A briefing from the Iona Institute based on data from Catholic dioceses in Ireland found that there has been a 30% drop in Catholic baptisms across the country over the past ten years.
A majority of the decline can be accounted for by a falling birth rate, which has decreased by 18.8% on the island in the same ten years. The decline in birth rate accounts for about 60% of the decrease in baptisms.
A rise in secularisation is also a factor. The Iona Institute saw from Census data that almost all mothers of 0-4 year olds who identify as Catholic are still having their children baptised, demonstrating the prevalence of ‘cultural Catholicism’, but the percentage of mothers and 0-4 year olds who are marked down in the Census as Catholic is decreasing. In 2016, 78.3% of 0-4 year olds were marked down as Catholic in the Census, while in 2022, the figure decreased to 65.4%.
Chairman of the Iona Institute Dr Tom Finegan said the figures were not surprising. “Given that the births have fallen by almost a fifth in the last ten years, and more people are ticking the ‘No Religion’ box in the Census, we could expect nothing but a big drop in baptism figures,” Dr Finegan said.
Still, the chairman said the figures show the continued strength of ‘cultural Catholicism’ on the island, with Catholic mothers baptising their children despite not being regular Mass-goers.
