The Iona Institute was keen to compare the findings in both the north and south of Ireland especially given the higher percentage of Protestant churches in the north.<\/p>\n
A new poll commissioned by the Iona Institute<\/a> has found a marked revival of interest in religion among young people in Northern Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n The results are a clear reversal of the previous continuous decline by age. The youngest age group polled, 18- to 24-year-olds, now say they are more likely to have a \u201cvery positive\u201d attitude of Christianity (30% vs. only 4% with a \u201cvery negative\u201d view) than any other age group, even those over 65.<\/p>\n David Quinn of the Iona Institute told CNA: \u201cWhat we are seeing in both parts of the island is some kind of revival of interest in religion among a segment of the youngest adults, the 18- to 24-year-olds.\u201d He said a significant number of these young people are men.<\/p>\n The new poll, <\/a>commissioned by the institute, was conducted by Am\u00e1rach Research, a market research agency in Dublin, and based on a representative sample of 1,200 adults in Northern Ireland. It revealed that 40% of Catholics in Northern Ireland are regular Massgoers \u2014 which is double the percentage of Mass attendees in the Republic of Ireland, which was similarly surveyed earlier in the year<\/a> by the same research agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Iona Institute was keen to compare the findings in both the north and south of Ireland especially given the higher percentage of Protestant churches in the north.<\/p>\n One big finding of the poll is that Northern Ireland can no longer be viewed as being simply divided between Catholics and Protestants. The \u201cNones\u201d \u2014 that is, those who say they don\u2019t belong to any religion \u2014 have become a major force as well. This finding challenges the traditional sectarian stereotypes in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n Quinn said he believes that indications of some kind of revival of interest in religion among the youngest age group surveyed should encourage all the churches. The finding is not an outlier. The revival of interest among young adults is consistent with poll findings in the Republic of Ireland, Britain, and the United States. In Britain, the phenomenon has been termed the \u201cQuiet Revival.\u201d<\/p>\n Will this growth in interest in the Catholic faith translate into active participation?\u00a0<\/p>\n Quinn is wary of making premature or rash claims about the poll results. He sees them as a challenge for the Catholic Church in Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think the churches will need to get a lot better at finding ways to respond to this kind of revived interest\u2026 people like the Dominicans are able to do it, and some of the evangelicals are good at it as well,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s something that the churches are going to have to have a real hard think about, because we\u2019re very much stuck in the \u2018decline stage\u2019 mentality that says we\u2019re all getting older and so what\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n Quinn said he believes that in the future there will probably be fewer \u201ccultural Christians\u201d \u2014 those who \u201csay they are Christian but don\u2019t practice.\u201d He said that instead, society could be divided between those who hold religious belief and those who don\u2019t, with few people in between.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe overall conclusion, however, is that religion is not disappearing, contrary to past predictions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Quinn said that throughout Ireland there\u2019s \u201ca lot of outright disengagement from religion,\u201d adding: \u201cYou\u2019ve got a growing number of people who say \u2018I don\u2019t have any religion.\u2019 Cultural Christianity is beginning to fade \u2014 you know, the sort of person who said \u2018I used to go to Mass the odd time\u2019 isn\u2019t going at all. There\u2019s a growing number of people who don\u2019t even bother with the sacraments at all. So \u2026 this kind of nonpracticing \u2026 type of Christianity is failing, and the \u2018no religion\u2019 group is increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Iona Institute research shows that while the 18- to 24-year-old group had the highest number of respondents with a \u201cvery positive\u201d attitude toward the Catholic Church (17%), half said they are neither religious nor spiritual. Those in this age group, however, said they are more likely to pray and read or watch religious content than people in the 25- to 34-year-old age group.<\/p>\n Of those surveyed in the poll, 28% said they are Catholic, 14% said they are Presbyterian, 11% said they are Church of Ireland, and 36% said they don\u2019t belong to any religion. The rest belong to other Christian churches or religions.<\/p>\n Nearly 50% of respondents said they view Christianity favorably, though percentages were lower when specifically asked about the Catholic Church (23%) and Protestant churches (30%). The most unfavorable attitudes toward religion in general are among the nonreligious.<\/p>\n Fifty-six percent of the respondents said they are religious and\/or spiritual \u2014 a slightly lower percentage than in the Republic of Ireland. Of those surveyed, 51% said they pray, 44% said they attend religious services (which does not mean regularly), 33% meditate, and 38% read religious or spiritual books such as the Bible.<\/p>\n The poll also revealed that Catholics have more favorable views of Protestant churches than the other way around.<\/p>\n Not unexpectedly, the sex abuse scandals are a big driver of unfavorable attitudes toward the Catholic Church throughout Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Iona Institute was keen to compare the findings in both the north and south of Ireland especially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,2443],"class_list":["post-91505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}