Why are people in their late 20s and 30s so disillusioned with religion?
At first glance, there is little comfort for committed Catholics in a recent poll carried out by Amárach Research and commissioned by the Iona Institute, of which I am a patron. Rates of Mass going have plummeted. Only 16 per cent defined themselves as regular Mass goers.
At least people are more benign towards Christianity than they are to institutional Catholicism. While only 27 per cent have a favourable attitude to the
Catholic Church
, half the respondents have a favourable view of
Christianit
y. (Slightly fewer people, 45 per cent, agree that Catholic teachings are still of benefit to society.)
For comparison, a La Croix poll on the institutional Catholic Church in France found 33 per cent positive, 26 per cent negative, and 40 per cent neutral views. However, the Irish poll also suggests that 25 per cent of the population would be happy if the the church vanished from society.
If it did disappear completely, the quarter of a million callers to St Vincent de Paul (SVP) in 2023 might miss the influence of the church. Our society might miss the €14.6 million SVP spent on housing and child and family services alone, out of a total expenditure of €101.2 million. The developing world might miss the €30.9 million donated by the Irish public to Trócaire, mostly through campaigns organised through churches and schools.
READ MORE
Others might miss priests like Fr John Joe Duffy of Creeslough,
whose humanity at a time of tragedy acted as an anchor
. Or perhaps
the generous spirit of Fr Paul Murphy, forgiving the teenage attacker
who stabbed him. .
When it comes to attitudes to priests and nuns, roughly a third are positive, while the same number are negative or neutral.
Every act of child abuse is a violation and a tragedy. The crime of sexual abuse wreaks havoc for survivors and their families, and ripples out to affect the trust people have in all priests and nuns, no matter how blameless. Although the estimates of the prevalence of child sexual abuse have improved since these questions were first asked in 2011, the survey still shows that people overestimate by a factor of about four to one. The average estimate is that 18 per cent of clergy are abusers, with an astonishing 8 per cent believing that it is 50 per cent.
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Priest numbers in Dublin to fall 70 per cent in 20 years, report predicts
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All statistics need to be treated with caution due to the danger of under-reporting, but the
John Jay College study
for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops found that approximately 4 per cent of priests active between 1950 and 2002 had been accused of sexual abuse of minors.
Similar prevalence rates were found in a commissioned German study which found that 4.4 per cent of Catholic clergy were accused of abusing minors, with a higher proportion among diocesan priests (5.1 per cent).
An
independent commission in France
estimated the proportion of abusers was about 2.5–2.8 per cent of clergy.
Given the impact of the scandals, it is interesting that when it comes to religion and spirituality, the most disenchanted cohort is not the 18- to 24-year-olds but the 25- to 34-year-olds.
People in their 30s were small children in 1994, when the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition government fell following a row over then attorney general Harry Whelehan's alleged role in the delayed extradition of Fr Brendan Smyth, a notorious paedophile.
The three-part series,
States of Fear,
was broadcast in 1999, documenting the awful lives endured by children in church and State-run institutions. Cardinal Secrets, which was about the Dublin Diocese, appeared in 2002, while the Murphy and Ryan reports were published in 2009.
It's not that these scandals have not impacted 18- to 24-year-olds. In the youngest cohort, only 19 per cent have a favourable or very favourable attitude to the church. However, while 43 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds have a positive or very positive impression of Christianity (as opposed to institutional Catholicism) only 29 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds do. The scandals seem to have soured the slightly older cohort not just on Catholicism, but on religion and spirituality in general.
Seventeen per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds say they are religious compared with just 5 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds. Only 31 per cent of the younger group consider themselves to be neither religious nor spiritual, in contrast to 42 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds. In addition, 18- to 24-year-olds are more likely to read spiritual or religious books, follow individuals on social media who discuss spirituality and religion, and take courses with religious or spiritual content than the older cohort.
It does not mean that watching spiritual content online transfers easily to membership of a community, but it does indicate a search for meaning.
The fear among believers of engaging with young people is one of the many ugly consequences of the scandals, while the weakening and ageing of local church communities do not help either.
Yet suppose Catholics really believe that they offer something both transcendent and practical that enhances joy. In that case, there is a timely opportunity to reach out to these young people who are showing more openness to religion and spirituality.
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Irish Examiner
4 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
'After 10 decades of life, you need to be matter-of-fact about death'
Jennifer Sleeman, aged 95, is so matter-of-fact about death that she had a coffin made for herself several years ago. She asked the man who carved her kitchen table if he would make one and when, a little surprised, he agreed, she lay down on the rug in her sitting-room to be measured up. 'We all die and I think it's sad that we don't talk about death,' she says with a gentle, disarming pragmatism that runs through all of her conversations on the subject. Jennifer Sleeman. In the 10 decades since her birth on September 23, 1929, she has been a dairy farmer, a pre-marriage counsellor, an environmental campaigner, a Green Party candidate, a Fair Trade activist, and, more recently, an advocate for women priests and a more open attitude to death. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family. And there have been a few — in a podcast with her son Andrew (Fr Simon) Sleeman, the Mindful Monk at Glenstal Abbey, with artist Sheelagh Broderick, outlining her funeral playlist (it includes Ol' Man River sung by Paul Robeson), and with her grandson Paul Power who made a beautiful short film entitled For When I Die (2018), as well as the words that are written on the folder containing all her post-death arrangements. There are shots of the aforementioned coffin, standing tall in a bedroom in her home in Clonakilty, 'waiting patiently for me', as she casually puts it. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading Jennifer is neither sentimental nor mawkish; she is simply articulating 'some of the messages she wants to get out there'. In essence, that death is inevitable and we should try to prepare for what she terms a 'good death', one with family around and everything in order, rather than her mother's 'very bad death', which still upsets her. Mother and daughter had words the night before she died and they never had a chance to make it up. 'I could cry about it now. It was just so sad and in a way, I kind of blame myself because for most of my life I did what my mother told me. I was a good daughter. And if I had spoken up a bit more about my own needs and my own thoughts, perhaps the end might have been better,' she says in For When I Die. The need to speak up is a theme that runs through Jennifer Sleeman's extraordinary life. Just eight years before, on the eve of her 81st birthday, she made international headlines when she called for a single-Sunday boycott of Mass to protest about the lack of roles for women in the Catholic Church. Jennifer Sleeman in Ireland in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family If people didn't want to skip Mass, they were asked to attend wearing a green ribbon to let the powers-that-be know that women were no longer happy to be second-class citizens. The letters and phone calls of support, which came from men and women in Ireland, Australia, the US, and Canada, vastly outnumbered the disapproving ones. Jennifer still relishes the attention, and laughs heartily when she recalls having to turn down one interview request because she was already booked to talk to the BBC. Ask if she thinks the Church is changing and she mentions that interfaith minister, Rev. Dr Nóirín Ní Riain visited her yesterday. 'She's almost a priest.' Jennifer Sleeman is in a nursing home now — 'one of the annoying things is that I spend all my time in bed. I'm just old' — and is slightly bemused that anyone would be interested in her life. But what a life. In the 10 decades since her birth on September 23, 1929, she has been a dairy farmer, a pre-marriage counsellor, an environmental campaigner, a Green Party candidate, a Fair Trade activist, and, more recently, an advocate for women priests and a more open attitude to death. Jennifer Sleeman. All she wanted to be as a child growing up in South Africa was a cowboy. She is also a mother of six — Andrew, Duncan, Paddy, Mary, Katey and Patricia (aka Bushy) — which she considers her greatest achievement. That short summary of her life to date shows that she has lived her own philosophy: 'I don't want them to say she died at such and such an age, rather that she lived until she was that age.' All she wanted to be as a child growing up in South Africa was a cowboy, she says, recalling the long pony rides with her sister Alix when they were almost too young to be let wander alone. But then, in a fascinating account of her early life, she writes about how safe and idyllic life was on the fruit farm run by her parents, Loïs and James Graham, a royal navy reservist. It 'was laid out in orchards of fruit trees, apples, pears, and peaches and there were two nectarine trees and [a] cherry [tree] on which we gorged when they were ripe … I can't remember lessons being very onerous. We swam in the water tanks used for irrigating, we rode, we looked after our animals, our clothes were minimal, one dress, shorts, jodhpurs, and for the winter, yellow polo-neck pullovers.' All that changed when the Second World War broke out. Jennifer Sleeman in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Jennifer's father was recalled to the navy and the family returned to her mother's native Scotland, counterintuitively moving nearer the fighting rather than farther away. The 10-year-old Jennifer didn't see it that way, though. Some eight decades later, it is quite something to hear her talk with glee about the excitement of sailing back to Dumfries through 'submarine-infested waters', to use her evocative phrase. She joins her hands to evoke the prayers she and her sister said on the journey: 'Each night, we ended our prayers with, 'and please God let us be torpedoed.' We thought that would be great fun. Mum was wise enough not to disabuse us of the notion.' In any case, their mum had knitted red, white, and blue bobbles for their hats, which they thought would keep them safe if they found themselves bobbing in the waves. It wasn't long before the harsh reality of war dawned with a jolt: 'I have vivid memories of being taken to see the army coming home from Dunkirk. Lorry after lorry of exhausted soldiers, we stood on the dusty roadside and waved, and mum told us never to forget seeing the soldiers coming home. I haven't,' Jennifer later wrote. Jennifer Sleeman at her wedding to Brian Sleeman in 1949. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Little did she know then that, nine years later, she would marry one of the soldiers who didn't make it home. Her future husband, lieutenant-colonel Richard Brian Sleeman, of the royal sussex regiment, was captured in Dunkirk and spent the war in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, along with captain Harry Freeman Jackson, from Mallow in Co Cork. That friendship explained how the couple later ended up in Ireland — Jennifer now thinks of herself as Irish — but we are getting ahead of the story. After the war, in 1949, Jennifer married Brian Sleeman and moved to Berlin where he was secretary to the general of the Allied sector (British, French, and American) in a divided, bombed-out city. Jennifer is looking at her album of photographs explaining the political context because, as she says, her grandchildren don't know that Berlin was divided between the Allies. There are photographs of some of the streets reduced to rubble and while she didn't see the worst of the devastation in the city centre, she met some of the women who were victims of the mass rape perpetrated by Soviets on tens of thousands of German women. Jennifer's uncle, a linguist, had stayed with two women in Berlin before the war and, against advice, she snuck out to visit them. She found them living in a tiny flat and heard that they had been raped by the Russians. 'I felt awfully sorry for them.' She feared for the women's safety and for the young girl who was living with them. At times, she worried for her own safety too. 'I used to feel a bit afraid. What if the Russians just walked in, there was absolutely nothing to stop them coming in from their sector of Berlin,' she says. Damage in post-war Berlin. She lived there with her husband for two years after the war. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family It didn't happen, though, and those post-war years also hold more amusing memories, such as the time the German gardener dug up everything they had planted in their garden and replanted it in rows. For a woman who later spent many happy hours gardening without gloves so that she could feel the dirt under her fingernails, that particular anecdote still sends her into hoots of laughter. 'You couldn't believe that, but it's true,' she says. Berlin is also associated with the happy arrival of the couple's first son, Andrew. Two more sons followed. Duncan was born in South Africa and Paddy in England before the couple acted on captain Freeman-Jackson's invitation to move to Ireland, where they developed a dairy farm, Killuragh Glen, in Killavullen in Cork in the 1950s. Jennifer Sleeman in 1943. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Three more children arrived, Mary, Katey, and Patricia, and Jennifer Sleeman embraced her new life as mother and dairy farmer, milking cows. 'I loved that. I think I was quite good at it too,' she says. Even now, she looks out the window on these lovely summer mornings and remembers how lovely it was going to get the cows in all those years ago. The conversation continues, going forward and back over Jennifer Sleeman's 'long, happy, busy life', as she describes it. There were hard, sad days too. One of the hardest things, she says, was watching her husband suffer with Alzheimer's disease. She converted to Catholicism in the 1960s after meeting a nice priest. She had also seen the comfort her husband's faith gave him. Jennifer Sleeman skiing in Germany in the 1950s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family. Solace for her, however, came later when she was able to talk to another woman, Margaret, whose husband was suffering from Alzheimer's. 'She always said I was such a help to her. Unless you've been there, you cannot understand it.' Unbidden, another memory resurfaces; the time she missed the only bus to Dumfries during the petrol-rationed days of war and was forced to walk the seven miles home in gathering darkness. 'I remember some kind, kind woman — the people you never forget — came on her bicycle. She got off and walked with me. That's the sort of thing you remember forever. You really do.' After her husband died in 1988, Jennifer moved to Clonakilty where she built a house. 'That was interesting because they don't expect women to build houses. I said to the builder, 'If you make a good job, I'll tell everybody. And if you make a bad job, I'll tell everybody too.' Well, you know, he did a good job.' Jennifer Sleeman: 'I don't want them to say she died at such and such an age, rather that she lived until she was that age.' She went on to have several more 'incarnations'. At a time of life when many slow down, she did the opposite and began a new career as a pre-marriage counsellor, using her free travel pass to go around the country giving courses, and later training the trainers. She also got deeply involved in the Fairtrade movement after her daughter Patricia visited Nicaragua in 2001 and saw how much trading based on transparency and respect benefitted local communities. After attending a 'Food We Buy' conference run by North Cork Organic Group, Jennifer started a Fairtrade campaign at her own kitchen table in Clonakilty, with the help of Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin, of Sinn Féin, Canon Ian Jonas, Church of Ireland minister, and the late Fr Ger Galvin, a Catholic priest. Again, she used her free travel to visit towns and villages all over the country to encourage support for farmers in the developing world, and to raise awareness of the devastating effects of climate change. In 2007, she was named the Cork Environmental Forum Outstanding Individual for her work. On a personal level, she got immense pleasure from the natural environment and worked in her own garden into her late 80s. Jennifer Sleeman has a gentle, disarming pragmatism that runs through all of her conversations on the subject of death. The oak trees growing in it tell a poignant story about the lasting scars of war. Jennifer lost a cousin and two uncles in the Second World War. One of them, her uncle John, was shot down over the Netherlands, and many years later she visited his burial place in Velp with her sister Alix. 'I picked up sprouting acorns on the path outside the graveyard and hid them at the bottom of my bag. They are now the oak trees growing in my garden in Clonakilty and to my delight I have found that they have had 'babies', little saplings which have an interesting history.' Speaking of interesting histories, we have only scratched the surface of the life of a woman who has seen and done so much. She says the width of life is more important than the length but she has clearly had both in hers, even if she doesn't always see the point in talking about it: 'How can you listen to me yapping on?' With the greatest pleasure and ease, though we are sadly running out of space. I ask for a piece of advice she might have given her younger self: 'Don't be afraid to speak up and do what you want to do in life.'
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
Carl O'Brien: ‘Take a deep breath - the weekend is a time to recharge'
Phew – that was intense. The first few days of the exams really are the hardest. The weekend, thankfully, offers the chance of some much-needed respite for everyone. Leaving Cert students who sat maths paper one on Friday afternoon may well feel deflated . But remember: if it was hard for them, it was hard for lots of others too. Our live coverage of the exams on Friday includes lots of comments from students who really struggled with the content and questions. Examiners tend to mark 'hard' exams easier in order to keep the same proportion of grades from year to year. It's also know as the bell curve . So, there is every chance the marking scheme will take account of this. READ MORE Students Why not take a deep breath – the weekend is an opportunity to recharge. It may be tempting to spend every moment revising, but rest is just as important. Brian Mooney, our guidance counsellor, recommends a balanced approach : review upcoming exams in manageable sessions, and then step away from the books. Take a walk, get exercise, meet up with friends or watch your favourite show: it can do wonders for your focus and mood. Parents For parents, supporting your child can simply involve a calm presence and encouraging downtime. Try to keep the atmosphere relaxed and remind them that it's normal to feel nervous or tired. A favourite meal, a listening ear or a quiet space to work can make all the difference. With balance, support and rest, your child can face the week ahead with greater energy and clarity. Keep going – you're doing great!
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
Leaving Cert maths: Some students left deflated by ‘off-putting' higher-level exam
Many higher-level Leaving Cert maths students were left deflated by paper one, but it had many manageable elements and was less wordy than in previous years, teachers have said. Eoghan O'Leary, a teacher at Hamilton High School in Cork and head of maths at , said students welcomed a return to more maths and less writing. In recent years, teachers and dyslexic students have repeatedly raised the wordiness of the maths paper, saying that it disadvantages them and is unnecessary. 'The paper was dominated by calculus, sequences & series and algebra,' said Mr O'Leary. READ MORE 'Students who hadn't revised sequences were in trouble because they featured in two long questions, so therefore could not be avoided.' Louise Boylan, a maths teacher at the Institute of Education, said that paper had an off-putting appearance, but was approachable. 'Students likely won't feel triumphant as they leave the exam hall, but they shouldn't feel defeated,' she said, adding that there were many novel elements on the paper. 'While there was a lot that was out of the box – logic puzzle style questions, material that hasn't appeared since the course's overhaul – there was much that would be welcome. Algebraic skills, rates of change, differential calculus, and sequence and series would all have fallen into the familiar,' Ms Boylan said. Stephen Begley, subject expert and head of maths at Dundalk Grammar School, said that the paper was more prompted and scaffolded than usual, and didn't appear as dense as it had in the past. 'While the short questions were rather delightful in ways, the long questions were a little light in parts and were heavily scaffolded,' Mr Begley said. 'Beneficial in ways, the examiner was generous throughout in pointing out what methods and techniques students should use to approach a question, for example by indicating to use a certain formula or technique.' This view was echoed by other teachers, including Ms Boylan. 'Later in the paper, question seven's wall of text will have caused some to pause, but once that was parsed, the underlying sequences and series were familiar,' she said. Overall, Ms Boylan said it was a challenging paper for everyone sitting it as the question setter continues the trend of drawing from all corners of the course. 'As such there was material examined on the paper that simply wasn't present in past exams and some students will rightly feel that they were pushed beyond their comfort zone. However, with much that will earn them marks, they shouldn't focus solely on the negative – the marking will reflect the challenge,' she said. Mr O'Leary said that some students were concerned that, with some students finding it too easy, there was concern that it would be harshly marked. 'I hope there will be fairness there,' Mr O'Leary said. On the ordinary level paper, Mr Begley said that it was a fair paper spanning the usual suspects of financial maths, complex numbers, algebra, calculus, functions, patterns and area. 'While parts were certainly not without challenge, the short questions in section A were quite nice and students could play to their strengths answering any five of the six,' he said. 'Those who prepared using past papers would have benefitted from the familiarity of question styles from years gone by. 'The long questions in Section B had students answer any three of the four. The topics covered here were functions, differentiation, financial maths, number patterns and area. 'Topic wise it followed suit with previous exams and students were well prompted and guided in parts. Overall, a good start to the ordinary level maths exams and all eyes will be on paper two on Monday, for which I advise students to take a look at their statistics, trigonometry, coordinate geometry of the line and circle and probability over the weekend, as these are always the main players,' Mr Begley said. Try this one at home: Leaving Cert maths, higher level, Q6(a) Write down, in descending powers of 𝑝𝑝, the first 3 terms in the binomial expansion of: (2𝑝𝑝 +3)7 Give each term in its simplest form. For example, the first term should be of the form ap 7, where a is a constant.
