Sociology 1 Lecture 2: Secularisation
Speaking in 1996, the then Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr Harry Allen, claimed that Dublin is now: ‘one of the most secular cities in Europe, where vast numbers of people, especially those under 40, have no significant church connection’.
On the other hand writer Fr. Andrew Greely points out that ‘the end of organised religion, so cheerfully predicted by the wise men of the Enlightenment, seems so long overdue after a couple of centuries that there is no point in waiting for it’. This is what is referred to in your textbook (p520) as the ‘myth of secularisation’.
What is meant by ‘secular’ in these contexts? Secularisation can be described as the process whereby religion loses its influence over social life and society. It is a complex phenomenon and relates to some or all of the following:
· decline of the prestige and influence of religion as an institution
· an increased focus on ‘this world’ and abandonment of focus on ‘other worlds’ such as the spirit world or ‘the hereafter’
· privatisation of religious practice and a move away from community-based religious activity
· a shift towards ‘scientific’ and rational explanations for phenomena: desacralisation
Secularisation is of concern to all the churches in Ireland, and to many social commentators. It has also been of great interest to sociologists.
As we have seen, ‘religion’ itself has many sides: from personal beliefs about spirituality, to institutional structures like schools and hospitals, to the influence of religious bodies over legislation. All of these aspects are highly relevant in the Irish context.
In the previous lecture we noted the key aspects of religion:
· symbols
· reverence/awe
· rituals/special behaviour
· a community of believers
Examination of these aspects of religious experience might help us to determine whether Ireland is indeed becoming a secular society.
UCD Politics Professor Brigid Laffan argues that Ireland is not secularising as rapidly as might appear. While attitudes have changed considerably, changes in religious practice are not dramatic. We will examine this claim through the material presented later in this lecture.
Laffan suggests there has been a change in the role of religion in Irish life. She argues that the Roman Catholic church in Ireland has lost its ‘moral monopoly’ and that individual Catholics now want and expect to make up their own minds about matters of private sexual morality. This is borne out by survey results.
As a result the role of the Church may have changed from one of policing private morality to one of public intervention in issues of public policy, such as poverty, overseas aid, and ethics. This would bring it more into line with the situation in many other European and western societies.
It has been argued that in many societies, we are seeing the emergence of the ‘social church’: one where people seek religious values without the social commitment involved. For example Dr Allen has reported on ‘social baptisms’ amongst Spanish Anglicans, ‘where families, suitably dressed, arrive at the church door, take photographs, and then proceed to the hotel for a meal, without ever going into the church. This also happens at confirmation time. They keep the custom but refuse the commitment’.
Before coming to any conclusions about the extent of secularisation in Ireland, it is useful to look at the historical role of the churches (in particular the Roman Catholic Church) and at some of the possible indicators of change.
Church & society
In 1987 Tom Inglis (in the first edition of his book Moral Monopoly) was able to say that Ireland was a particularly religious country: ‘one of the first impressions of the country that marks it out as different from other Western societies is that the Catholic Church is a strong and active force in everyday life’. We can ask, why and how has religion acquired such a central role in Irish social life?
Inglis suggests that, ‘it is as if the Irish have always been a holy and religious people who are devoted to the Catholic Church’. There is a notion that the Irish are ‘almost naturally Catholic’. However historians have shown that despite the ‘Island of Saints and Scholars’ image, that Ireland has not always been this way. For example it was only with the rise of the Catholic middle-class in the late 19th century that Mass attendance leaped from its mid-century rate of approximately 35% to its turn-of-the-century level of 90%.
Many explanations have been suggested for the almost unparalleled power of the Catholic Church in Ireland in the period between the Famine and the 1980s.
Hornsby-Smith & Whelan stress that the development of the Church was ‘the outcome of a complex interaction between social, political and religious change'’. Historians suggest the following as key factors:
· anti-Anglicisation, the development of a separate national identity
· the decline of the cottier (landless) class due to new land tenure arrangements and the Famine. It was amongst this class that older alternative belief systems were prevalent
· the rationalisation of Irish society with urbanisation and increasing integration into ‘modern’ society
· the growth of religious belief and practice as a response to rapid social change
· the increasing ‘respectability’ of society: the growth of moral discipline, especially as a forerunner to modernisation
· class analysis: religion suited the British Empire and Irish ruling class – as a distraction from class struggle
The very strength of the Roman Catholic Church in this period may have set it up for a greater and more rapid fall: for the Church has become increasingly identified as a reactionary and Establishment institution that is unable to change with the times. Its very dominance over the intellectual and political life has made it a target for movements for social change: political, economic and social.
Sociological analyses
Given its centrality in Irish social life, Irish sociologists (apart from the work of Inglis) have failed to produce much description or analysis of the power of the Catholic Church in contemporary Irish society’. Much of the sociological research that has been carried out on the Catholic Church has been done by the Church itself and, not surprisingly, turns out to be less than critical of the institution.
According to Inglis: ‘the main problem with this research is that it has concentrated on gathering facts and data, usually through social surveys, and has avoided dealing with the larger, more general questions about the position and influence of the Church.’ As mentioned in the previous lecture, the research has tended to be positivist and to favour attitude research and data-collection.
Belief in God
In a recent study of 23 European nations conducted by the International Social Survey Programme, the majority of every nation except the Czech Republic and the former East Germany believed in God. In five of the countries - Cyprus, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland and Portugal more than nine out of 10 believe in God. This perhaps can be taken as a basic indicator of religious sensibility. What about religious practice?
Religious practice
Fr. Mac Gréil’s work Prejudice in Ireland revisited examines trends in religious practice in Ireland over the period from 1972/73 to 1988/89 – as measured by his survey. As he points out, any attempt to measure religiosity is ‘of necessity, limited and selective’.
His work is complemented by the research undertaken by the European Values project and by more recent opinion poll research undertaken by the MRBI for media organisations and the churches themselves.
Taken together, this data indicates a fairly rapid and accelerating change in religious practices: but a process that is highly variable in terms of the sociological variables of location, class, gender and age.
Religious affiliation
The religious affiliation of the population of the Republic of Ireland is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic (at 94%). Only about 1% of Mac Gréil’s sample described themselves as having ‘no religion’, while less than 5% came from other Christian denominations. This roughly reflects Census figures.
For Mac Gréil the tiny proportion of the population describing themselves as of ‘no religion’ indicates ‘the widespread importance of religion as part of the Irish person’s self-identity’. The lack of growth of alternative religious denominations may be due to the lack of inward migration into Ireland. Of course this may change as immigration becomes a more established feature of Irish society.
Religious activity
Church membership, according to Mac Gréil, may be measured according to:
· participation in religious activity
· commitment to religious beliefs and norms
· acceptance by co-believers
· formal registration of membership
His own study aims to measure only the first two of these factors. He suggests that ‘levels of participation in Mass and in the Sacraments are generally accepted as basic measures of active Church membership’. At a deeper or more exacting level, ‘various forms of pastoral and evangelising activity’ are also important criteria.
Weekly Mass attendance
Surveys show that weekly mass attendance has declined from a figure of 87% of Catholics, to around 60% in the period 1981-98 (see Table 1). The highest levels of Mass attendance are found in Connaught/Ulster and the lowest amongst those brought up in Dublin.
Most recent survey research (reported in Dec 2000) indicates that only 14% of 18-24 old saw Mass attendance as important. However the percentage of committed, weekly Mass goers rose rapidly through the age cohorts until it reached 74 per cent for those 65+. Dubliners, at 30 per cent, were least committed to attending Sunday Mass as a "very important" obligation, but the figure increased to 45 per cent in Munster and in Connacht/Ulster.
In Mac Gréil’s opinion, urbanisation (especially in relation to residence in Dublin) is ‘the strongest factor causing decline in Church attendance’. He suggests that this may be due to a ‘lack of community’ in the city – though offers no evidence to support this.
A number of other reasons for the decline have been suggested:
· convergence with European and Western figures generally (figures are much lower for other ‘Catholic’ countries like France, Spain and Italy)
· church scandals – starting with Bishop Eamon Casey in 1992 and now including numerous cases of sexual and physical abuse in Church-run institutions, as well as individual cases of sexual and financial abuse
· the media – as a supplier of alternative value systems (Inglis) and alternative ways of passing time and socialising (eg soap operas)
Prayer remains popular, with nearly 40% of people claiming to pray several times a day, and only 10% praying less than once a week. Mac Gréil suggests that ‘the practice of prayer on a regular basis must indicate a strong degree of belief’. The least likely to pray are those that are most educated and most urbanised. Mac Gréil surmises that there may be a decline in occasions like ‘family rosary or regular family prayers’. This view is supported by Archbishop Dermot Clifford who suggests that ‘family prayer would seem to be the victim of the modern age: television, telephones and the pace of life had squeezed out the family rosary’.
Confession has sharply declined as a religious activity, with over a tenth of Mac Gréil’s respondents saying they never went. Mac Gréil suggests that this reflects a substantial change in the nature of Catholicism in Ireland that ‘merits serious theological and pastoral examination’. There has also been some decline in what Inglis calls the ‘magical’ aspects of Catholicism: the use of religious medals, Holy water, pilgrimages and retreats.
When asked if they saw their religious upbringing as a ‘hindrance’, very few of Mac Gréil’s respondents did. But the importance of religion in one’s upbringing has become far less marked since 1972/73. Mac Gréil suggests that there may be ‘changes in the place of religion in the socialisation of the young . . .the religiosity of the homes and of the schools may be modifying somewhat’. He concludes that ‘any rise in secularism in primary socialisation will inevitably result in a reduction in the perceived importance of religion in the growth and development of the person’.
However over 85% of Mac Gréil’s sample said they felt ‘extremely’ (25%) or ‘somewhat’ close to God, leading him to comment, once again, on the ‘strong religious ethos of the population’.
Vocations have obviously experienced a massive decline in Ireland, as in the rest of western Europe. The number of students training for the priesthood in the seminaries in Maynooth, Dublin, Thurles, Waterford and Carlow is about 220. Two decades ago there were 600 studying at Maynooth alone (see Table 2). However, as Mac Gréil points out, this is not due to parental resistance: the vast majority of his respondents would welcome their child becoming a nun or priest (presumably safe in the knowledge that it is extremely unlikely to occur!).
Who is religious?
Factors such as education and class seem to have fairly contradictory effects on religiosity that need to be teased out further.
The least religious people, according to Mac Gréil, are those that are either tertiary educated or have incomplete secondary education, work in non-manual jobs, are Dublin-born, and are single males aged 21-35.
The most religious people are primary-educated, well-off Connaught/Ulster widows aged over 51. In fact widows are so religious that Mac Gréil suggests that ‘the religious practice of widowed respondents approaches that of those living a ‘regular life’ in religious orders’.