YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

General trends in young people’s values and attitudes  71 “Young people should be more religious. To me, religion serves as a moral foundation. Because people are not religious, bad things are happening; conflicts, lies, and all the rest of it. People are improved by believing, they are made better by it, everyone needs it and searches for it – especially young people. Everyone would be happier if they became religious. Nothing bad is born of it, only the good things.” (Špela, 16 years old, high school student and young religious person) Somewhat surprisingly, additional analyses revealed that, after 2013, the mean value of answers regarding the importance of god increased. Be- tween 2005 and 2013 the value fell from5.42 to 3.57, but then it increased to 4.19 in 2020. This might seem contradictory in light of previous data, but it is actually quite compatible with the thesis on the privatization of religion (see Luckmann, 1967; Davie, 2000; Pollack and Müller, 2006; Lavrič 2013). According to the thesis, a relatively stronger presence of private forms of religiosity (e.g. the importance of god in everyday life) is characteristic of latemodernity, while the so-called institutional aspects of religiosity (e.g. the identification of people with the church or going to the church) are less salient. The thesis of privatized religiosity among young people is nicely illustrated by the following excerpt from the in- terview with the aforementioned respondent. “I, myself, prefer to talk to God, which primarily means that you have to listen to him. And you are able to hear him only if you are quiet! /…/ Many people are traditionally religious, which is okay, but I think an authentic and personal relationship with God is the most important.” Since the beginning of the 21 st century, young Slovenians have been rapidly moving away from the Catholic Church, so much so that, in 2020, only 44% identified with Catholicism. At the same time, the share of those attending church on a weekly basis has doubled since 2013, which reveals a polarizing process in the sphere of religiosity.