The Iona Institute research paper ‘Falling births help drive 30pc drop in Catholic baptisms’ reports a 30% decline in such baptisms in the island of Ireland in the past decade, with about 60% of that decline being due to falling birthrate and the rest to secularisation.
Births have fallen 18.8% in the same period – 17.9% in the Republic and 21.3% in the North.
Cultural Catholicism is still a big factor in life
Regarding the Republic, the Iona Institute says: “Census data from the CSO allows us to look at the religion of mothers and children. In 2016, 78% of 0-4 year-olds were marked down in the Census as Catholic, and 9.2% were recorded as having no religion.
By 2022, these figures had changed to 65.4% and 15.6% respectively.”
“When we look at the mothers of these children, the same pattern emerges, that is 67.9% marked themselves down as Catholic, and 15.7% as having no religion in 2022.
It appears from Census data that almost all mothers of 0-4 years-olds who identify as Catholic are still having their children baptised.
This indicates that ‘cultural Catholicism’ remains a big factor in Irish life.”
Regional variations in numbers are big
However, the regional variations by diocese are intriguing. One diocese, Elphin, which includes an area of the Republic near the border, centred on Sligo, actually saw a marginal increase in baptisms, up 0.9%. It is not stated whether these were adults or children.
The 40.8% decline in the Meath diocese was the largest in all of Ireland – the sprawling diocese in the midlands and east includes most of County Meath, as well as the eastern half of Westmeath, a number of Offaly parishes, and small parts of Louth and Cavan. It is thought that falling family sizes in the many large towns of the diocese, with high costs of living, are a key factor – one well-informed insider said that in his town there were more young couples with dogs than children.
Baptisms in the Dublin archdiocese fell by just under 40%. “Notably, Dublin has seen its birth rate fall by more than the national average, and Dublin is also more secular than the national average,” the Institute states.
The cost of housing may play a role in local numbers
However, it is also probably due in part to the cost of housing in Dublin, which has forced so many young couples to move out of the city into other parts of Leinster. There was a 37.9% decline in the Down and Connor diocese, which includes Belfast.
Commenting on the figures, Dr Tom Finegan, Chairman of The Iona Institute said: “In a way the figures are not a surprise given the rapidly falling number of births and growing secularisation. Given that births have fallen by almost a fifth in the last 10 years, and more people are ticking the ‘No Religion’ box in the Census, we could expect nothing but a big drop in baptism figures”.
He continued: “However, the figures also show that ‘cultural Catholicism’ remains strong on the island. We see that as at Census 2022, 67.9% of mothers with children aged 0-4 still identified as Catholic, even though a big majority of these would not be regular Mass-goers.”
Dr Finegan said: “It remains to be seen whether cultural Catholicism will remain a force in Irish life. It’s worth noting that in Britain in 2023, according to the Vatican yearbook, over 42,000 Catholic children were baptised, even though levels of Mass attendance in Britain are low.”
While clearly the vast majority of Catholic baptisms are of babies, we don’t have any figures to say how many adult baptisms there were. Just as in Britain, there have been reports of adults from non-religious backgrounds being baptised, after coming to the faith as adults, but they would likely be a tiny percentage of overall baptisms.
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