The bestowing of the cardinal's hat on Archbishop Desmond Connell is of great significance for the whole country. A cardinal is expected to provide leadership and give impetus to the faith of his people. Anybody seeing the striking headline on the front page of The Irish Times of December 27th might have believed that his task was impossible. It read: "Mass very important to only 40 per cent".
However, this disingenuous announcement could equally have read: "Mass important to 66 per cent", since this was what emerged in a recent poll. Inevitably, media comment focused on the meaning of the 40 per cent figure and on the figure of just 14 per cent of 18-25 year olds saying the Mass was very important to them.
Surprisingly, none of the commentary explored the findings of this poll in the context of a recently published survey in Doctrine and Life, from which the cardinal-designate can take comfort. This study, conducted by Greeley and Ward, is a large piece of sociological research. It was designed to evaluate religious practice and belief in some 25 European countries as part of a project that began in 1991. Thus, it has been possible to track attitudes to faith and religious practices over time. The Irish frame consisted of a representative sample of 1,010 people. In relation to basic religious tenets such as attending Mass, belief in God, in the afterlife and in miracles, there has been no significant change since 1991. The drop in Mass attendance to 63 per cent occurred before the appalling sexual scandals of the 1990s.
Not surprisingly, there is a general lack of confidence in the institutional church, probably stemming from recent scandals. The most unlikely finding is that men born since 1970 have a level of confidence in their local priest that is equal to that in the cohort born in 1929, while among young women this confidence is higher than in any other age group. Other unforeseen results include their positive view of religion as shaping their moral decisions, a strong sense of Catholic identity and a belief that Mary is essential to the Catholic faith.
On the other hand, this young group seems to have jettisoned traditional sexual morality and Mass attendance is also much lower than the national average, reaching a figure of about 40 per cent. Overall, the authors conclude the death of Catholic Ireland has been overstated and that Ireland is still the most religious nation in Europe. The results point to a divergence between the strict observance of religious practice and a personal sense of their Catholic faith among the young which contrasts with the more orthodox beliefs and practice in other age groups.
It is hardly surprising that as secularisation spreads internationally, it too would touch our shores in the form of non-adherence to the traditional sexual morality or the regular religious practices adhered to by other age groups. Young people generally have less interest in matters religious. However, the exposure to a traditional belief system, through their parents and the education system, has been woven into their religious perspective. They have not absorbed the vehement anti-clericalism that was rampant in Ireland in the past two decades.
There are broader concerns that the demise of religion might impact upon civil society in a manner that has not been considered in depth in this country. In 1963, some English sociologists conducting a comparative study of depression among women found that the one factor which differentiated women in London who had high levels of depression and those on the island of North Uist who had much lower levels was religious practice, which the authors concluded provided protection against depression. This finding has been replicated in others studies since.
Nowhere in medicine has the issue of religion received more attention than in relation to suicide, a tragedy that claims over 400 young lives in Ireland every year. Since the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, demonstrating a link between suicide rates and religious belief, other researchers have replicated his findings.
His thesis provides an explanation for the increase in the rates that have been experienced in Europe and the US over the past three decades. In study after study, the findings are strikingly similar: church attendance is one of the best predictors of the suicide rate.
In the US those who attend church frequently are four times less likely to die by suicide than those who never attend. Moreover, the effect of unemployment on suicide rates is negated when religious behaviour is factored into the equation. A study published recently in Psychological Medicine, the most prestigious psychiatric journal in Europe, found that for men the suicide rates of 19 European countries as well as Canada and the US were linked to religious belief and religious environment. The mechanism by which religious belief protected men was by reducing the acceptability of suicide.
Is it too much to ask that Irish commentators be open-minded about the benefits of religious beliefs and practice, lest its demise become a self-fulfilling prophesy?
Patricia Casey is professor of psychiatry at UCD and consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital in Dublin