Twenty years ago, Alistair Campbell, then director of communications for Tony Blair, interrupted a journalist at a press conference to declare, ‘We don’t do God.’ At the time, Irish people definitely did do God. An Amárach Research survey at the time showed that 87 per cent of respondents believed in God.
A recent survey by Amárach showed that figure had dropped to 55 per cent of those surveyed, with predictable variations. Among those aged 35 and under, the figure drops to 41 per cent, and the share of believers rises to nearly 75 per cent among those aged 55 and over.
Five years ago, the Pew Research Center found that just 18 per cent of Irish people were non-believers.
The Pew Research Center asked more specific questions about belief in God than a simple yes or no, dividing people into 1) those who believe in God as described in the Bible; 2) those who do not believe in God as described in the Bible, but do believe there is some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe; and 3) those who do not believe in God or any higher power.
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According to Pew, in 2018 39 per cent of Irish respondents believed in God as described in the Bible, and 35 per cent in a higher power, a total of 74 per cent. Presumably the remainder of the 82 per cent who said they were believers were not part of the Judaeo-Christian traditions.
What has happened? The immediate answer is two decades of scandals involving the sexual abuse of children and other abuses of power by the Catholic Church. Another explanation favoured by sociologists is that as the standard of living and education rises among Irish people, we are following a predictable path already well-trodden by our secular neighbours in Europe. Covid has not helped, either, as the same Amárach survey shows that although numbers are slowly increasing, attendance at religious services has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
There is an additional factor weighing against belief: old-fashioned false information. Hugh D Turpin of Oxford and Aiyana Willard of Brunel University conducted research on baptised Irish Catholics to see why people choose belief or disbelief.
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In an era of scandals affecting the Church, they wanted to see what factors affect whether someone remains an orthodox Catholic, or becomes a liminal Catholic, that is, someone who rejects most Church teachings but still partakes in lightly enjoyable rites of passage such as First Holy Communion, or rejects Catholicism and indeed, theism, completely.
Buried in the research are shocking statistics – shocking because they are so inaccurate.
If even orthodox Catholics overestimate the prevalence of sexual abuse to this astonishing degree, the surprising thing is that there are any Catholics left
Participants were asked to estimate the percentage of Catholic priests who had abused children. Orthodox Catholics gave a mean estimate that 20.3 per cent of priests were paedophiles. The liminal Catholic mean estimation was 36.1 per cent. The ex-Catholic mean estimation was 39.5 per cent.
The estimates range from one in 5 priests to two in five priests. The best available estimate is between 3 to 6 per cent, based on the reputable John Jay College of Criminal Justice report on US priests. Of that total percentage, about 5 per cent of the cases fit the paedophile profile, that is, a fixed sexual orientation towards children as opposed to opportunistic exploitation. That does not make the crimes any less horrific.
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If even orthodox Catholics overestimate the prevalence of sexual abuse to this astonishing degree, the surprising thing is that there are any Catholics left. The media did a sterling job in exposing wrongdoing but left people with severely distorted impressions of the prevalence of the crimes among the general body of priests. More importantly, the Church’s own failures left it limping and severely damaged.
Turpin and Willard’s research centres on what are called ‘credibility-enhancing displays’ or CREDs for short. When people of faith engage in behaviours that have some kind of cost, for example, regular mass attendance, or engaging positively with the poor, the impact far surpasses simply rendering lip service. The adage about practising what you preach remains vital.
Sexual abuse of children by people trusted to protect them is the opposite of a CRED, radically undermining credibility. But could coming from a family where energy and time is invested in religious belief counteract the dismaying reality and allow people to continue to believe? Not by whitewashing or sidestepping the sickening reality, but by showing that to believe is still rational, and indeed should motivate people to fight these horrendous evils.
The answer is yes. CREDs include acting fairly towards others because of religious beliefs, volunteering for selfless reasons, conducting family prayers, and living “religiously pure” lives.
Where people were raised by people with visible, sincere, practical faith, they were far less likely to lose their faith in God. In contrast, it is only low levels of religious signalling in families that predict members leaving Catholicism entirely and rejecting theism in general.
Similar to the early Church, those who truly live what they believe have a disproportionate impact in a hostile culture.
On Easter Sunday morning, believing Christians will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What is certain is that Irish Christianity will only survive if it follows credibly in his footsteps.