It's been a while since I wrote about the survey in The Tablet. After asking about reasons for going to Mass The Tablet asked three questions beginning with the words "I can be a good Catholic without..."

Not so very long ago I saw a comic strip in which a man confessed to killing his wife and asked: "Does that make me a bad person?" It's become a bit of a catchphrase for relativists. "Bad People" are evil people like Hitler and the Spanish Inquisition. I cheated on the test, but I'm not a Bad Person. I stole from my mum, but I'm not a Bad Person. I don't go to mass, but I'm not a Bad Catholic. I'm a Good Catholic.

These figures are unhelpful without some kind of definition of a "good Catholic" and since everybody was left to define that for themselves I expect "a good Catholic" ended up pretty synonymous with "me", because "I'm not a bad person".

Percentage of people who strongly agree or agree by age...

"I can be a good Catholic without the Sacrament of Confession"

18-35	36-45	46-65	over 65
43%	52%	49%	43%

"I can be a good Catholic without going to weekly Mass"

18-33	36-45	46-65	over 65
39%	45%	34%	27%

"I can be a good Catholic without marrying in the Church"

18-35	36-45	46-65	over 65
34%	45%	38%	25%

These questions are badly worded by the silly Tablet people because clearly there are exceptions. Can you be a good Catholic without the Sacrament of Confession? of course you can... if you are six. Can you be a good Catholic without weekly mass? yes... if you are housebound. Can you be a good Catholic without marrying in Church? My friend Ben hopes so, he got a dispensation from the Bishop. If you can't be a good Catholic without marrying in the Church then it's game over for Ben (and so young...)

I'm going to assume these questions include hidden qualifiers along the lines of "if you are able bodied and above the age of reason" and I'm going to ignore the last one because it's stupid.

43% of Catholics say you can be a good Catholic without the Sacrament of Confession. 43% of Catholics are wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 43% of Catholics have been cheated and lied to by priests who say (actual quote) "You don't need to go to confession, you haven't sinned, not real sins." Oh, that's okay then.

39% say you can be a good Catholic without going to weekly mass. If you can get to mass, then no, you can't be a good Catholic without going to weekly mass. Does that make you a bad person? I don't know, why don't you go to confession and ask?

These answers are depressing. I note with interest the 39% of respondents who say you can be a good Catholic without going to weekly mass. Is that the same four in ten that don't come to mass mass every week?

Relativistic thinking is engrained in our culture. Earlier this year I wrote to a priest about a liturgical abuse and as part of his response he said "But seriously James, there are so many greater wrongs in the world on which to exercise our Christian concern, such as the wrongs of genocide, abortion and war in our world. In the face of such wrongs, I don't think this is a major breach (if a breach it is at all) which need overly preoccupy you.".

But seriously, this argument is false. We need to ditch the relativism. The fact that skipping a mass is not as bad as rape does not make it okay. Our entire culture justifies itself on not being as bad as some other comparably worse thing. This is how cohabitation, divorce, contraception and even abortion become so readily accepted, because I'm not a bad person, because I haven't actually tortured somebody to death.

Priests need to teach (with qualifiers of course, the housebound etc) that if you don't go to mass every week, you need to seriously entertain the notion that perhaps you are not a good Catholic but they need to explain that they are not therefore writing you off as completely evil. To be honest, I think it's time we dropped the term 'good Catholic'. We're all of us sometimes good and sometimes bad.

In Fit For Mission - Church [PDF] the Bishop of Lancaster puts it this way...

As your bishop, observing this forgetfulness taking place among us has been a source of great sadness to me:

• Those who ignore their responsibility to God and neighbour forget they are Catholic.
• Those who deliberately miss Sunday Mass forget they are Catholic.
• Those who never pray forget they are Catholic.
  Those who deny they are sinners and avoid confession forget they are Catholic.
• Those who live oblivious to the suffering of the poor forget they are Catholic.
• Those who dissent from the authority of the Church forget they are Catholic.
• Those who use contraception, IVF and embryonic stem cell research forget they are Catholic.
• Those who use pornography forget they are Catholic.
• Those who have sex outside of marriage forget they are Catholic.
• Those who commit homosexual acts forget they are Catholic.
• Those who exploit their power and position forget they are Catholic.
• Those who cheat on benefits or taxes forget they are Catholic.
• Those employers who exploit their workforce forget they are Catholic.
• Those who have racist, sexist or homophobic attitudes forget they are Catholic.

According to The Tablet, 43% of Catholics forget they are Catholic. Looking at that list, I reckon all of us forget at times. I wonder when our Priests are going to start reminding us.

Not so very long ago I blogged about a recent survey in The Tablet. The survey was carried out in Churches so the respondents must have been to mass at least once. After asking people about their Another question asked people their reasons for going to mass...

To express my commitment to God - 64%
It gives me strength to carry on in everyday life - 55%
I was brought up this way - 52%
To receive the Holy Sacrament as "food for the journey" - 48%
To pray for loved ones who are deceased - 44%
To repent of my sins - 37%
To ask for various things in prayer - 36%
To feel a part of the community - 36%

Notice: Only 36% of people said "to feel a part of the community" was a reason they go to mass. People don't go to mass to be part of the community. I don't go to mass to be part of the community. Think about it, why do people go to football matches? To watch football. I'm sure that people who regularly go to football matches build up a great community and often join each other in the pub after the game, but I'm pretty sure 25,000 people wouldn't descend on Walton Street every Saturday if Hull City decided to downplay the sporting aspect and emphaise the importance of community. People go for the football and a community builds around it.

It's the same story with mass. People go "to express [their] commitment to God" and a community develops around it like trees grow around streams of water. Communities develop among people who happen to live in the same place, or work in the same office or support the same team. Anybody who thinks community is going to exist for the sake of community is seriously misguided.

So what is important about mass. Asked to rate the most important aspects of mass, people said:

Receiving Holy Communion - 75%
Feeling the presence of God - 68%
Prayer and reflection - 61%
Sign of peace - 46%
Sermon - 42%
Readings - 43%
Music - 29%

Apart from the sign of peace (which is overrated) I think it's fair to say that people know what's important about the mass. I was going to nitpick about how I might have said the readings are more important than the sermon but then I noticed people actually have said the readings are more important and the stupid Tablet people just can't put things in numerical order.

Notice where music is. It's at the bottom. People think music is less important than receiving Holy Communion, less important than prayer, the sermon (in Jamesland we call that the homily) and readings. Music is even less important than the sign of peace. Think about that. It means that every promise of music as saviour is a false promise. "If only the music were louder/quicker/happier/bouncier/etc then more young people would come to mass" No. They wouldn't.

People have rated music pretty low. Only 29% of people say it's an important part of mass while 75% say receiving Holy Communion is an important part. Music is not going to attract young people to mass. The Eucharist is.

I'm not a particularly avid reader of The Tablet. They mentioned me once when they were doing an article about Catholic Blogging and I was the only English Catholic Blogger that Kathryn Lively had on her list of Catholic Bloggers. Oh yeah - Before Fr Tim Finigan was, I was. N00b... Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, The Tablet. I don't read it very often, partly because it hasn't got a feed which means I have to manually go to their website to check for updates (and I barely remember to do that for Strongbad) but mainly, well, because it's full of crap.

Occasionally though, they do something that warrants a mention. Like the survey they recently had done by Cambridge University's Von Hügel Institute. Revealed: The Modern Catholic and Sex and the modern Catholic. These are the surveys that prompted the BBC to declare: Catholics 'ignore rules on sex'.

Goodbye to the confessional. The average Catholic in Britain today has had a Catholic education, staunchly supports Catholic schools, prays daily and attends Mass on Sunday although feels little obligation to do so. But, although the average Catholic receives Communion at nearly every Mass attended, he or she hardly ever goes to confession.

[...]

Catholics have a woeful knowledge of the Church. A surprisingly high number of them have never heard of the Second Vatican Council, seemingly unaware of the profound impact in terms of ecclesiology and liturgy that the Council has had on the Church in which they have been raised. And the majority have not heard of Humanae Vitae, the encyclical published 40 years ago this summer that, with its teaching on birth control, caused such a seismic shift in the attitude of many Catholics at the time to the Church and to its authority.

There's a lot to say about this survey. Let's start at the beginning....

Mass Attendance

I'm mostly interested in the 18-35 age-range. Not because old people don't matter (they most definitely do) but because I think we can see direct links between the way 18-35 catholics are and the state of the Church today. Especially our catechesis, liturgy and Catholic schools.

They asked these questions in Churches. These answers are people who go to Church at least occasionally. The fact, is that 62% of us in the 18-35 range go to mass every week.

Attendance at Mass at least once a week by age:

18-35	36-45	46-65	over 65
62%	67%	84%	92%

62% is pretty poor. It means that if you look around at mass and spot ten people in the 18-35 range, four of them won't be at mass next week.

But, I think this cloud has a silver lining. Because next week if you look around at mass and spot ten people in the 18-35 range, there will be four new ones. Four to replace the four from last week. The four who don't come to mass every week, are actually eight who come every two weeks or maybe even sixteen who come to mass once a month. So when you spot ten people in the 18-35 range, you actually spot as many as twenty-two. There could be as many as 220% more Catholic's in the 18-35 range than a quick headcount at a typical mass suggests. That's pretty hopeful.

This raises a spectacular opportunity. It means you could double the number of 18-35 year olds at a typical mass simply by convincing the four in ten who already occasionally go to mass to go every week. They already go to mass... Though of course, you would need to push the matter four weeks in a row...