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Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales / Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar
traditions of the ecumenical religious left in Europe before the second World War,
which were basically linked to the social democracies, the “Euro-communist” left
in the Mediterranean countries of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that always also
contained an important religious element, and the liberation theology movement
from the “Third World” in the 1980s (Tausch et al., 2000) all have to grapple
with the fact that religious practice in the advanced countries of the West
dwindles, traditional sectors of the urban, industrial workforce in many European
countries have politically shifted to the right, and – above all – traditional “social
policies” of the Left most probably will not solve the issues of enterprise creation,
middle class development and employment creation for the 15 million or more
Muslims in Europe.
In view of the ongoing world political confrontations, especially in Iraq, the
support of the anti-war left, especially also the religious left, for the Muslim
communities in Europe continues to be important. Religiously motivated larger
left-wing oriented constituencies of more than 3 % of the electorate are to be
encountered in some European countries; many Muslims in Europe will feel much
more at home in political alliances with them rather than with the often staunchly
atheist secular left.
Table 10 – the strength of the religious left in Europe in % of the total
population
The Catholic Left
religious practice Left … from that
denominational
group in % of the
total population
2004 (for some
countries, 2000)
DYN Left from
that
denominational
group 2002 -
2004
SK Slovakia Roman Catholic:
observant
4,22 xx
PL Poland Roman Catholic:
observant
4,16 -1,22
IT Italy Roman Catholic:
observant
3,2 xx
PT Portugal Roman Catholic:
observant
2,56 0,49
IE Ireland Roman Catholic:
observant
1,28 -0,49
ES Spain Roman Catholic:
observant
1,14 -0,07
CZ Czech Roman Catholic:
0,93 0,36
Republic observant
HU Hungary Roman Catholic:
observant
0,85 xx
AT Austria Roman Catholic:
observant
0,72 0,15
CH Roman Catholic: 0,41 0,09
Arno Tausch, Christian Bischof, Tomz Kastrun, Karl Mueller 84