Spirituality and social work in Catalonia

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Spirituality and social work in Catalonia Enric
Benavent __________________________
Religion and Belief in Professional
Practice Wednesday 7 - Thursday 8 September 2011
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1- Framework
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1.1 Two legal referents

• The Spanish Constitution
• The Catalan Statute of Autonomy specifies the
  special traits of the Catalan nation, especially
  regarding the social services, which it is
  responsible for providing. The Catalan government
  is able to legislate, for instance, in education,
  social, health and prison services.

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1.2 Directorate-General for Religious Affairs

• Created in 2006 by de Catalan Government to
  provide governmental control over the growing
  religious plurality in Catalan society.

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1.3 A highly secularised society

• Religious practice among young people is around
  4,
• Up to 48 of young people between the ages of 15
  and 24 say they are agnostics, atheists or
  indifferent to religion.

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2. Dealing with religious needs

• 2.1- Religious attention in public hospitals
• 2.2- Religious attention in prisons
• 2.3- Religious education at schools
• 2.4- Religious attention in social services

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2.1- Religious attention in public hospitals

• Exclusive financial system for the Catholic
  Church, which allows it to provide religious
  attention in public hospitals.
• Since 1992 Evangelical, Muslim and Jewish have
  the right to attend to the religious needs of
  their members in public hospitals but the costs
  of these services are paid by the corresponding
  religious community.

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2.2- Religious attention in prisons

• Most centres in Catalonia provide both individual
  attention and religious meetings for the majority
  religions (Catholics, Evangelics, Muslims,
  Orthodox Christians, and Jehovahs Witnesses),
  and it can be said that 20 or 30 of the inmate
  population regularly benefits from these
  activities in a direct way.

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2.3- Religious education at schools

• The situation of religious education in schools
  is a controversial subject in Spanish society.
• In public schools Religion is a subject which
  must be offered to pupils in schools and accepted
  voluntarily by families
• State-funded Catholic schools some Catholic
  schools have chosen to do Religious Culture
  rather than the Catholic religion in the classroom

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2.4- Religious attention in social services

• Social work institutions in Catalonia basically
  follow the following management models
• Public
• Subsidised private organisations
• Private

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2.4- Religious attention in social services

• A large number of Catalan organisations in the
  Third Social Sector have a religious origin or
  identity, mainly related to the Catholic Church
• The Catholic social institutions have mostly
  chosen to adopt a performance model based on
  attending the persons needs and leaving aside
  everything that can be interpreted as proselytism

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2.4- Religious attention in social services

• Dealing with spiritual needs is usually a hard
  and complex task for professionals. It is hardly
  ever dealt with and then only if the worker is a
  sensitive person or has prior training on the
  matter.
• Most professionals are not prepared to work these
  issues.

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3. Future challenges

• Spirituality is being recognized as an important
  dimension of the human being
• Some books, documents and manifestos are
  beginning to discuss spirituality in relation to
  the social professions

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• Thank you!
• ebenavent_at_peretarres.org