Damned statistics hide the strength of the Catholic Church in Ireland

IF the Catholic bishops feel discouraged by last week’s Prime Time survey, which shows that only 50% of the population now attends mass each week, they should remember that the Catholic church faces bigger challenges elsewhere.

Rome, for example. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who administers the Rome Archdiocese on behalf of Pope John Paul II, recently commissioned a report on the religious values of young people in his diocese. Sociologist Mario Pollo of Rome's LUMSA University interviewed 120 young people one group of 16-18 year olds and another of 22-26 year-olds. In each group, a solid majority said they believed in God. But their idea of God wasn't necessarily Christian. Some described him as a 'ray of light', others saw him as a 'force of nature', and still more described him in terms of abstract ideas like 'love'.

Some 40% of 16-18 year olds said God was the same for all religions, a phenomenon which Pollo describes as "growing syncretism... a relativisation of one's own religious experience and a sort of equivalence among all the others."