One in three 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, according to a new report by Durham University. There has also been a corresponding fall in the number of financial donations, with a third of Catholics who previously donated no longer giving money to the Church. The YouGov survey was commissioned by the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University as part of a wider research project, “Boun-dary Breaking”, where research-ers are looking at the implications of the abuse crisis for the Catholic community.
More than 3,000 adults who identify as Catholic responded to the questionnaire, with 79 per cent saying that the Church needs to change “a great deal” to prevent further cases of child sexual abuse.
The sample was representative of the Catholic population in England and Wales. It included regular Mass-goers attending at least once a month and people attending less than once a month, as well as people who do not go to Mass but identify as Catholics.
According to the survey, the scandal of abuse has been a direct cause of distancing from the Church. However, it also shows that regular churchgoers have a more positive attitude towards the Church than non-attenders.
Nearly a third of those attending Mass regularly were more likely to consider child abuse in the Church to be a thing of the past compared to those who never attend Mass. Nearly half of regular Mass-goers were more likely to view the abuse as being about the same at other institutions that work with children.
Dr Marcus Pound from the Centre for Catholic Studies, who co-authored the study, said: “Overall, our analysis of the data shows that the Catholic community feels abuse is not a uniquely Catholic or clerical problem. However, there is also a conviction that the Church needs to make changes to prevent such abuse happening in the future.”