In response, Bishop Paul Mason, lead bishop for safeguarding in the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, has vowed to ensure the Church is safe for all.

"I would like to assure Catholics, and indeed anyone who has concerns, that safeguarding is integral to a bishop's work and ministry and that we will not rest in our efforts to make the Church a place of safety and sanctuary for all."

Bishop Mason also issued an apology "for the failings of the past" and pledged to "listen attentively" to victims of abuse.

The report, titled "Attitudes of Catholics in England and Wales to Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church", was conducted by Durham University's Centre for Catholic Studies.

The centre surveyed over 3,000 Catholics in June/July 2022, revealing that 79% of respondents believe the Church must undergo significant change to prevent further abuse.

Lost moral authority

One of the most concerning findings in the report is that over three-quarters (77%) of Catholics believe the Church has lost its moral authority due to the abuse crisis.

The sample featured regular and occasional Mass-goers alongside those identifying as Catholic but no longer maintaining Mass attendance.

"Overall, our analysis of the data shows that the Catholic community feels abuse is not a uniquely Catholic or clerical problem" said Marcus Pound, one of the report's writers. "However, there is also a conviction that the Church needs to make changes to prevent such abuse happening in the future."

The report follows earlier research published in April titled "The Cross of the Moment" and continues to offer insights on how the Church can improve its safeguarding practices.

Bishop Mason welcomed this ongoing research, stating "We as bishops will never pass up an opportunity to learn from research that can improve our safeguarding work".

Sources

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

The proportion of Catholics attending Mass fell from 11.8% to 8.2%, representing a drop of around a third (from 623,400 to 417,350) over the five-year period.

"The Australian Catholic Mass Attendance Report 2021" acknowledges the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions as a major factor in the decline.

The report also acknowledges that demographic changes within the Catholic population play a role.

However, the picture is not entirely bleak.

The report details a rise in online Mass participation, a trend likely fuelled by pandemic restrictions.

This suggests the Church is adapting to changing preferences and to finding new ways to connect with worshippers.

Increase in youth attending Mass

The report also showed an unexpected increase in the number of young people attending Mass.

The proportion of attendees aged 18-29 declined between 2006 and 2016 but showed an upward trend in 2021. This cohort increased numerically by 4,000 attendees between 2016 and 2021.

"While older age groups cautiously returned to normal patterns of engagement, this may have had a contrasting impact on those in the younger age groups who were eager to reintegrate into society following a period of restrictions and lockdowns" said Dr Trudy Dantis, a director at National Centre for Pastoral Research.

"Participating in Mass at the parish may have provided a chance for social engagement while other such options may have still been unavailable.

"Since 2021, some parishes have experienced a growth in Mass attendance as COVID-19 presented opportunities for them to adapt and cultivate more involvement."

Interestingly, while most dioceses reported declines, some Eastern Catholic eparchies showed growth.

The Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St Thomas saw a 76% increase in attendance and the Syro-Malabar Eparchy reported a 90% rise.

These increases reflect the influence of recent migrants who actively participate in their faith communities.

Online attendance growing

The survey also highlighted Australia's multicultural Catholic community, with Mass being celebrated in 42 different languages. This diversity points to a vibrant, albeit changing, religious landscape.

Online Mass attendance has emerged as a significant trend in Australian Catholicism.

The growth is likely due, in part, to the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the convenience and accessibility of online services may also be attracting those who face challenges attending Mass in person.

Of the 35 dioceses, eparchies and ordinariates for which data was received, 26 offered online Masses at least once during the period of the count.

The next Australian national count of Mass attendance will be in 2026.

Sources

The Pillar

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference

The Catholic Weekly

CathNews New Zealand

That's the negative news. There's better news though.

It results from a new study that questions why some Catholics continue to practise their faith and attend weekly Masses. Data from the General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago didn't cover this.

Researchers at Georgetown University's CARA conducted the "Future Faithful Families Project" study. CARA is the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and the Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life.

The new study

They interviewed 28 people from June 2021 to February 2023. These included qualifying participants from past CARA surveys.

The study found that participants from these Catholic families generally described their households as "warmer and more affectionate than the average family". Most indicated "very good communication" within the family.

These families also have routines including eating and praying together. Most said faith was a part of their specific family practices.

All emphasised the importance of weekly Mass attendance. Most reported doing service work and giving to charity, generally through their parish or church.

While the findings from these qualitative interviews aren't a "checklist" of things to keep one's child Catholic, the study authors say parents could gain insight from common responses.

These show "their faith wasn't just something that they went and did on Sunday morning; their faith was present in the household. It was present every day. It came out in conversations about the faith, with prayer, with things that are in the home."

When these children mentioned doubts about their faith, most parents said "Well, let's see why the church teaches this" rather than avoiding questions about Church teachings.

The study also included an analysis of existing data from the General Social Survey (GSS) as far back as the 1970s.

This showed a marked decline in the number of US adults who were raised and remained Catholic while still attending weekly Mass.

In the 1970s, they accounted for "an average of 36 percent ... peaking at 40 percent in 1977".

GSS data later showed "this ... declined to 32 percent in the 1980s, 25 percent in the 1990s and 21 percent in the 2000s. In the 2010s, this averaged 15 percent and was 14 percent in the 2018 study."

This doesn't include Catholic converts not raised Catholic. The study notes many Catholics have immigrated to the US.

Among the 51 percent of US "cradle Catholics" who remained so between 2010 and 2018, there were some commonalities.

Among weekly Mass attendees who had remained Catholic, 81 percent were "more likely to have been living with both parents at age 16" compared to the 72 percent who attend Mass less often than weekly or the 63 percent who left the Catholic faith.

The Catholic families the study interviewed noted the importance of children observing their parent being "Catholic every day of the year, not just on Sundays".

It also found Catholic adults had parents who "listen to their children, have conversations with them and guide them through what the faith teaches and why the faith teaches it."

Source

• OSV via Diocese of Scranton

The Independent National Electoral Commission issues the cards.

The priests justified their stance in denying entry to those without a PVC, telling them it's because "there is no way you have Christians filling up the church but only a handful of them go to vote during elections."

"So, it means ­our population and numbers mean nothing. We want Christians to take their responsibilities and roles seriously," one says.

"So, today, I am serious about it. As I'm standing here, if you have your permanent voter card — begin to come in. But if you don't have your PVC, find your way back home. You won't attend Mass here."

As political processes preceding the 2023 general elections continue to heighten, private, public and religious organisations have intensified campaigns for their staff and members respectively to get their PVCs to enable them to exercise their civic responsibility.

One campaign strategy last Thursday saw the Alaba International Market in Lagos shut down for traders to obtain their PVCs.

Another strategy saw a law firm threaten to withhold the salaries of its staff members if they did not have voter cards ahead of the 2023 elections.

Source

• Sahara Reporters

The Welsh bishops' conference website says about 1300 people viewed the Palm Sunday Mass at St Mary's Cathedral.

This is three times the normal congregation for that service.

There has also been a vast increase in daily Mass attendance in the diocese.

Where 20 people usually attended daily Mass, over 300 are logging in. One weekday Mass had a congregation of 914.

Those attending the online Masses include families, and people of all ages from their mid-twenties to their eighties.

A similar pattern emerged over the Easter Triduum, with 529 people, double the usual number, attending the online Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Cathedral.

On Good Friday, 379 people joined Bishop Peter Brignall (pictured) in a meditation on the Seven Last Words, compared to around 20 people in other years.

The surge in attendance is also reflected in other online prayer services.

The diocese has reported a sixfold increase in the number of people taking part in Exposition.

Furthermore, up to three hundred people are participating in Compline in the bishop's private chapel.

Traffic to the diocesan website has also increased by 320 per cent in the past fortnight.

Brignall says the sense of community in the small diocese is deep.

"People are keen to maintain connections online during these unprecedented times."

Although he says the raw data needed to be analysed and interpreted, he Brignall hopes the growing congregations is a sign that online services are helpful.

"The Church is nourished and discovering afresh a living and robust faith that will bring us through this crisis. It is now not just the case of a glass being half full or half empty, it is the discovery of the desire for a bigger glass," he says.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: BBC

But even more potent, I'd argue, is church music that isn't so much cheap as embarrassingly bad.

I can't speak for other denominations, but I'm convinced that the distinctive awfulness of the music in many Catholic parishes helps explain why Mass attendance has fallen off a cliff since the 1970s.

I'm lucky. I live in a London parish where the priest can tell the difference between a good hymn and a bad one. The tragedy is that so many priests either can't or, more likely, don't want to upset the choir by banning the dispiriting rubbish written "in the spirit of Vatican II".

The choice of music at Mass matters as much as the quality of the sermon. That's always been my opinion, anyway, and recent experiences have only served to confirm it.

At the 9.30 Sunday Mass a few weeks ago we sang "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken". The tune is by Joseph Haydn. He wrote it as an unofficial Austrian national anthem and was so proud of it that he used it as the basis for the slow movement of his "Emperor" String Quartet.

It was the last music he played, falteringly on the piano, before he died.

Later the Germans stole it and sang it to the words "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles". It's still their national anthem, though funnily enough that particular verse has been dropped.

But I digress. The organist at this Mass was a professional musician who revealed the lovely proportions of this apparently simple hymn, on which Haydn worked extremely hard.

And people sang - not lustily, exactly, but loud enough to be heard. It's a congregation of many nationalities; I doubt they knew the words (I certainly didn't); but they recognised the tune and liked it. Hearing it made my day. Continue reading

• Damian Thompson is associate editor of The Spectator and editorial director of the Catholic Herald

Between 2005 and 2011, the proportion of Irish people declaring themselves to be religious dropped from 69 to 47 per cent — a percentage drop in religiosity exceeded only by the Vietnamese.

Over the same period, the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as either "a convinced atheist" or "not a religious person" increased from 36 to 54 per cent.

These results are contained in a WIN-Gallup International poll on religious beliefs, conducted in 57 countries (not including New Zealand).

Ghana (with 96 per cent of the population saying they are religious) was the most religious country and China (14 per cent) the least religious.

A spokesman for the Catholic Communications Office said faith was not a "numbers game". He said the latest survey contrasted sharply with last year's census in the Irish Republic, which found that 84 per cent described themselves as Catholic, and just 5 per cent said they had no religion.

Although Irish Mass attendances remain among the highest in Europe, a survey published last February by the Association of Catholic Priests showed that just 35 per cent of all Catholics now attend Mass at least once a week while 47 per cent go to Mass less than once a month.

David Quinn, a staunch defender of the faith who heads the Iona Institute, said the WIN-Gallup International findings indicated a significant amount of hostility towards institutional religion. He said this and other polls had found that a quarter of those surveyed "would be happy if the Church vanished from Ireland completely."

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, who has previously warned that the Irish Church is in crisis, responded: "The Catholic Church cannot simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the next or be lived to the full by its own members."

Sources:

WIN-Gallup International

The Independent

Image: Write on New Jersey

He says in regard to the Catholic schools, the commitment of families to them has been strong and consistent. Families who have been displaced from their homes continue to make huge efforts to remain part of their school ( and parish ) community, often travelling across the city and past other schools to bring this about. A number of Catholic schools have buildings which have been damaged, some quite recently.

Source

• The Star
• Image: AnglicanTaonga