From the editor’s desk

Questions that need answering

Disraeli is supposed to have coined the phrase "lies, damned lies and statistics", which would, according to a recent report, be an apt comment on the accuracy of Catholic Mass attendance figures in England and Wales. Research by the Catholic sociologist, Dr Tony Spencer, indicates the true drop in figures over the last 10 years is more than half a million, compared with a mere 72,000 in official figures based on annual returns from parishes. The results suggest a hidden but deep crisis in the native-born Catholic Church in these two countries, to which Dr Spencer applies the word "alienation". Nor do figures on infant baptisms, church weddings or indeed clerical vocations paint a rosier picture.

The report by the Pastoral Research Centre also drew attention to the long-term rise in the average age of child baptism. Dr Spencer attributed this to the desire of many parents to make sure their children qualified for entry to a Catholic school. This suggestion was seized on as strengthening the case against faith schools in general, although it could just as well be argued the other way round. In fact the survey itself did not provide evidence one way or the other. It was not a survey of attitudes and motivations. But it points to the urgent need for such an inquiry - to find out what really is going on and why.

Church authorities should not be shy of such research as long as it is even handed. Thus the various hypotheses needing to be tested by an in-depth attitude survey would include the possibility that people gave up attending Mass because of the dropping of Latin or the prevalence of folk Masses, or even a perceived laxness in the moral teaching they heard in sermons. But it should also include the contrasting view - that people have been repelled by the official Catholic opposition to birth control, divorce, homosexuality, women priests and so on. However, both these theories fail to address the deeper influence of secularisation, and the possibility that neither a more relaxed nor a stricter body of teaching, nor a more traditional style of liturgy, would make much difference. Catholics are part of the general population, and the "flight from religion" in recent years has been across the denominational board, and across Europe. By and large progressive versions of Christianity have fared no better than conservative versions. In which case is the perceived triumph of science over religion the key factor? Or a decline in a sense of sin and the fear of eternal punishment? How relevant is relativism? How relevant, indeed, is salvation?

Without answers to some of these questions, the Church's leadership cannot begin to construct a pastoral strategy that makes sense. It is guessing, and those with a conservative outlook will guess differently from those with a more liberal view. Past opposition to polls and surveys in the Church has been based on the reasonable argument that the Church itself is not democracy, and its doctrines cannot be decided by majority vote. True, but that is not what is suggested - although the guardians of Catholic orthodoxy would want to listen out for an authentic expression of the sensus fidelium. The need is simply to find out why Catholics are lapsing from Sunday Mass attendance in unprecedented numbers - by asking them.