Spain is undergoing a cultural shift of historic proportions. This is indicated by the Informe España 2025, prepared by the Cátedra José María Martín Patino at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, which warns that the country is experiencing “the third great wave of secularization” since the beginning of the 21st century. This new phase not only accelerates the population's distancing from Catholicism but completely redefines the country's religious, social, and demographic map.
It seems that the feeling of a «cultural shift toward Catholicism» has been a gust in the midst of an entire storm, or it is the fourth wave that is beginning now. However, the study provides compelling figures: 60% of young Spaniards already declare themselves without religion, while the overall population reaches 40%, tripling the levels recorded in the year 2000.
A secularization advancing at full speed
According to the report, this third wave is characterized by a generational break. Young people not only abandon religious practice but completely detach themselves from any religious identity, something that had not occurred in previous waves. Social trust in the Church is also deteriorating: from 41.7% in 1999 it has fallen to 32.8% in 2017, and projections point to a continued loss of influence.
Meanwhile, religious minorities stabilize at around 10% of the population, with 2.2 million Muslims and 1.5 million Protestants and Orthodox, reflecting a country that can no longer be understood culturally from a Christian axis.
Practicing Catholics, for their part, remain at a modest 15%-20%, compared to the collapse of social religious celebrations: Church marriages have gone from 76% in the year 2000 to 19% in 2022.
A bountiful harvest and few workers
The Informe España 2025 draws a x-ray: Spain is entering a deep, accelerated, and generational secularization. A society that, in just two decades, has gone from considering itself majority Catholic to living with a youth majority without any religious ties.
In a country where millions of young people no longer know the faith, where the Church loses presence and where hope erodes, Christ's words take on new weight:
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (Mt 9:37).
The religious crisis should not be read only as loss, but as a call: where indifference grows, the Church is invited to bear witness with clarity, depth, and courage.