IRELAND’S “BEST, most loyal” Catholics have been “highly critical” at meetings with bishops, Archbishop of Cashel Dermot Clifford has said. He continued that this was also found to be the case in surveys conducted on behalf of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
“Many people are hurt and disappointed,” he said.
He made the comments in a interview to mark the 40th anniversary of the Bishops’ Council for Research Development, of which he is chairman.
Studies by the council “will have a new importance now as many people are hurt and disappointed and research will gather together the feelings of our very best, most loyal people,” he said.
It was “worrying” that at present people were so “highly critical when we go out and do meetings” and “send out surveys, questionnaires, and so on”, he said.
The council has gathered “quite a lot of information” on the matter but it has “yet to be processed”.
He said it would “have a huge amount to tell the priests and bishops [about] what people are thinking on the ground”.
Generally, such surveys were necessary as any organisation had to find out whether its message was getting through or how successful its initiatives were, Dr Clifford said.
“It gives a picture of where we are at a particular time, which is what all surveys do,” he said.
Politicians and political parties were always doing surveys to see “what way the political wind is blowing. We do much the same but we would hope that our [findings] would last much longer; that people don’t change as quickly in regard to religion as they do to politics.”
To mark its 40th anniversary the Council for Research Development has published highlights of its social research projects on the www.catholicbishops.ie site.
In a separate development, Bishop of Kerry Bill Murphy has issued a strong apology for “the hurt and pain” that survivors of clerical child sexual abuse have experienced.