A third of Catholics in England and Wales have reduced their Mass attendance due to concerns over the child sexual abuse crisis within the Church, according to a new report. In response, Bishop Paul Mason, lead bishop for safeguarding in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has vowed to ensure the Church is Read more
A new report shows Australian Catholic Mass attendance has significantly declined, with recent surveys indicating a steep drop from 2016 to 2021. The proportion of Catholics attending Mass fell from 11.8% to 8.2%, representing a drop of around a third (from 623,400 to 417,350) over the five-year period. “The Australian Catholic Mass Attendance Report 2021” Read more
A study of Catholic families has found just 15 percent of US adults who were raised Catholic remained practising Catholics, attending weekly Mass into adulthood. That’s the negative news. There’s better news though. It results from a new study that questions why some Catholics continue to practise their faith and attend weekly Masses. Data from Read more
Some Catholic priests in Nigeria are telling parishioners if they don’t have a Permanent Voter Card (PVC), they won’t be allowed to come to Sunday Mass. The Independent National Electoral Commission issues the cards. The priests justified their stance in denying entry to those without a PVC, telling them it’s because “there is no way Read more
Mass attendance has trebled in a Welsh diocese due to online services being broadcast. The Welsh bishops’ conference website says about 1300 people viewed the Palm Sunday Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral. This is three times the normal congregation for that service. There has also been a vast increase in daily Mass attendance in the Read more
In the last few years, many of my home communicants have found a great deal of comfort, encouragement and sustenance in quite a recent phenomenon: the growth of live Masses available on the internet Read More
During the past 12 months, Australia’s Catholic Church has had to face several moral issues. These include a sex abuse crisis as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse published reports about abuse at Catholic schools and institutions, losing the same-sex marriage referendum and Victoria government’s upper house voting to allow euthanasia. Read more
“Extraordinary how potent cheap music is,” says a character in a Noël Coward play. And it’s true. Even in church. A morbid Victorian hymn or a Christmas carol can reduce even the most cynical atheist to tears. But even more potent, I’d argue, is church music that isn’t so much cheap as embarrassingly bad. I Read more
An international survey has recorded a dramatic decline in religious faith among the Irish over the past six years. Between 2005 and 2011, the proportion of Irish people declaring themselves to be religious dropped from 69 to 47 per cent — a percentage drop in religiosity exceeded only by the Vietnamese. Over the same period, Read more
The Catholic Bishop of Christchurch , Barry Jones, says a comparison of this year’s annual survey of the numbers of adults and children coming to Sunday Mass with the surveys of the last few years seems to show that the earthquakes have had no effect on the number of persons coming to Sunday Mass He Read more