I’ve finished analysing the data from the Catholics in Australia survey of 2022 on the “irregulars” and “nevers”—people who identify as Catholic, but don’t go to Mass every Sunday or indeed at all.
Just to remind you: people who don’t go to Mass any more have told us in earlier studies that there’s two major reasons why they don’t come to Mass.
The first is that they don’t think it’s sinful to miss Mass on Sundays. The second is that they don’t agree with some or all of the church’s teachings.
But could there be other factors in their background that have shaped this choice as well? I surveyed around 1500 “weeklies”—Catholics who go to Mass at least every Sunday—and around 500 “irregulars” and “nevers.”
The irregulars and nevers came from the same parts of Australia as the weeklies, and at first, they looked similar on paper. Until they didn’t.
There’s a well-known recipe for making an adult Mass-goer. You need two Catholic parents who both go to Mass (especially the father), the family should talk about religion during the week, and the kids should understand why their family does weird religious things.
But irregulars and nevers were 1.3 times more likely than weeklies to have had a non-Catholic mother. Their mothers were also 1.3 times more likely to be an irregular or never churchgoer when the survey participants were growing up.
It was the same with dads. Irregulars and nevers were 1.3 times more likely to have a non-Catholic father. Their fathers were also 1.4 times more likely to be an irregular or never church goer.
This seemed like a lot of non-Catholic parents, until I mined and analysed the data on Catholic marriages in Australia. The estimated rate of what we used to call “mixed” marriages in Australia before 1966 was around 21 per cent.
Then the church relaxed its restrictions on marrying non-Catholics. From 1970 to 2000, there were around 311,000 marriages between two Catholics, but 337,000 marriages between a Catholic and a non-Catholic.
For 30 years, more than half of all Catholic marriages in Australia had a non-Catholic spouse. The children of those marriages are now aged anywhere between 25 and 55.
They’re our peak missing generation. It’s likely that these irregulars and nevers didn’t go to Mass a lot when they were growing up.
Although our survey participants went to Catholic schools at the same rate as the weeklies did, the irregulars and nevers were 3.5 times more likely not to have been confirmed.
If they never got confirmed, I suspect they had already stopped going to Mass when they were in late primary or early high school.
As adults, the married irregulars and nevers were twice as likely to be married to a non-Catholic Christian, and three times more likely to be married to a non-Christian. They were also 4.5 times more likely to be married to another irregular or never mass-goer.
They’re almost five times more likely to be cohabiting than weeklies, and around eight times more likely to be in an invalid marriage.
This all helps us to understand why some nominal Catholics don’t attend Mass as adults. They didn’t have two Catholic parents, and their parents weren’t regular mass-goers.
They never established a solid habit of Sunday Mass attendance in the first place. When they grew up, they didn’t feel any real need to get married to another Catholic, or in church, or indeed at all.
Only a very fervent Catholic will continue to go to Mass when they’re the only person in the family who does so. We can probably all think of examples in our own lives, but we can think of more examples where the whole family stopped going to Mass.
Since 2000, the Catholic-only marriage rate has gone up to around 60 per cent of all Catholic marriages in Australia. There’s been around 120,000 mixed marriages in Australia, but around 138,000 marriages between two Catholics.
In the last 25 years, the John Paul II generation of younger Catholics are mostly choosing to marry other Catholics. If they are serious about being lifelong Catholics in a more hostile secular society, it makes sense to do this.
Mass attendance is a complex thing. It’s part habit and part relationship. The work of faith formation begins in the family but it doesn’t end there.