A survey conducted on behalf of the Council for Research and Development at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, indicates that more than 64 per cent of Catholics on the island of Ireland believe that the majority of priests have been unfairly judged following recent scandals. The proportion in the North was put at 63 per cent, while that in the South was estimated at 66 per cent in a similar survey conducted for the council.
The Northern poll, of 346 Catholics, found that just 16 per cent of Catholics there felt that their confidence in priests had been eroded by the scandals. This compares to 29 per cent in the South. Some 14 per cent in the North said that confidence in their bishops had been eroded, compared to 26 per cent in the South.
Ms Ann Hanley, director of the council, felt that this disparity between North and South on the matter of confidence was "one of the few statistics which supports the thesis that the Republic has become more secularised than Northern Ireland or, at least, that Catholics in the Irish Republic are more willing to be critical of the church than their Northern counterparts".
It was found that 48 per cent of Northern Catholics felt that the church would be permanently damaged by the scandals, compared to 51 per cent in the Republic, while just 31 per cent in both jurisdictions felt that the bishops had taken appropriate action on the issue of child sex abuse.
Some 66 per cent in the North said that their own religious beliefs and practices were completely unaffected by the recent scandals, compared to 72 per cent among Catholics in the Republic, while 33 per cent in the North and 34 per cent in the South spoke of losing trust in clergy and religious. A further 11 per cent in the North (10 per cent in the South) spoke of what they perceived as hypocrisy in the church.
Some 45 per cent in the North (51 per cent in the South) felt that media handling of the church scandals had been fair, while 32 two per cent in the North thought it unfair, compared to 25 per cent in the South.
Of those who thought the media coverage had been fair, the most frequently expressed reason given was a belief in the need to expose the truth (75 per cent in the North, 63 per cent in the South).
Ms Hanley concluded: "Given the vastly different patterns of media ownership and control in the two states, these latter findings once again substantiate the idea that, in spite of obvious differences in the experiences of Catholics in the two parts of this island in relation to discrimination and social status, Irish Catholics both North and South relate to their church in very similar ways."
She felt that the overwhelming conclusion from available data, North and South, was that "it would seem that the majority of Catholics in the island as a whole have not let recent scandals in the church influence them in their religious practice, but at the same time are showing an increasing willingness to be critical of the church and its clergy."
Details of the survey will be published in the February issue of Intercom magazine.
