Reuters reports that only 47 percent of Irish polled said they were religious people, a 22-point drop from the 69 percent recorded in 2005 to the Irish numbers for 2011. A 22-point drop in 6 years? Hello?
Ireland is a special case, with the scandal of sex abuse and how the hierarchy handled it. But the worldwide stats are also troubling. Average religiosity in the 57 countries included in the poll was 59 percent, a decline of 9 points since 2005. The number of people declaring themselves to be convinced atheists rose from 4 percent worldwide in 2005 to 7 percent this year. This is a significant increase.
North America reported 57 percent religiosity, Western Europe 51 percent. This suggests to me that we in North America aren’t that different from those ‘secularized’ Western Europeans. But maybe our Canadian neighbors to the north are dragging down our better US numbers?? But note this: the drop in religiosity in the US is from 73% to 60% – quite a hefty drop for 7 years.
83 percent of Protestants and 81 percent of Catholics described themselves as religious. It’s hard to tell how much that’s good news or bad news - recall that Jesus probably wouldn’t have described himself as “religious” as understood by the religious authorities of his day.
Is organized religion in trouble? Oh yeah, I think it is. Are we, in the U.S. and elsewhere, at the beginning of a massive decline in religious engagement? Too soon to tell, but I see increasing signs suggesting that is the case.
Read the Reuters story here, see the report here.
awr
#1 by Alan Hommerding on August 8, 2012 - 1:20 pm
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Isn’t Mexico part of North America? I couldn’t find Mexico listed/represented anywhere – though I did have trouble getting the study to download.
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#2 by Brigid Rauch on August 8, 2012 - 1:39 pm
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I think what is happening in Ireland is a fair warning to the entire Catholic Church. I think the most recent scandals were the straw that broke the camel’s back. They were piled on the Christian Brothers’ reputation for beating students, an absolute intolerance for sexuality that found its peak in the Magdalene laundries, repeated opposition by Irish bishops against social welfare programs by the Irish State, etc.
The Irish stayed Catholic in the face of centuries of persecution, but it took the bishops only 70 years to change that!
It would be worth finding out how many of the Irish still believe in God and Jesus.
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#3 by Jordan Zarembo on August 8, 2012 - 2:11 pm
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Thank you Fr. Anthony for the report. I always ask myself two questions when I read sociological data on religious belief and practice. The first is “what are the immediate, middle-term, and long-term social or political trends which influence ‘religiosity’ and ‘non-religiosity’?” Brigid’s observations on Ireland are pertinent observations for the first and second questions. As she notes, recent events (i.e. with a century or less) can shift a society’s level of religious sentiment relatively quickly. I agree with Brigid that the bishops of Ireland have almost exhausted their social capital with the Irish people. It will take quite some time to re-establish trust, should that ever happen.
The other question I ask is “what is religiosity?” There is never a sure answer to this question. I agree somewhat with the report’s broad assertion that an increase in a society’s wealth correlates to a degree with a decrease in religious sentiment or observance. However, is this true not just within the past few centuries but across millennia? What are the effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism on religious observance in the past few centuries? Has this survey intentionally or unintentionally ignored certain subtle differences in each culture’s understanding of the concept of “religiosity” by superimposing one or several rigid notions of religiosity over a variety of distinctive and diverse societies? I strongly doubt that any survey can capture the nuances of a concept as complex as religiosity.
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#4 by Brigid Rauch on August 8, 2012 - 2:23 pm
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@Jordan Zarembo – comment #3:
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Jordon, i agree with you that many surveys raise as many questions as they answer. For example, there are surveys of the “Catholic vote”. But who is the poll taker describing as a Catholic voter? Someone who is at Mass every Sunday who agrees with the bishops, someone at Mass every Sunday who frowns on the bishops, someone who shows up for Christmas, Easter, baptisms, 1st Communions etc, someone who was raised Catholic but no longer has any association with the Church?
#5 by Tom Piatak on August 8, 2012 - 2:31 pm
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It should be noted that Ireland just conducted a census, and that 84% of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland declared themselves to be Roman Catholic.
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#6 by Jack Rakosky on August 8, 2012 - 2:54 pm
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@Alan Hommerding – comment #1:
Mexico does not seem to have been one of the 57 countries in the survey.
While we dropped from 73% to 60% (-13%), Canada dropped from 58% to 46% (-12%).
In other words, we are now where Canada was in 2005.
Canada may be the more interesting analogy than Europe since not long ago it was a very religious country like the US instead of Europe which has long had its problems.
Think of Quebec, and the implosion of Catholicism there.
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#7 by Jack Rakosky on August 8, 2012 - 3:18 pm
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@Jordan Zarembo – comment #3:
The other question I ask is “what is religiosity?” This is the key issue to interpreting the study
The Question asked was : Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious persons or a convinced atheist?
What survey researchers have discovered is that people try to figure out what the researcher reality wants to know. Obviously in this case the researcher is saying that attendance (and maybe religious behavior) is not the question.
So the researcher has ruled out attendance as the sole criterion for being religious . “Convinced atheist” sounds to me like it is the other end of the continuum, and “convinced” tells me I would have to be absolutely sure. So maybe I interpret this as a measure of belief rather than about behavior????
Finally often this question and those like it are strongly influenced by attitudes toward religious institutions irregardless of beliefs or behavior.
People actually classify themselves as atheists or agnostics when they also pray and say they beleive in God, and report they go to church!
So people may interpret this question as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with religious institutions, not simply a report on their behavior, or beliefs.
I am inclined to this interpretation that it is a question about how much admiration one has for religious institutions and therefore willingness to associate oneself with them rather than about one’s own behavior or beliefs. The great fall in Irish data lends credence to this interpretation.
It would be interesting to hear how others interpret the question.
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#8 by Jack Wayne on August 8, 2012 - 4:13 pm
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@Tom Piatak – comment #5:
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I’m not surprised 84% responded that way since Catholicism is such a large part of the identity of many cultures (especially Ireland, I would think). There are actually a lot of non-religious Catholics – they’re Catholic because of their family or ethnic culture.
#9 by Jim Pauwels on August 8, 2012 - 4:54 pm
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Who will the saint(s) be to step into the vacuum and wake us up? It needn’t be someone in a miter.
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#10 by Jack Feehily on August 8, 2012 - 5:01 pm
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Is there really anything to be surprised about. Religious institutions all have Some form of discipline and teaching that members and prospective members are invited to believe and practice as a standard for belonging. Our popular culture is, on the other hand, so totally secular that the only standard for being part of it is whatever you choose to do and believe. There are no “unfaithful” adherents of popular culture.
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#11 by Todd Flowerday on August 8, 2012 - 6:46 pm
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@Jack Feehily – comment #10:
I suspect it’s more about not expressing explicit unbelief. I’ve known dozens of people who worshiped, partied, and served alongside Catholics in parishes, and not always non-Catholic spouses. The standard of belonging strikes me as more John 1:38-39 than the Council of Trent.
As for the popular culture, don’t be too sure. Maybe conservatives have bought into it hook, line, and sinker, but many non-religious liberals disavow many aspects of our corporate masters’ attempts to control us. You don’t have to search far on the internet to find people fed up with DisneyGEDupontTimeWarnerNBCESPN. Maybe we all should get to know some of them. Seems like we have a lot in common along the lines of distaste for the powers-that-be.
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#12 by Dunstan Harding on August 8, 2012 - 7:21 pm
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@Brigid Rauch – comment #2:
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I agree. The bishops and clergy have done in a short time what Cromwell could never accomplish.
#13 by John Hoffacker on August 8, 2012 - 7:48 pm
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Diana Butler-Bass writes about this in her new book, Christianity After Religion. Makes a persuasive argument about modern culture moving away from Belief toward Spirituality. What do you think?
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#14 by Alan Hommerding on August 9, 2012 - 8:58 am
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Thanks, Jack – it just seemed to me that for the report to have statistical viability (esp. if you’re doing “North America” as a category) then leaving out Mexico’s large population – a population shaped from early on by Catholicism – is really problematic.
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#15 by Jim Pauwels on August 9, 2012 - 12:31 pm
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I’ve noticed that the term “North America” has an elastic definition, depending on one’s point of view. Geographically, Mexico is part of North America. In the business/marketing world where I spend most of my day, Mexico is considered part of Latin America, primarily for linguistic reasons, and Hawaii is considered part of North America.
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#16 by Mary Coogan on August 11, 2012 - 8:49 am
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@Tom Piatak – comment #5:
“It should be noted that Ireland just conducted a census, and that 84% of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland declared themselves to be Roman Catholic.”
The question asked in the Red C poll allowed for church attendance by those who considered themselves “not religious” or “atheist”: “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person or a convinced atheist?”
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#17 by Gerard Flynn on August 12, 2012 - 4:00 pm
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@Brigid Rauch – comment #2:
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Brigid, a more nuanced position on corporal punishment In Irish education, is needed than that provided by you. The Christian Brothers administered about 160 schools (primary and second-level) in Ireland which has over 3,000 primary schools and over 1,000 second level schools. Corporal punishment, until its abolition in March, 1982, was the norm in Irish primary schools, the vast majority of which were run by lay-teachers. Corporal punishment was also widely practised in homes, outside of an educational environment. Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice, (1760-1844), the founder of the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers disapproved of corporal punishment at a time when it was rife in the United Kingdom. For historical reasons, particularly the introduction of a system of payment by results by the British Government, corporal punishment, regrettably, was gradually accepted in Irish primary and secondary schools.
#18 by Brigid Rauch on August 13, 2012 - 1:35 pm
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@Gerard Flynn – comment #17:
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It’s OK if everyone else is doing it?
#19 by Gerard Flynn on August 13, 2012 - 3:16 pm
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@Brigid Rauch – comment #18:
Of course not, Brigid. I am not making that point. What I am saying is that you are not doing a service to the truth by singling out a particular group as if only they, or as if they more than anyone else were engaged in the practice. Everything has a context and my point was to fill out a bit more the context within which physical violence against children went unchallenged, almost on a national scale.
The sad part is that Christians in Ireland, and not just religious and priests, were far too docile to the prevailing social and religious mores of the day. How different things could have been if they had been more counter-cultural than they were on this and other related issues!
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