Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain: A Quantitative Overview

ABSTRACT

This article presents a quantitative assessment of Catholic disaffiliates—those who were brought up Catholic, but who now no longer identify as such—in contemporary Britain. Using British Social Attitudes data, it seeks to: 1) gauge the overall extent of Catholic disaffiliation and its significance relative to the retention/disaffiliation rates of other major Christian groupings; 2) identify patterns in the changing rates of Catholic retention/disaffiliation over the course of the twentieth century; 3) analyse Catholic disaffiliation in terms of key demographic variables (sex and age); 4) compare the current religious beliefs and prayer practices of different groups of Catholic disaffiliates and retainees. As will be argued throughout this article, in-depth study of Catholic disaffiliates sheds important new light on the sociology of Catholicism in modern Britain. Furthermore, it contributes to ongoing discussions of secularisation, precisely as a case study of change over time within a significant religious minority.

Keywords:

• Catholic disaffiliation
• Britain
• quantitative data
• secularisation
• lapsation
• retention

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Siobhan McAndrew (University of Bristol), Dr Sarah King-Hele (University of Manchester), and Prof. David Voas (University of Essex) for their generous and patient advice and assistance. This work was supported by the British Academy under grant SQ120041.

Notes

1. This choice has been made on the basis of these two variables being the most widely discussed within both scholarly treatments of secularisation (relevant aspects of which will be referred to in the course of the “Results and Discussion” section) as well as in more popular treatments of Catholic decline in particular. Alongside these two, and for similar reasons, I would ideally have explored the influence of immigration on British Catholic affiliation and practice, with specific breakdowns of both origin (Ireland, Poland, the Philippines, etc.) and generational status (‘first’, ‘second’, and ‘third generation’, etc.). Unfortunately, however, the BSA does not ask the necessary questions. Naturally, there are other, potentially significant demographic issues to be explored in connection with this overall topic (class, education, etc.). These will have to wait for future studies.

2. ‘Lapsed’ and its cognates are sometimes criticised or avoided for their allegedly pejorative overtones (see Hornbeck 8–9). Apparently less judgmental-sounding terms, such as ‘non-practising’, ‘non-churchgoing’, ‘inactive’ or even ‘resting’ have been suggested as replacements, although none has yet been widely adopted. Since lapsation is the traditional phraseology within the sociology of religion, I retain it here with the disclaimer that no pejorative sense is intended.

3. For interesting but irrelevant reasons, the Catholic Church in Britain is divided administratively between ‘England and Wales’ and ‘Scotland’ (Northern Ireland, meanwhile, comes under ‘Ireland’). The data presented in this paper, however, relate to Britain as a whole.

4. ‘Denomination’ is used here in a non-technical sense, as a short-hand for a common, generic grouping of Christians (e.g. Roman Catholic, Church of England/Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, etc.). Obviously, the inclusion of ‘Christian—no denomination’ as a denomination even in this sense is problematic. This is especially so since those selecting this category likely include representatives from a very large and varied collection of Christian groups. However, given the significant size of the grouping (it was the third most popular affiliation in the BSA 2007–2011 data, after ‘no religion’ and ‘Church of England/Anglican’), along with US research suggesting that ‘non-denom’ is often a meaningful self-description, it is included here as a category in its own right.

5. Due to the precise wording of the BSA question (“Apart from such special occasions as weddings, funerals and baptisms, how often nowadays do you attend services or meetings connected with your religion?”), we may assume that the practising Leavers attend Catholic services, while the Switchers attend meetings or services connected with their new denomination/religion.