Interrelation between the religious position and the social participation of young people: answers to an inquiry

Abstract

A first analysis to the answers got through the Inquiry to the Portuguese Youth shows that the questioned young people are not very participative socially. Taking the four chosen religious positions - practive catholics, non-practive catholics, atheists and young people having a different position as to religion - into account, one realized that the attachment to Catholicism was coincident with the broadest distance as to an active cultural and social practice. Would it be possible to explain such a distant attitude by a social subordination transmitted through the Portuguese Catholicism? The author of this article believes that the elucidation of the question will be conclusive only after an integrated reading of the obtained answers.