75% of the 246 members of the Swiss national parliament are members of a church institution – compared to only 58% of the population as a whole. Does it make a difference in the country's decision making?
The Bundeshaus, Switzerland's federal parliament in Bern. / Photo: [link]Andreas Fishinger[/link], Unsplash, CC0.
It was a hit during last summer’s slump: newspapers reported that the religious affiliation of Swiss parliamentarians differed significantly from that of the population. Coincidence?
The newspaper editorial offices called it a “historic turning point” at the time: on 26 January 2024, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) published its annual religious statistics – reporting that people who do not belong to any church make up the largest group in the population for the first time.
34% of the Swiss population no longer belong to any religious community. Fifty years ago, this figure was just 1%.
“Half a year has passed since the churches received this bad news”, explain the Tamedia group newspapers. “But now they have received more good news: there is still a place where church members are in power. The Federal Palace”.
The reason? Three quarters of the 246 parliamentarians of the Swiss national parliament are members of a church institution – compared to only 58% of the population as a whole. 40% of our political representatives in the highest Swiss chamber are Catholic, almost 32% are Reformed and 3% are members of free evangelical churches.
In 2017, a similar study by the leading Swiss newspaper NZZ found that only 12.5% of parliamentarians described themselves as non-religious. Today it is twice as many – but compared to the population, parliament is still significantly more religiously affiliated.
What are the reasons for this striking difference? Adrian Vatter, a sociologist from Bern, explains that “Parliament has never been a microcosm of the population”. Rather, he says, it is a social elite that stands out from the crowd financially, culturally and, of course, religiously and conservatively.
Member of the Swiss Parliament Marc Jost (of the Evangelical People’s Party) adds a positive explanation: according to studies, religious people are more likely to be socially committed than non-religious people.
This said, religion is rarely an issue in parliament, says Jost: “Only a minority of members of parliament practice intensively and perhaps talk about matters of faith from time to time”.
Being a member of a certain church is therefore not a sign of more “Christian” politicking. Many parliamentarians are hardly practising Christians. “I’m Catholic on paper, but non-denominational at heart”, the newspapers quote Socialist Party’s (SP) parliamentarian Céline Widmer as saying.
GLP (Green Liberal) member of parliament Beat Flach describes himself as a “radical agnostic” but is nevertheless a member of the Swiss Protestant Church (EKD). His reason: the churches are active in charitable work, and he is happy to support that with his church tax. “If the state were to provide these services with paid labour, it would be much more expensive”, he explains.
In Switzerland, religion barely features in the day-to-day work of parliament – aside from the religious oath of office that many parliamentarians take. On Wednesday mornings, the “reflections under the federal dome” are mentioned, which, according to Marc Jost, are regularly attended by ten to twenty parliamentarians.
There is also the parliamentary group Christ und Politik, which includes 13 members of the Bundeshaus from five parties. According to co-president Laurent Wehrli (of the FDP), the group does not pursue any party-political intentions; the meetings are rather “a personal moment of reflection and sharing of common values”.
According to most of the parliamentarians interviewed, the high proportion of church members has no influence on political decisions. As a rule, church-related political issues are not negotiated at the federal level anyway, and the relationship between church and state, including church taxes, is defined at the cantonal level (Switzerland is split into 26 Cantons, with their regional parliaments).
Nevertheless, “decisions with a religious connection” are also made at the national level, according to Sonja Stocker, co-president of the atheistic Freethinkers Association. She cites, for example, the blasphemy law and the fact that the military chaplaincy is exclusively religious.
Despite her fear that parliament would make decisions more conservatively than the population as a whole because of its “religious character”, SP parliamentarian Fabian Molina (non-denominational) states: “You rarely feel in parliament that someone decides differently because they are religious” – even if 56% of the members of the Council of States are still Catholic.
Marc Jost, a member of the national parliament with experience in regional politics, is also convinced that parliament does not make any decisions that discriminate against the non-religious part of the population.
He points out the fact that the development of human rights in Europe is due in no small part to the influence of Christianity. Jost: “Precisely for this reason, a parliamentarian who sees himself as a Christian should not represent any particular religious interests, but should have the common good and the protection of minorities of other faiths in particular in mind”.
Reinhold Scharnowski, journalist in Switzerland. This article first appeared on Livenet.ch in German, translated and re-published with permission.
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