Sunday… November 12, 2018
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
There’s some stats offered by Dr. Gladys Ganiel, a sociologist of religion from QUB. And these struck me as particularly interesting. I’ve mentioned the issue of Mass attendance before – for one reason or another across the last few years I’ve had reason to attend ‘ordinary’ ones on occasion (it makes for an interesting experience as an agnostic, hovering around at the end waiting to pick up a copy of Alive!). But I find the state that in Ireland (presumably the ROI) attendance is at 36% intriguing. I’d love to see a breakdown of that statistic in regard to urban and rural settings and so on. It seems to me to be very high. At my local I’d often be – at 53 years of age (!), in the youngest 10 per cent of those attending. And I’ve counted less than 100 there Sunday after Sunday in a church which could easily accommodate seven or eight times that number or more.
I’ve heard some middle class parishes see greater attendances, but talking to a friend from Kerry the other day they said attendances were the same where they were and I have the sense that attendances have broadly collapsed nationwide, in rural and urban parishes. So again, I wonder about that 36%.
Huge, massive change in the last thirty years.
From packed churches with 90% weekly attendance to near-empty churches now, certainly in Dublin. Would expect attendances down the country to be a bit higher than in major urban centres. Certainly 36% sounds high.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Does collapse in Mass attendance, especially by teens and twentysomethings, in ‘the provinces’ have any bearing on general voting support for FF and FG around the country? Does secularism lead to socialism?
LikeLike
That’s a great question. Doesn’t look like it does it?
LikeLike
I sometimes think of La France laïque, and wonder.
LikeLike