This week I had the chance to watch Sundays (2025), whose original title in Spanish is Los Domingos, the latest film by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and winner of the Golden Shell at the most recent San Sebastián Film Festival. Several days have passed since I left the cinema, yet the film continues to be in my mind, returning to my thoughts again and again. It is from that lingering presence—and from the emotions that still resonate—that I write the following lines.
In an increasingly diverse world, where multiple beliefs, traditions, and forms of spirituality coexist, respecting religious decisions has become an essential value for democratic coexistence. Sociologist Peter Berger (1929–2017) argued that religious pluralism encourages democracy. Respecting these decisions does not mean sharing them; it means recognizing each person’s right to build their own relationship with faith, spirituality, or the absence of either.
Religion is part of both individual and collective identity. The decisions a person makes regarding religion—believing, ceasing to believe, changing faith, or practicing it in unconventional ways—are tied to their worldview, personal history, and sense of belonging. Discrediting or ridiculing those choices therefore undermines the dignity of the individual. Genuine respect requires empathy, attentive listening, and understanding, even when the beliefs of others feel distant from our own.
Contemporary societies live in an environment marked by religious plurality. There is no longer a single religious system that imposes itself unquestioningly; instead, a diversity of options coexist, each of which individuals can evaluate, choose, or combine. For this reason, respect becomes an indispensable requirement for maintaining social balance.
People today feel increasingly free to make religious decisions based on personal experience rather than traditional mandates. In this context, pressuring or forcing someone to adopt or maintain a belief is incompatible with a mature and pluralistic society. Respecting religious decisions therefore means acknowledging each individual’s autonomy in shaping their own spiritual world.
Respect is also key to preventing differences in faith from turning into conflict. In family life, the workplace, and the community, religious diversity can generate tensions, but these can also become opportunities for dialogue. Understanding that another person’s spirituality does not threaten one’s own makes it possible to live together from a place of acceptance rather than fear.
Editor of Daily 27.
Predoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology in University of Barcelona.