40% turned off Catholic church

FOUR out of ten people believe the latest revelations about clerical cover-ups of child abuse have turned them off the Catholic Church.

Registered irishhealth.com readers were asked how they thought the Church had dealt with the issue of sexual abuse.

Half of those who voted believed the Church had dealt with the issue of sexual abuse very badly.

Just 1% believed the Church had coped very well while 9% felt they it did the best it could.

But 40% of the 400 people who voted went further and said the issue had turned them off the Church.

Meanwhile, more than 8,000 disillusioned Catholics have used a website to take the first step in resigning from the church.

The website, www.countmeout.ie, online since July, allows people to download documents necessary to leave the church.

Latest figures from the website shows that 8,374 people have included their names on the forms before downloading them.

According to latest available census figures, there are 3.6m Roman Catholics in the State.

Countmeout.ie was established in the wake of the publication of the Ryan Report 2009.

Catholics have been able to defect since 2006 under Vatican II. Many dioceses, however, are reluctant to disclose defection figures.