UK bishop responds to report showing many Catholics reduced Mass attendance due to sex abuse crisis

London, England, Oct 19, 2024 / 06:00 am

A leading U.K. bishop has vowed to make the Church a place of “safety and sanctuary for all” after a report showed a third of Mass-goers reduced their Mass attendance because of concerns about the child sexual abuse crisis.

Last week, the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University published a study titled “Attitudes of Catholics in England and Wales to Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church.”

The study showed that a third of Catholics who previously went to Mass have reduced their attendance or stopped going altogether as a result of the child sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

Responding to the report, Bishop Paul Mason, lead bishop for safeguarding at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said: “I would like to assure Catholics, and indeed anyone who has concerns, that safeguarding is integral to a bishop’s work and ministry and that we will not rest in our efforts to make the Church a place of safety and sanctuary for all.”

Mason added an apology “for the failings of the past” and promised to “listen attentively” to those who have suffered abuse.

The report looks at a YouGov survey conducted in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in June/July 2022 with over 3,000 adults who identify as Roman Catholic. More than three-quarters (79%) of people surveyed believe the Church must change a great deal to prevent further cases of child sexual abuse. The sample was aimed at “regular” and “occasional” churchgoers as well as those who do not attend Mass but do identify as Catholics.

Almost half of regular Mass-goers considered abuse within the Church to be similar to other institutes working with children and young people. Meanwhile, almost a third of people who were regular Mass-goers were more likely to believe that child abuse is a thing of the past in comparison with non-Mass-goers.

The report shows that the abuse scandal has caused many to separate from the Church. 

One of the report’s key findings was that over three quarters (77%) of Catholics believe the Church has lost her moral authority because of clerical sexual abuse. The shorter report follows the main research report, “The Cross of the Moment,” published in April, and Bishop Mason expressed an openness to learning from the painful results of both reports.

“As with the previous report from the Boundary Breaking Project, ‘The Cross of the Moment,’ we as bishops will never pass up an opportunity to learn from research that offers insights that can improve our safeguarding work — work that is continually under review and open to improvement,” Mason said.

The report was written by Gregory Ryan and Marcus Pound from the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University. 

“Overall, our analysis of the data shows that the Catholic community feels abuse is not a uniquely Catholic or clerical problem,” Pound said. “However, there is also a conviction that the Church needs to make changes to prevent such abuse happening in the future.”

The annual Day of Prayer for Victims and Survivors of Abuse, welcomed by Pope Francis and introduced in 2018, is viewed as a positive step and area of encouragement. The focus of the day, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, is on “the hope and renewal that is necessary for the victims, survivors, and others affected by abuse (for example families, parish communities).”

Concerning attitudes among Catholics toward such a day of prayer who had not previously been aware of it, 59% said they would like to see such a day in their parishes. This was particularly popular among younger adults, with 73% of 18- to 24-year-olds in favor, which is suggested by the authors as a path forward of healing, productive dialogue, and progress for the Church.

The report states: “The unexpected positive trend for younger Catholics, previously unaware of the Day of Prayer, to support having it in their parish (even for occasional or non-attenders) invites reflection and responses from the Church in England and Wales. It also perhaps highlights the potential and significance for symbolic actions as well as practical and juridical ones, whilst being acutely aware of the danger of any such action being ‘purely’ symbolic and a surrogate for the actions the situation demands.”

“Awareness of, and even more so desire for, the Day of Prayer for Victims and Survivors of Abuse points to the potential effectiveness of communication also within the Church’s liturgical and devotional life — when done well,” he said.

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