Catholics vote with their feet as congregations differ on bishops' response to crisis
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One in three Catholics in England and Wales have stopped going to Mass or have begun attending infrequently as a result of the clerical sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church, according to new research.
The study, authored by Dr. Marcus Pound and Dr. Gregory Ryan of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham, revealed that the drop in attendance is echoed by a reduction in donations to parish or diocese-giving by a third of Catholics.
Most Catholics surveyed said that they viewed the clerical sex abuse of minors as an ongoing issue for the Church, with only a quarter believing it to be a thing of the past.
While many Catholics agreed that such abuse was also prevalent in wider society, it is considered more common in the Catholic Church, the report found.
The Catholic population is estimated at just over 3 million in England and 130,000 in Wales (out of a combined population of 61 million) – around 5% of the total population. The Catholic population of England and Wales remains predominantly White British (89%), with the remaining 11% embracing a range of ethnicities.
The quasi-governmental Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which published its final report in October 2022, recorded over 3,000 instances of child sex abuse connected to the Church between 1970 and 2015, stressing that the problem continues, since there have been more than 100 further allegations each year since 2016.
Regular participation at Mass is presented by the Church as a normative element of Catholic life, the researchers underlined. In the old 'Penny Catechism', the obligation to attend Mass on a Sunday was known as 'the First Commandment of the Church' (#230).
However widespread Mass attendance may have been in the past, it certainly cannot be assumed for all those self-identifying as 'Catholic' today, the study pointed out.
The report also explored the diverse attitudes among Catholics regarding the obligation to attend Mass every Sunday on the pain of mortal sin.
It found "a particularly interesting subgroup" of Catholics attending Mass every 2-3 months. The subset consisted of a significantly higher proportion of both working Catholics (who make up 72% of all Occasional Mass-goers, compared with 62% for All Catholics) and parents/guardians of 12-16 year-olds (17% of the Occasional attendees).
A similar pattern is seen among the once-every-two-weeks Mass-goers regarding workers (who comprise 77% of those attending every-two-weeks subset), and parents/guardians of 5-11 year-olds (23%), the study found.
A significant group of Catholics who maintain their Catholic identity but never go to Mass apart from special occasions like baptisms, weddings and funerals was categorized as 'Nevers' by the survey.
Thirty percent of the 'Nevers' were Mass-going Catholics before being aware of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the study found.
However, Catholics who attend Mass regularly are more likely to view the abuse crisis as a scandal that the Church is addressing reasonably well, while those who never attend but identify as Catholic tend to view the extent of abuse and the effectiveness of the Church's response in a much more negative or pessimistic way.
Occasional Mass-goers (attending less than monthly) fall between these two extremes, researchers noted.
Across the population studied, more than half (55%) said they knew nothing about their bishop's handing of abuse cases.
Of those who had heard something about cases, their opinion of the bishop's handling was fairly evenly-divided across Catholics as a whole, with 19% expressing a negative sentiment, and 16% positive, but with the bulk of respondents giving a middling score, or stating "Don't know."
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
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