Are Spanish People Still Religious?

If you’ve lived in Spain long enough, you already know that there is a church in every neighbourhood. No matter how small the community, there will be some sort of religious centre. My own relatively young neighbourhood has around 6,000 people, and we got one a few weeks ago — right on time for Easter. I’ll admit it felt strange to see the priest walking past the Consum in full vestments.

So the question arose: did we need one? Who asked for it? Most of our residents are young people and families. Are Spanish people still religious?

The answer is complicated.

As Semana Santa draws to a close and the streets of Valencia prepare for Sant Vicent Ferrer, it feels like a good moment to have an honest look.

The Sacraments Are in Freefall.

According to Spain’s Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), just over half of Spaniards — around 52% — still identify as Catholic, though only 15.2% describe themselves as practicing, while 36.9% consider themselves non-practicing. That’s a drop of roughly 15 percentage points since 2011, when Catholics made up more than 70% of the population.

This is also reflected in two of the biggest ceremonies in the life of a person of faith: marriage and First Communion.

In 1996 nearly 77% of weddings took place in a church, according to the INE. By 2024 that figure had fallen to around 20% — and it’s still dropping. First Communions tell the same story. According to the Spanish Bishops’ Conference’s own 2024 annual report, 154,677 children made their first communion that year, down from 162,580 in 2023 and from around 249,000 a decade ago: a fall of 35% in ten years. For the first time, fewer than half of Spanish children now take communion at all.

And yet. The streets fill with genuine fervour around Easter and Sant Vicent, and I wouldn’t brush it off as mere tourism. Wait for First Communion season to start and you’ll notice bakeries, restaurants, flower shops and El Corte Inglés all competing for a piece of that cake. The average cost of a First Communion party now runs between €2,800 and €4,000. The religious milestone is fading; the party, very much, is not.

Religion in Spain, to borrow an unsolicited Spanish expression, is de capa caída — at its lowest ebb. But the picture has nuances worth examining.

Baptisms follow the same downward trend. According to the Bishops’ Conference 2024 figures, 146,370 babies were baptised out of 318,005 births — meaning fewer than half of newborns now receive the sacrament. There is one small countertrend worth noting: adult baptisms — people over seven years old choosing faith of their own accord — rose 12.6% in 2024, suggesting that for a small but growing group, Catholicism is becoming a conscious personal choice rather than a family default.

I’m in that camp myself, in a way — I’m letting my kids decide what religion, if any, they want to have.

Cultural Catholic: What Religion in Spain Actually Looks Like Today

And then there are funerals. According to PANASEF, Spain’s national funeral industry association, around 84% of funerals are still religious — a figure that has remained remarkably stable even as church weddings and baptisms collapse.

I guess that if you don’t know where the bus is going, you’d better have an exit visa.

But wait, what about the so-called “Quiet Revival” — the narrative that young people are returning to church? Well, it is real in places like France, where adult baptisms rose 45% at Easter 2025, a record high according to the French Bishops’ Conference.

In Spain, however, the picture is more a cultural re-aestheticisation of faith than an institutional return. Artists like Rosalía pose in habits, the film Los Domingos does well at the box office, Catholic youth movements fill stadiums — but none of it is translating into more baptisms, communions, or weddings. The rise in adult baptisms is the one genuinely encouraging sign for the Church, but the numbers remain small.

Finally, there is the ritualistic pull of it all. You attend these festivities because they are a family affair. It matters to your abuela that you show up, so you do. Or the religious event is inseparable from a social one — local festivals, patron saints, pilgrimages. The Camino de Santiago, let’s be honest, has become more a rite of passage than a religious expression for most of those who walk it.

So, Are Spanish people still religious? Did my small community really need a church?

I don’t think so. But thanks for giving us the chance to save our souls.