Dematerializing the traditional public square: new challenges for religious freedom?

The idea of public square/space has also been much discussed by sociologists and political philosophers over the ages. Despite some differences (that concern slightly different concepts such as public "square", "space" or "sphere"), it always has distinctive characteristics bestowed by history, culture and the religious belief of the people who live in it. Since the public square is simultaneously the physical place of democracy and the theoretical place of public freedom, is it a fitting place to show or celebrate the historical religious traditions of a legal system? Scholars of law and religion know that this issue is hardly new. In recent decades, every legal system has offered different solutions to this problem, trying to reconcile religious heritage with the modern neutral (or secular) public square. One of the solutions adopted to solve this problem was to deconstruct the public sphere into physical places and to investigate the specific functions each place plays in social interaction. In recent times this solution has become more problematical due to the digital transformation of society and de-materialization of the traditional public sphere. The new technologies are digitalizing the traditional public square, not only by replacing it with the social networks, but also by reshaping the boundaries of classical institutional places.