New Report: Less and less space for Christianity in today’s secularized Europe

(Vatican Radio)  A new report issued by a human rights observatory  says there is less and less space for Christianity in Europe’s  increasingly secularized society.   In its latest report, the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe documented 241 cases of intolerance towards Christians across the continent in 2013.

The report said some European governments and players of civil society are seeking to exclude Christianity, instead of accommodating it.  Susy Hodges spoke to the director of the Observatory, Dr Gudrun Kugler,  to find out more about the report’s findings. Listen to the full interview with Gudrun Kugler:

 

Kugler said the statistics they collected for the report seem to show an “increasing” number of anti-Christian acts.  In Belgium for instance, she said  every day 2-3 Christian churches are being vandalized  or their contents are  the object of theft  and it’s a “similar” situation for Germany and France where every day there’s at least one “hate-related attack against a church or a Christian site.” 

Asked about the reasons for this intolerance towards Christians, Kugler said there are many factors at play but she believes the growing secularization of European society is a major reason.  “The mainstream society in Europe is becoming increasingly secularized and Christianity is fighting for its own place (in society).”  

Kugler said this intolerance against Christians is both “a social phenomenon” and a “legal” one with new laws that impact on individual religious beliefs being drafted and passed in many countries.  She told us she personally has come face to face with an  anti-Christian act.   In Vienna where she lives,  the famous Church of St. Charles  was recently “badly vandalized” when a group of people threw paint against its historic façade.   “We see the hatred behind these acts,” she said.