Walking Away from the Church

Irish Independent
August 8, 2012

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/walking-away-from-the-church-3194249.html

The large drop over the past seven years in the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as religious is almost certainly part of the fallout from the Catholic hierarchy's disastrous mishandling of the clerical child sex abuse scandal.

Since 2005 the percentage of Irish people describing themselves as "a religious person" has fallen from 69pc to just 47pc.

Over the same period the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as either "a convinced atheist" or "not a religious person" has almost doubled.

These results are contained in the latest WIN-Gallup global index of Religion and Atheism, which surveyed people in 57 countries, including Ireland, on their religious beliefs.

The research shows that not alone has there been a steep decline in religious belief in Ireland over the past seven years but that the Irish decline was the second-steepest of any of the countries surveyed, exceeded only by Vietnam.

Anyone who still thinks of Ireland as a predominately religious country will be shocked by the latest index figures.

According to WIN-Gallup, Ireland ranks 44th out of 57 in its "Global religiosity index", behind such countries as Finland, Russia, Germany and the United States.

While it would not be difficult to quibble with the results of such a survey, based as it is on a single survey question, it does tend to tally with other evidence, not least mass attendances.

Although Irish Mass attendances remain among the highest in Europe, a survey published last February by the Association of Catholic Priests showed that just 35pc of all Catholics now attend Mass at least once a week while 47pc go to Mass less than once a month.

And what has been the response of the church authorities to this accelerating drift away from organised religion?

Sadly, instead of tackling the issues head on, the Vatican seems to believe that there is nothing wrong with the Irish Catholic Church that the re-imposition of old-style centralised discipline won't cure. The Vatican Visitation to the Irish church, the summary of whose findings was published last March, revealed that the church authorities were still in denial over the scale of the crisis facing the Irish church and of their responsibility for that crisis.

Instead of the contrition that was so desperately needed, the Visitation obsessed over "a certain tendency" on the part of priests, religious and laity "to hold theological opinions at variance with the teaching of the Magisterium".

Until this preoccupation with centralised command and control by the Vatican gives way to genuine contrition for the wrongs done to innocent children by Catholic priests and religious, the proportion of Irish people turning their backs on the church will continue to increase.