Catholic spin doctors try to mislead journalists over mass attendances

As the Pope’s visit draws close, journalists are being misled by Catholic PR by being told that mass attendance in England is on the on the increase and has had a significant boost.

The spindoctors are understandably desperate to divert attention from the catastrophic decades-long decline in mass attendance, a decline that is forecast by Christian Research to continue to the point that the Church will dwindle to little more than a sect in just over a generation.

Different journalists have separately told NSS President Terry Sanderson and Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood of the claim of the reversal of the decline in mass attendance. In each case the claim was said to be “backed up” by the same article in The Tablet, entitled “A million more Catholics in England and Wales, according to poll”.

The article was published on 7 November 2009. It reported how many respondents had told the pollsters they were Catholics and how often they attended mass. 25% of them claimed to attend mass weekly. This suggests a mass attendance of 1.3 million from weekly attendees alone. The survey acknowledged 40% “never/rarely go to Mass”. If we assume the remaining 35% go on average every three weeks, this adds a further 150,000.

But figures published by Christian Research, which are based on official counts of numbers of people actually in church (rather than claiming to be in church), shows the reality to be that average Sunday mass attendance is nearer 838,000. This suggests that respondents to the poll grossly exaggerated their church attending habits, by nearly three quarters. And to be fair, The Tablet does point out that, as researchers know well, “people tend to ‘over-claim’ when asked about virtuous behaviour”.

So, the figures on which the propagandists’ claims are based are ludicrously inaccurate and misleading. The barefaced deception is taken to new depths by claiming this massive exaggeration to be a boost in attendance, when it is simply a comparison of an inaccurate figure with an accurate one.

This exercise in spin has prompted us to show you the real figures, which indicate a decline that is breathtaking by any standard. They reveal the stunning scale of previously loyal Catholics voting with their feet, the most accurate testament of what they think of their Church.

(All attendance figures given in thousands.) The earliest reliable figures available for mass attendance in Britain are for 1990 when it was 1,913. The figures for each succeeding five years were 1,661, 1,345, 1,146 and (in 2010) 973.

Dr Peter Brierley of Christian Research has forecast these figures, based on the demography of churchgoers, for succeeding decades at 649, 376, 226 and (in 2050) 102.

Perhaps even more shocking is the plummeting percentage that Catholic mass attendance represents of all churches attendance. In 1990 this was 34%; in 2010 28%; and estimated for 2050 to be 11%, so by then only one in nine churchgoers will be Catholic. As a percentage of population, mass attendance in 1990 was 3.4% of the population, in 2010 1.6%, and it is estimated in 2050 to be 0.15%.

And what few attendees are left will be very elderly. The average age of churchgoers (of all denominations) in 1990 was 37; in 2010, 51 and in 2050, forecast at 67.