The downward trend for Mass attendance is set to continue, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
The latest research, from Millward Brown IMS, illustrates once more the already well- established trend of Irish people moving away from conformity when it comes to both religious practice and belief.
Gone are the days when penny-catechism answers to the great questions about life were accepted as adequate by the vast majority of citizens in this State. Gone too is the essential deference to church authority which was the ultimate endorsement of those answers for simpler times, and which made their acceptance possible.
It will come as no surprise to most people that weekly attendance at church/Mass now is down to 48 per cent. Indeed it might surprise some that the drop overall has not been greater. An IMS survey in November 1999, conducted as part of an international Gallup poll involving 64 countries, found that among over 15-year-olds in the Republic then, 57 per cent attended Mass/services weekly.
In January 1998 an MRBI/RTÉ Prime Time survey found that 60 per cent of over 18-year-olds in the Republic attended Mass. That was down from figures for an Irish Times/MRBI poll in December 1996, which showed that 66 per cent attended Mass at least once a week. Of those who took part in that survey also, 79 per cent said they attended weekly Mass in 1991, and 85 per cent said they attended weekly Mass in 1986.
These latest figures show that since 1991, preceding the resignation of Bishop Eamonn Casey, there has been a drop of 31 per cent, or almost a third, in attendance at weekly Mass/services in the Republic.
They show further that since 1973, almost 30 years ago, weekly church/Mass attendance has droppped by 43 per cent in this State. Then 91 per cent attended weekly Mass in the Republic, a figure - or thereabouts - which had remained fairly consistent since the latter part of the 19th century.
By any standards that 91 per cent figure was very high, a phenomenon in the Catholic Church. It was rooted very much in the type of heavily centralised, authoritarian Irish Catholic Church which emerged in the latter decades of the Victorian era, a church which was also strongly identified with the nationalist political struggle Mass attendance had not always been so high in Ireland, if only due to the penal laws which were not repealed until 1829. Even by the middle of the 19th century, weekly Mass attendance is said to have been just 35 per cent. That was before the emergence, indeed the creation, of a strong, and strongly conformist, Irish Catholic middle class, and the great Catholic church-building programmes of the 1870s/80s.
What is happening now really amounts to no more than weekly Mass attendance in Ireland approaching more normal levels, as they would be seen internationally.
What is clear is that this downward trend is to continue in Ireland. This becomes evident when you look at the new figures.
A breakdown of the 48 per cent figure who attend church weekly shows the practice is highest among the elderly and rural population and is lowest among the younger population living in urban areas.
The statement 'I attend Church/Mass weekly' was endorsed most strongly by the over 65s (80 per cent), the retired (73 per cent), farmers (73 per cent), people in Connacht/Ulster (67 per cent), housewives (65 per cent), and 50-64 year olds (58 per cent).
The same statement was endorsed less strongly by 25-34 year olds (27 per cent), people in Dublin (31 per cent), those employed full-time (33 per cent), single males (40 per cent), those in the higher income ABC1 bracket (41 per cent), and 15 - 24 year olds (41 per cent).
What is also intriguing is the attitude to Jesus. Sixty six per cent saw him as "the son of God with whom I have a personal relationship" - a view heavily endorsed by those over 65 but less likely to be endorsed by students (44 per cent of whom do so) and 15 - 24 year olds (52 per cent).
However, of the remaining 34 per cent of those surveyed, 18 per cent see Jesus as "merely a historical figure with a relevant moral message for today" while a further 9 per cent see him as "a good man who lived 2000 years ago, but irrelevant today." Two per cent see him as "a character in a fiction story."
These latter "doubters" are predominantly young, with 18 per cent of those surveyed and still at school seeing Jesus as " a good man who lived 2000 years ago but irrelevant today". Of those who saw him as "merely a historical figure...etc", 38 per cent are students.