De jure religare: a relação Estado-Religião e o reconhecimento como Pessoa Coletiva Religiosa em Portugal

Abstract

The present reflection results from the confrontation between the need for the existence of clear criteria applicable for the recognition as “religious” of practices and doctrines related to a particular cult group, in the process of legal accreditation as a Religious Collective Person by the National Register of Collective Persons in Portugal, and a multiverse theoretical look inherent to the discipline of Religious Anthropology. Bearing in mind that the Law on Religious Freedom (law no. 16/2001 of 22nd June) does not establish objective and formal criteria for this purpose, it is considered that there is a doctrinal vagueness that does not ensure legal security for non-Abrahamic religious communities, nor does it respect the principle of equality for minority religions, since a Judeo-Christian paradigm will tend to prevail as a criterion of analogy. The present text intends to resolve this conundrum.