Unthinkable: Why do almost 70% of the Irish population still identify as Catholic?
The author of several books on religious belief in Ireland, Ganiel says censuses in many countries can produce figures that overestimate religiosity. “To some people, it’s a cultural identity, it’s a badge, it doesn’t have much meaning at all. You get that in the North as well as the South … Religious identification tells you something, but Mass attendance and church attendance tells you more.
In this, she sees similarities between Catholics in Northern Ireland and Catholics in the United States. In both jurisdictions they have been minorities, which means they have had to “compete” to hold on to their flocks. The fact that neither was linked to state power also meant they were less damaged by church scandals. In Northern Ireland “you don’t pick up the same level of hostility” towards the church compared with in the Republic. “In the North, it’s more an apathy thing.
Bishops have made soundings over the years about reform, but they keep retreating into “hold what we have” mode in the education system. It means schools under Catholic patronage – that’s 90 per cent of all Irish primary schools – still have taxpayers footing the bill for faith-formation classes that are timetabled into the school day.
The other lesson for the Church is a more positive one. Ganiel points out that those with “no religion” are typically conflated with atheists, whereas many “nones” are still engaged with spiritual thought. She quotes a group of US sociologists who have observed how young adults retain a “”, despite abandoning organised religion. These young people treat faith like a smartphone app, something “readily accessible, easy to control, and useful – but only for limited purposes”.
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