society. Switzerland between secularization and religious pluralism" ("Religionen, Staat und Gesellschaft. Die Schweiz zwischen Säkularisierung und religiöser Vielfalt"). Immigrants and religious practice. The 28 research projects that compose this overview show that on the long run even immigrants and their communities, providing a major contribution to growing religious pluralism, are subjected to the same changes that involve Swiss native population. The authors of the document claim that "a recovery of religious sentiment" is to be found in public debate and in the media but not at individual level. Although the political realm frequently addresses religious themes, often because of new challenges raised by immigrants’ communities (new places of worship, visible religious habits, circumcision, new forms of burial), the findings show that religion is increasingly less present in daily life, not in terms of its refusal but as a distancing by its believers. The de-institutionalization process – i.e. the tendency to profess a self-made religion that is detached from the spiritual norms of religious group – equally involves Christians and all the religious groups present in Switzerland. Evidently, immigrants’ religious practice is stronger that that of natives, however it sometimes appears to act as a form of support and socialization conveyed by religious communities to its members living abroad. Immigrants’ children. Also among immigrants’ children religious practice is marked by greater individualism, less bound to institutions and rules as compared to their parents’. Strategies of adaptation to one’s own religious tradition and to the surrounding environment lead to a variety of behaviours. It should be underlined that conversely from the prevailing trends, some of these groups are marked by high levels of religious participation and by growing numbers of faithful. The phenomenon is registered in all religions: among ultra-Orthodox Jews, in some free or charismatic Christian Churches, within certain Muslim communities, in Tamil Hindus and among Christians from Africa and Asia. However, their numbers are small. It can be said that a certain group of people have a strong spiritual yearning which is met by new religious expressions within or outside traditional religious faith groups. But on the whole the number of these people is lower than that of those who distance themselves from religion. Roads for the future. The picture presented by the NRP 58 is very rich and complex, and it certainly deserves to be further developed. Social sciences provide important tools for the understanding of what happens around us. On the other hand, as French political scientist Olivier Roy said in an interview with "Swissinfo", they fail to full grasp individual religious experience. An interesting figure that emerges in the survey is that the growth of certain religious communities in Switzerland in terms of quantity isn’t determined by their structures or by public recognition but by three factors, namely, missionary zeal, migration of new members from outside Switzerland and by the ability to transmit personal religious tenets to the next generation. Also for the Catholic Church the findings of the survey can be a confirmation that evangelization, as well as the pastoral care of migrants and of the youth are the paths of the future.