The abuse crisis in the Church has contributed to a third of Catholics in England and Wales reducing their attendance of Mass or stopping going altogether, according to a new report by Durham University. Source: Catholic Herald.
More than 3000 adults who identify as Roman Catholic – and sampled as representative of the Catholic population in England and Wales – responded to the YouGov survey commissioned by the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University, as part of a wider research project called “Boundary Breaking” that looked at the implications of the abuse crisis for the Catholic community.
Carried out in June and July 2022, the study aimed to gauge the attitudes and impact of child sexual abuse on so-called “ordinary” Catholics.
The sample included “regular” churchgoers (classed as attending at least once a month) and “occasional” (classed as attending less than once a month), as well as those who do not go to Mass but identify as Catholics.
The survey suggests that the scandal of abuse has been a direct cause of ordinary Catholics distancing themselves from the Church, both in terms of Mass-going and financial donations.
Though the study also revealed a correlation between people who are more regular Mass-goers being more willing to acknowledge the abuse crisis while not giving up on the Church.
“It makes total sense to me that those more weakly attached to the Church would be the ones most likely to leave, and to cite the abuse crisis as a reason for that,” said Stephen Bullivant, Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at Saint Mary’s University in London.
“In point of fact, on average you’d expect more committed Catholics to be the more deeply affected by the scandals: it hits much more closely to home. For example, they are far more likely to know either victims/survivors or perpetrators, or to be part of parish communities that have been affected, or to read about things in Catholic media (in addition to secular media).
“But they also have more reasons to stay,” notes Professor Bullivant, who is also co-author of Why Catholics Leave, What They Miss and How They Might Return.
The Catholic population in England and Wales makes up about 8 per cent of the country, or just over 3 million people.
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Abuse crisis has caused Mass attendance among English, Welsh Catholics to drop (Catholic Herald)
