More than half the Catholics in the Diocese of Brentwood who left the Church post-Covid found their parish unwelcoming or judgemental, according to a new survey.
Fifty-four percent said they did not feel welcome or as if they belonged, while 47 per cent said they left the Church over its teaching on homosexuality, according to the survey conducted by the Diocese of Brentwood.
Nearly 400 people took part in Believing not Belonging, a survey to discover why Catholics no longer come to Church.
The Bishop of Brentwood, Alan Williams invited non-practising Catholics to take part in the anonymous survey between May and August 2023.
The diocese has published a report on the findings, by Fr Liam Hayes, director of the Centre for Ecclesial Ethics at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge.
He said: “Our research revealed that many of the 80 per cent of baptised Catholics who no longer go to Church do not feel welcome, appreciated or even visible, for they experience a Church in which they no longer see their face, hear their voice or recognise their story in too many of the church’s ethical teachings and its wider praxis.”
He described the survey – hosted online via the Qualtrics platform of the University of Cambridge – as yielding “a moving.. challenging insight into how our Church and the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to a movement away from a regular practice of faith for many Catholics”.
In 2019, there were approximately 42,912 people who attended Mass in the Diocese of Brentwood, in which there were approximately 237,000 baptised Catholics. After the pandemic, many did not return.
The 370 survey respondents also cited clericalism, the abuse crisis, the exclusion of women or not getting along with their parish priest as reasons for no longer attending Mass.
Practical reasons were also given, including children’s sporting commitments on Sunday mornings, or having to care for elderly parents. Sixty-eight percent of survey participants were women and 32 per cent, men. Nearly three-quarters identified themselves as still Catholic.
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