Europe’s Path of the Past Decades: De-religionization as De-culturalization—An Example for Europe’s future, for the West or for the World?

Abstract

The shrinking number of its faithful, combined with the closure of churches and the withdrawal of religion from the European public sphere due to Covid-19 in March 2020 induced the Catholic Church in the intercession section of the papal blessing “Urbi et Orbi” to publicly assert on TV that “the church [in Europe] is going through the desert.”