Dinâmicas religiosas e políticas em Portugal: o caso da JMJ 2023

State and Church relations are everywhere a product of years of history and reflect not only the complexity of the different institutional interactions, but also the social pressure and demand surrounding the religious phenomenon. The World Youth Day (WYD) 2023 in Portugal is a good place to investigate the contemporary contours of this phenomenon. It is a living lab of the sepa-ration of State and Church in the country, which allows us to examine new and old religious and political dynamics, especially with the Catholic Church. Through a diachronic analysis of these relationships and a descriptive and analytical methodology, this article analyses the model of sep-aration with cooperation in force in Portugal. It seeks to investigate to what extent the established model of relations between the State and the Church has been challenged by a context such as WYD, in which the public visibility of religion has led to more frequent interactions and a more intense dialogical relationship between the secular and religious fields. It focuses on how WYD pushed the boundaries of this spheres, forcing constant redefinitions in the public space, and analyses how it was received by Portugal’s highest representatives, political parties, and civil society. It can be concluded that although the model of separation was not affected, a system of cooperation with a specific church was promoted by the state, which guaranteed it a prominent place during the days of WYD. This seems to guarantee the stability of this model of positive secularism which, in the future, seems far from being affected.