At first glance, there is little comfort for committed Catholics in a recent poll carried out by Amárach Research and commissioned by the Iona Institute, of which I am a patron. Rates of Mass going have plummeted. Only 16 per cent defined themselves as regular Mass goers.
At least people are more benign towards Christianity than they are to institutional Catholicism. While only 27 per cent have a favourable attitude to the Catholic Church, half the respondents have a favourable view of Christianity. (Slightly fewer people, 45 per cent, agree that Catholic teachings are still of benefit to society.)
For comparison, a La Croix poll on the institutional Catholic Church in France found 33 per cent positive, 26 per cent negative, and 40 per cent neutral views. However, the Irish poll also suggests that 25 per cent of the population would be happy if the the church vanished from society.
If it did disappear completely, the quarter of a million callers to St Vincent de Paul (SVP) in 2023 might miss the influence of the church. Our society might miss the €14.6 million SVP spent on housing and child and family services alone, out of a total expenditure of €101.2 million. The developing world might miss the €30.9 million donated by the Irish public to Trócaire, mostly through campaigns organised through churches and schools.
Why are people in their late 20s and 30s so disillusioned with religion?
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Others might miss priests like Fr John Joe Duffy of Creeslough, whose humanity at a time of tragedy acted as an anchor. Or perhaps the generous spirit of Fr Paul Murphy, forgiving the teenage attacker who stabbed him. .
When it comes to attitudes to priests and nuns, roughly a third are positive, while the same number are negative or neutral.
Every act of child abuse is a violation and a tragedy. The crime of sexual abuse wreaks havoc for survivors and their families, and ripples out to affect the trust people have in all priests and nuns, no matter how blameless. Although the estimates of the prevalence of child sexual abuse have improved since these questions were first asked in 2011, the survey still shows that people overestimate by a factor of about four to one. The average estimate is that 18 per cent of clergy are abusers, with an astonishing 8 per cent believing that it is 50 per cent.
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All statistics need to be treated with caution due to the danger of under-reporting, but the John Jay College study for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops found that approximately 4 per cent of priests active between 1950 and 2002 had been accused of sexual abuse of minors.
Similar prevalence rates were found in a commissioned German study which found that 4.4 per cent of Catholic clergy were accused of abusing minors, with a higher proportion among diocesan priests (5.1 per cent).
An independent commission in France estimated the proportion of abusers was about 2.5–2.8 per cent of clergy.
Given the impact of the scandals, it is interesting that when it comes to religion and spirituality, the most disenchanted cohort is not the 18- to 24-year-olds but the 25- to 34-year-olds.
People in their 30s were small children in 1994, when the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition government fell following a row over then attorney general Harry Whelehan’s alleged role in the delayed extradition of Fr Brendan Smyth, a notorious paedophile.
The three-part series, States of Fear, was broadcast in 1999, documenting the awful lives endured by children in church and State-run institutions. Cardinal Secrets, which was about the Dublin Diocese, appeared in 2002, while the Murphy and Ryan reports were published in 2009.
It’s not that these scandals have not impacted 18- to 24-year-olds. In the youngest cohort, only 19 per cent have a favourable or very favourable attitude to the church. However, while 43 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds have a positive or very positive impression of Christianity (as opposed to institutional Catholicism) only 29 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds do. The scandals seem to have soured the slightly older cohort not just on Catholicism, but on religion and spirituality in general.
Seventeen per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds say they are religious compared with just 5 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds. Only 31 per cent of the younger group consider themselves to be neither religious nor spiritual, in contrast to 42 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds. In addition, 18- to 24-year-olds are more likely to read spiritual or religious books, follow individuals on social media who discuss spirituality and religion, and take courses with religious or spiritual content than the older cohort.
It does not mean that watching spiritual content online transfers easily to membership of a community, but it does indicate a search for meaning.
The fear among believers of engaging with young people is one of the many ugly consequences of the scandals, while the weakening and ageing of local church communities do not help either.
Yet suppose Catholics really believe that they offer something both transcendent and practical that enhances joy. In that case, there is a timely opportunity to reach out to these young people who are showing more openness to religion and spirituality.
