MF CASR lunch with Francesco Benvenuto Molteni

Beyond Religious Decline - Extending the Study of Secularization with Survey Data

This talk revisits one of sociology’s oldest debates with new empirical evidence from Europe, offering a more comprehensive approach. Drawing on large-scale, representative survey data, it engages directly with classical secularization theory — from Wilson and Berger to Casanova, Chaves, and Bruce — while distinguishing between two distinct processes: the decline of individual religiosity and the loss of religion’s institutional authority over morality. The findings show a clear generational decline across most indicators of religiosity, a pattern consistent with the state of the art. At the same time, religiosity continues to strongly shape people’s moral attitudes and values, even as religious individuals become more progressive on many ethical issues.

Francesco Benvenuto Molteni is visiting scholar at MF from the University of Milan (IT).

Image Credits: @samiboudjelti, unsplash.com