As the late cardinal George Pell is moved to his final resting place in the crypt of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral tomorrow, his supporters will mourn the passing of a saint gone too soon. It is perhaps trite to observe that there are many who say his departure couldn’t have come soon enough — but that would hardly be in the spirit of the occasion.
Pell’s opponents — some, anyway — will be outside, perhaps cordoned off and held at bay by the force of NSW Police, as they rally to give voice to the anguish of those abused by the clergy. The reckoning will show, however, that for all his adherence to black-letter scripture, Australia’s most prominent Catholic has left the church in terrible shape.
Church attendances have plummeted from historic highs. And never has the church’s influence on public policy been so weak. Proof of its diminished role in the spiritual and earthly life of Australia comes via a study conducted by the church itself.
The National Centre for Pastoral Research is part of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, a national secretariat for the most senior clergy. Its data is drawn from churches across the country and married with national census data. The most recent analysis was published at the end of 2020 and reflects the numbers as they were in 2016. The study provides a 20-year comparison, stretching back to 1996 — a helpful time span because it neatly coincides with the period of the church’s almighty fall from its peak of power.
The study found that in 2016, the number of people attending Mass on a typical weekend was about 623,400, or 11.8% of the general Catholic population. In 1996 it was 864,000, about 18% of the Catholic population.
The most dramatic fall came in the number of Australian-born attendees and those born in English-speaking countries; numbers almost halved in the 20 years. At the same time the percentage of attendees born in non-English-speaking countries had risen from about 18% to almost 37% in 2016, an increase of about 72,600.
Those attending Mass were much older than the general Catholic population — a third were aged between 60 and 74, and the trend shows attendees are only getting older.
There was another striking contrast between the Catholic population overall and the Mass-attending population. Just over three in every five attendees were women, a ratio which had been constant for decades. The study reported “a lack of youth and young adults of both sexes”.
The study concluded that the impact of the findings from the Royal Commission into Institutional Reponses to Child Sexual Abuse had been “particularly significant”. A secondary finding was that young adult attendees were not being replaced by younger people as they age. This showed “how much the church in Australia owed to our immigrants, particularly those from non-English-speaking countries”.
Rise and fall as a political influence
In 1996, Pell’s influence was decidedly on the rise. He was appointed archbishop of Melbourne, having served as a parish priest and bishop for the southern region of Melbourne. His elevation to genuine church power coincided with the election of the Howard government.
He was invited as a delegate to the Australian Constitutional Convention in 1998 to consider the issue of the republic. In 2003 he received the Centenary Medal from the Australian government. Two years later he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), the highest of Australia’s honours. In the meantime, the Victorian-born Pell had been appointed archbishop of Sydney.
From his mighty heights Pell engineered the succession of like-minded conservative Catholics, fashioning the church in his own image. In Canberra his chief backer, Tony Abbott, was elected prime minister in 2013. If this was the high watermark of Pell’s influence it was set to change.
The royal commission was by now an unstoppable force, adding to the steady stream of revelations of church sex abuse which had emerged in prior years. The church’s moral authority was shot and with it its ability to halt political reform in the areas of life, death and marriage which the church had always claimed as its own.
If any period captured the church’s fall it was 2017. The losses were many. It was the year that Pell was charged by Victoria Police with historic child sex offences (ultimately dismissed by the High Court). It was the year same-sex marriage legislation was passed in the federal Parliament. To cap it off, in November of that year, Victoria became the first state to pass voluntary assisted dying (VAD) legislation, in the face of the church’s intense public opposition. The Andrews’ government legislation opened the way for state parliaments to pass similar laws. Even NSW, the home of the powerful Sydney archdiocese, surrendered to the public will.
Last year federal Parliament passed laws to return the power to territories to enact VAD laws. Symbolically it was a full turning of the wheel. In 1997 senior Catholic figures in and around the federal Parliament (including then lobbyist and now Albanese minister Tony Burke) had worked to pass the laws which removed those rights from the territories.
By 2022 the church’s ability to stop change by threatening political reprisals was no more. It had become a paper tiger.
Raging against the dying of the might
Yet the fall is not universally recognised. There are corners of Pell’s once mighty empire where the world appears to have stopped 20 years ago, when the church held sway in the public square and where there was still a respectable attendance at Sunday Mass.
One of those holdouts is, naturally, the Sydney archdiocese, under Pell acolyte Archbishop Anthony “Boy George” Fisher. The archdiocese has become increasingly strident about Catholic politicians who don’t do their religious duty in the Parliament. The Catholic Weekly said NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s decision to allow a conscience vote on VAD was “one of the most humiliating examples of meek acceptance of evil ever seen”.
Andrews, Victoria’s Catholic premier, is regularly lambasted by the Murdoch media for failing to behave as a Catholic should. His sins are many but top of the list must be that he allowed VAD legislation to proceed and he consistently showed Pell approximately zero respect.
The trouble for the church is that outside of a very small bubble no one else is listening.
Tomorrow, by coincidence, a coalition of 20 Catholic groups under the banner of the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform will gather to press for a different and more inclusive church.
The symbolism couldn’t be sharper.
Excellent article. Its telling that Dom, a devout Catholic, has his government eagerly supporting the Sydney Pride event, to the surprise and consternation of almost no one.
Politically Pell was as tin-eared as his mate Tony. I recall being genuinely shocked years back on reading a few of Pell’s weekly columns in the Sunday Tele. Call me naive, but cheap party political insults seemed unbecoming from someone in Pell’s position. Just one of many moments in the waning of Church authority.
The survey outcomes reflect my own observations as a Catholic fellow traveller (my wife is Catholic). As migration patterns change, it is unlikely to continue as the Church’s participation saviour.
The late George Pell failed in his role as a leader of the Australian Catholic Church because rather than confront issues such a paedophile behaviour by clergy, because he took the short term view that to do so would damage the Church’s reputation. In the long term, the failure to act has caused even more damage.
It’s ironic that someone who’s focus should s, supposedly, on the eternal was more focussed on what might happen today (or tomorrow, if thinking long term)
CORRECTION It’s ironic that someone who’s focus should was, supposedly, on the eternal was more focussed on what might happen today (or tomorrow, if thinking long term)
Very interesting and good to read something positive in the news, on an otherwise bleak day.
Since that 2016 church document, the 2016 to 2021 Census indicates that Catholicism has lost another 216 thousand. Surprisingly low given what they’ve been exposed as doing. As you say though, the demographics are terrible.
In this time Satanists are up 100%, off an admittedly low base, and Pagans & Wiccans about 20%
The real winner however is no religion (38.9%, 40% increase from 2016), which will overtake the xtian (43.9%,) by the next census, at current rates of growth.
There was a campaign to put “no religion” rather than blank in order to get recorded as not religious, which may have had some effect “the number of people who answered the religion question was 93.1% of the population, an increase from 90.9% in 2016.”
It was also because “no religion” got the donkey vote, i.e. it was first on the list.
All the donkeys I know are religious.
Yes, donkeys, the poverty-stricken world’s mild over-burdened carriers:
mild considering their 24/7 burdens, for which I’d be kicking and honking 24/7. Donkeys would certainly have the pearly gates opened to them, by a benign god, were there such a one.
Census 2016, 30.1% of Australians stated “no religion” and a further 9.6% chose not to answer the question. So that is possibly near 40% who evince no interest in religion.
By the next census…
Census 2021 38.9% of of Australians stated “no religion” with again another c.9% choosing not to respond so that is now close to 50%
Christianity of all sorts at 43.9%, Islam of all sorts 3.2%, Hinduism 2.7% Buddhism of all sorts 2.4%
And this from previous years
More than 40% of those brought up as Anglicans or Lutherans, 36% of those brought up in the Uniting Church and 28% of those brought up as Roman Catholics now described themselves as having no religion.
33% of 15- to 29-year-olds identified with a Christian denomination in 2009, down from 60% in 1993.In 1996, 17.9% of Roman Catholics attended Mass on a typical Sunday, falling to 12.2% in 2011.
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Earlier Catholic statistics.
In 2006, the median age of all Catholics aged 15 years and over was 44 years. In 1996, 27% of Roman Catholics aged 50 to 54 years regularly attended Mass, falling to 15% in 2006. 30% aged 55–59 years regularly attended in 1996, but only 19% in 2006. From 1996 to 2006 Mass attendance for Roman Catholics aged between 15 and 34 declined by just over 38%, going from 136,000 to 83,760 attendees.
Earlier statistics for other Christian denominations
A study in 2011 by the Christian Research Association discovered that the attendance of Uniting churches has declined by 30% over the past 10 years. The association’s president, Philip Hughes, has predicted that the decline in church attendance will continue “at least for the next 20 years”. The study also found that the average age of people attending Catholic and Anglican churches is around 60 years.
An earlier survey, 2013 by McCrindle Research, just 8% of Christians attend at least once per month. The survey also discovered that 47% of respondents do not go to church because it is “irrelevant to my life”, 26% “don’t accept how it’s taught”, while 19% “don’t believe in the bible” a 4% increase from the 2011 census
grâce à ABS, wikipedia, et al.
Great to see another aficionado of ABS data 🙂 So much entertainment in cause of death, and religion.
What also strikes me is the number of Christian sects – there are over 90 in the full breakdown!
Of course in the traditional hegemonic way, they don’t even bother to break Buddhism down into the three major branches. Or Wicca in to the myriad of lineages..
Part of the reason 2022 was tough for the church was that it didn’t come up with a convincing narrative on how Covid-19 and Ukraine-22 fitted into god’s plan. The increasing realisation that there isn’t any plan, let alone a comprehensible one, let alone an explanatory narrative … If there isn’t a plan there actually may not be an architect.
It’s ineffable, mate. Don’t you read your Terry Pratchett?
Given the cornucopia of scum oqzing into the Cathedral today, a well-placed exocet could solve almost all Australia’s problems………………………………….
Hey there! Georgie Boy! Swinging down the road so fancy free!…
Living through these last few decades has been like studying the Middle Ages and the Church’s habit of torture and burnings at the stake. And it’s not over yet. Considering that the Catholic Church does a lot of good work enabling volunteers to help ‘poor’ people (doing the government’s work for them), the priestly sins and crimes of paedophilia do even more widespread harm than might be realised. As a child of non-practicing Anglicans I am thankful to be atheist, as were they. But evil exists, and these Roman bastards are evil neck and crop (I think that means 100%, head to foot, totally).
The basic rules of the priesthood are designed to attract exactly these people, so they all know what they are nearly all doing. No man who has taken a vow of chastity is allowed anywhere near your child, is my advice.
George Pell is now lying in state. Just as he lied all his life.
I blame the Pope.
Absolutely. Pell was a slimy politician and bean counter. I am appalled that there is to be a “State Funeral” tomorrow for him. I hoped the Perrotet mob would just let him be dealt with by his Catholic pals, but no – “Lying in State” is the biggest insult possible for the vast number of victims of the Catholic child abuse victims . .
Since 2013, no matter what the unworthy event, my mantra has been I blame Tony Abbott. I am sticking with it.
Nah, mate. It’s Little Johnny Howard you need to blame. Abbott, after all, is his and Bronwyn Bishop’s love-child.
Sorry, didn’t mean to spoil your brekkie….
I prefer “spawn” myself…………….
Most sexual abuse is committed by straight married men so if you’re aim is to protect children, you’re going to have to do a lot more than just avoid Catholic priests.
Most sexual abuse is committed by straight married men
Is that because there are more of them? How do you know they’re straight? Are you a mind reader?
There is data on marital status of sex offenders and whilst most abuse in the Catholic Church was against boys, in general society, more girls (1 in 4) than boys (1 in 6)are sexually abused. If we can say anything about it on pure demographics, never let any children be around any men, ever. Of course, that’s ridiculous.
I always thought that traditionally, the priesthood was where catholic families hid their gay sons, the nunnery, for their lesbian daughters.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Traditionally joining the priesthood or nunnery was one of the few avenues lower socioeconomic people could use to pursue further education.
I thought there was a long tradition of “misbehaving” and pregnant daughters being sent to the nunnery.
Certainly that exPope Benedict XVI as well as John Paul II.
Catholic dioceses all around the world aided by the Vatican were adept at covering up/hiding all of the the sexual transgressions of its anointed, from the parish priest though to the cardinal.
In the US some dioceses spent a motza on PR and lawyers in desperate attempts to keep the cover ups going somewhat akin to all those Evangelical/Pentacostal so called churches.
It was impressed upon me, once as a Catholic child but Catholic no more, that there were both sins of commission and sins of omission.
As well as the sins of commission by the abusers, those of omission committed by the hierarchy in allowing such to continue by moving the known abusers from parish to parish or state to state.
This came to the fore in the sexual abuse that was carried out by clergy and others in the Catholic Church in Australia exposed in the Royal Commission
In not acting promptly on the reporting of such goes all the way up to the Popes of the last century. in particular John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
For it was Benedict who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 1981–2005 who actively shielded the Church in these matters.
Evidence of a cover up?
18 May, 2001 Ratzinger sent a letter to every bishop in the Catholic Church.This letter reminded them of the strict penalties facing those who revealed confidential details concerning enquiries into allegations against priests of certain grave ecclesiastical crimes, including sexual abuse, which were reserved to the jurisdiction of the Congregation. The letter extended the prescription orstatute of limitations for these crimes to ten years. However, when the crime is sexual abuse of a minor, the “prescription begins to run from the day on that which the minor completes the eighteenth year of age.
Leat We Forget there were a number of Liberal politicians who oppose the RC, Smokin’ Joe Hockey being one, in opposing such, saying it was the right thing to do.
And what do you know also The Moloch’s Australian had this to say.
Depressing example of populist politics
“The dismal, populist and doomed quality of Australian governance has been on display this week with Julia Gillard announcing an in-principle royal commission into child sexual abuse, a panicked Tony Abbott falling into line and an ignorant media offering cheer upon cheer.
Rarely has an Australian government embarked on such a sensitive and vast project in profound ignorance of what it was doing, with virtually no serious policy consideration and driven entirely by politics.”
But that opinion was proved very misguided and again very seriously wrong concerning this matter as it had very much support from then public and in particular many Catholics.
I’m with you, “drastic”, in homing in on the rotten core of the problem, namely the popes and the unholy cocoon in which they reside and hide, the corrupt state-within-a-state that is The Vatican. Their/Its rottenness is not limited to sexual abuse of The Innocents – Jesus’ “Suffer the little children to come unto me”, indeed (Matthew:19:14, KJV) – and their worldwide coverups of abuse, even to the depth of covering-up abuse-associated abuse murders (see eg Netflix’s The Keepers). Ironic, and/or revealing – and telling – that Pell was brought in by the current pope to “fix the finances” of the Vatican. Because this is just how Vatican finances have long since been organised, ie fixed [ref: Gerald Posner’s brilliant God’s Bankers, among others]. In the middle ages they traded indulgences=pardons for sins to the people for a fee; in WWII clever Vatican banker Bernardino Nogaro set up the The Institute for Religious Works bank (you gotta laugh or you’d shoot yourself, as my wonderful uni mate Wally used to say – RIP, dear Wally).
Because it was situated within Vatican City, its accounts and operations were not open to checks by Western banks and were also exempted from the wartime restrictions those banks were subject to.
Nogaro invested in Italian insurance companies that retained all financial assets of Jewish insurance-holders murdered by the Nazis. Then Vatican bank even refused to pay out policies for Jews who survived the war and, because it was not a direct insurance provider, Nogaro’s Vatican bank was not forced to pay restitution for these withheld payouts. It also profited hugely by welcoming billions of dollars worth of goods looted by the Nazis. Unsurprisingly, the wartime Vatican/Pope Pius XII never publicly condemned the Nazis, and Pius XII also withheld from the American government certain knowledge in 1942 of mass murder of Jews (Smithsonian Magazine, May 5 2020). As well, The Vatican notoriously provided sanctuary to numerous Nazi war criminals and embezzlers.
It’s worth watching the Netflix documentary Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, for an even-for-The Vatican-extraordinary coverup. I’ve learned to pretty much trust Netflix documentaries and docudramas like this one, like eg for The Keepers and Bolivar. They must use excellent researchers and script-writers as I’ve rearely been able to catch them them out on wrong facts of time, place, people and general gist. It’s pretty evident the Mafia and/or a particular high level priest living in Vatican City abducted and probably murdered/had murdered, the then-15 year-old daughter of a longtime civil employee whose family lived in the grounds of The Vatican. It’s also pretty clear that the previous pope, Benedict (the one who died recently), was informed about such possibilities and one episode shows Benedict stumbling and mumbling through an oddly ambiguous call from the Vatican balcony to whoever had taken Emanuela Orlandi to return her to her family, as if he already knew, or at least suspected strongly, who the abductor/s was/were, and as if she may still have been alive so many years after the abduction. Or not. It’s a weird public performance by a pope probably following a script.
Back to Pell: Pope Francis scorched his “humane pope” image when he announced via Twitter that Pell had been found “innocent” of the sexual abuse charges against him – he was not: Pell was simply “acquitted” by a High Court that did not even listen to or read the transcript of the victim the Jury of 12 peers believed – for want of another witness etc etc = the nature of predatory manipulative sexual abuse: it’s coldly,knowingly, calculatedly perpetrated
by an adult on a lone child, with no witnesses to tell the truth. Then Francis had the insolence, deceptive chutzpah and dishonesty to evoke Pell as one of the “innocent” martyrs to face unjust public persecution by his haters, just as Jesus did.
Any wonder, then, that Australian Catholics have removed their precious children and themselves, out of this hellfire of iniquities?