what they always did best

More than two thirds of the Portuguese people identify their being Portuguese with being religious and Catholic, the results of an international study reported by Público today show.

Among the 34 countries included in the study, Portugal is in the top 20% where people indicate religion as a main factor of national identity. In the European Union only two countries beat Portugal's score of 68.5%: Poland (Christian, Catholic), and Bulgary (Christian, Orthodox). Outside the EU four other countries have a higher score than Portugal's: The Phillipines (Christian, Catholic), Israel (Jewish); South Africa (Christian, Protestant) and Venezuela (Christian, Catholic). It is the Northern European, mostly protestant countries, as well as France that receive the lowest scores on this issue, below 20%.

The study clearly shows that Portugal is mostly a religious, Catholic society, as it has ever been. And if some Portuguese intellectuals and politicians are arguing in the media and the blogosphere that Portugal is, or should be turned into a predominantly lay society, well, they are doing what they always did best: imitating ideas they see prevailing abroad, namely, in France and other Northern European countries (lately, in the USA as well).