CV NEWS FEED // The Catholic Record Society (CRS) has released a new set of pastoral statistics, revealing two primary trends among Catholics in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
While the telling statistics from CRS’s “Catholicism in Numbers” project indicates a definitive decline in religious vocations and consistent practice among Catholics, there is a marked increase in outreach programs.
The results “place Catholics’ experiences of their local church into the context of national changes as participation in Church life and ministry have ebbed and flowed,” as Catholic Herald UK Author Tim Kinnear wrote in a recent article explaining the results of the study.
As Catholicvote previously reported, Ireland has seen a drastic decrease in priestly vocations, with only 20 seminarians in formation in all of Ireland. Currently, there are 2,116 priests available to serve the 2,650 churches, dioceses, and parishes in the country as of 2022—189 of those priests were from outside dioceses or abroad.
“The statistics are illuminating when considered together,” Kinnear said, continuing:
Ordinations have declined substantially (approximately 139 secular ordinations in England and Wales in 1960 and 32 in 2019) and there are fewer sisters in religious orders (around 11,428 in Ireland in 1991 and 4,887 in 2020).
“That said,” he added, “the ministry of the permanent diaconate has grown with about 752 Permanent Deacons in England and Wales by 2010, up from 475 in 2000.” According to Kinnear, this growth will “shape many Catholics’ experience of ministry in their parish” going forward.
Since there are more Permanent Deacons and fewer parish sisters, Kinnear pointed out the gender distribution among ministry teams will be lead predominantly by men.
The statistics also indicate that more people identify as Catholic, while less people practice Catholicism regularly, thus reflecting “more stability in the size of the Catholic population while Mass attendance has declined.”
While change in the Church reveals certain decline in many areas, Kinnear observed, the statistics revealed many counter-trends of “higher commitment and outreach” among Catholic Student Unions and otherwise.
Kinnear also noted a gap in the statistics regarding online engagement with the faith, as well as among migrant congregations.
In conclusion, he wrote: “Change may bring smaller churches and fewer laborers for the harvest. However, if Christian religion meets a perennial need to connect with the transcendent, then counter-trends will occur.”
To find out more, Kinnear said, it is necessary for more people to contribute their own data to CRS’s project.
