Church of Ireland - dying a slow death?

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406316#Comment_120406316

Yes the the percentage of people identifying as catholic, as well as the absolute numbers, declined between 2011 and 2016. That is what my model predicts.

You dont have to practise to Christian. In fact, the premise if that you cant follow all the rules all the time as we are fallen creatures.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409394#Comment_120409394

Yep, it just means thst the Census stats are not accurare in terms of representing the true number of people that are activley religious, to a greater or lesser degree.

Church attendance is probably a good baromoeter, but I dont know if that is measured officially in anyway. Probably not.

Jellybaby_1

In the event some poor Rector is reading this thread, can anyone suggest how they can fill their empty church on a Sunday morning?

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120413006#Comment_120413006

Dont dilute the message. Dont try to change things to reach the kids. Be asthenic and challenging.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120420477#Comment_120420477

I agree with not diluting the message, it should never be watered down! Keep the message strong! However, I feel some changes indeed, could help with communicating with the young. Most teenagers are gone from the few parishes I know, and really in a lot of cases they're not going anywhere else. Contemporary music mixed with traditional should be introduced. Choirs and organists might rail against at first but in time will come to love the mix. Messy church for children I think is a daft idea as that age group seem to be taken care of already without it.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120420477#Comment_120420477

Had to look up asthenic, which apparently means "Characterized by, or pertaining to, debility; weak; debilitating." Ascetic maybe?

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120420743#Comment_120420743

Not religious myself but I was often impressed by the churches in middle America with gospel choirs. From what I could see, very upbeat, inclusive and friendly while still devout. A line that comes to mind from the comedy movie Dogma is "I have issues with anyone who treats God as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it." My feeling is that for any church to thrive it has to be cherished part of the community all week rather than a necessary responsibility for Sunday morning. How you go about achieving this is another, altogether more complex, matter.

Thinkingaboutit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120378953#Comment_120378953

It is interesting. The CoI churches in Stoneybatter and Sandymount are possibly the only two following Anglo-Catholic Churchmanship in Ireland. Until recent decades, it might have seemed a bit redundant as the Service adds traditional elements like prayers at the foot of the altar, albeit in English, and the ministers or priests would be titled Fr, which hardly stood out in this country. The terms of the endowment by the benefactors guides the vestry of those two places, I think. Liturgical changes on the basis of updating should probably be approached with caution. It can disorientate and worry if roughly done.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120427820#Comment_120427820

Liturgical changes being updated may indeed disorientate people who prefer what is traditional and familiar. However, those I have spoken to in empty churches can't see that this has resulted emptying their church, and they continually complain that "no-one is coming!" They don't really want to know why.

Yellow_Fern

Is kneeling abandoned in CoI services? That is something NT Wright highlighted as something that should be brought back in the CoE. He is right.

the_pen_turner

i was talking to acustomer of mine during the week who has dealing with the local ish COI primery school. she told me that there is only one COI student there now and the rest are a bixed bag of diferent nationalities and religions. not looking good for it if there is only one student with the inteneded religion there

Guildenstern

When I lived in England, it was very common to come across Anglican folk who would travel miles and miles and passed tens of churches along the way, to get to that actual church that reflected as much as possible what they wanted. Whether it was high church Anglican, less so, a Woman Vicar, what they believed to be a more welcoming community, the actual service on offer, or indeed any other reason.

Catholics would just rock up to their nearest church building with still a very much it's your own parish mentality.

Not sure if that's just the Anglicans seeking out what they want, being more spiritually conscious. Fair enough but does that play into the vibe that the Anglican communion is too diverse? Could be answering my own question here. The RCs may be deemed as then too rigid?

Jellybaby_1

I'll kneel if my knees obey me!

looksee

lOL, I was thinking much the same, I can kneel, but I wouldn't want to get back up again in public!

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120457232#Comment_120457232

This school like every other National School (clue in the name there) is funded by taxpayers of every religion and none. If any church wants a school entirely to themselves then they can fund it entirely themselves.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460426#Comment_120460426

Exactly.

Its not the Tax Payers job to fund religious teaching.

Most people arent religious anymore anyway, so churches should really be funded primarily by their congregation, as a private entity.

I dont have a problem with minimal tax payers money going toward religious institutions, but it really should be limited amd minimal contribution.

the_pen_turner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460426#Comment_120460426

thats not what im saying at all. no one is saying those other kids are not welcomed . the point is that the area only has 1 kid of that age that is attanding the school. thats not a good sign for the parish if they are not having kids or putting them in the school that alignes with their religion

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460457#Comment_120460457

A parish can be an administrative boundary. It doesnt need to be linked to a religious faith.

If people in that administrative boundary are not practising a specfic religion, thats ok.

Would that not be the free choice of the people?

the_pen_turner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460468#Comment_120460468

im only using it as an examply of the numbers being down. thats a sign of 'dying a slow death'

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460456#Comment_120460456

That's grand insofar as it goes but state funding in this case is there to help minorities survive. Minorities always suffer and at danger of being eroded.

Try taking all funding off Roman Catholic schools and watch the howls. Try taking their doctrinal teaching out of the national school day to day teaching.

One of the reason we had partition of this island was 'Home Rule is Rome Rule' and thus it has come to pass for southern anglicans.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120461320#Comment_120461320

With the greatest of respect to the forum I'm posting in, - this is the biggest load of horse sh1t I've read on boards in a long while.

Home Rule is Rome Rule was a slogan used by a small number of bigots who didn't want self-determination for irish people.

Stop trying to resurrect division which is long past you absolute ape.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120460457#Comment_120460457

Well, put it this way - our local CoI primary now has a waiting list but it's the only co-ed, English language option in the area, quite a large suburb.

If it relied on CoI pupils it'd be closed by now, about 20 years ago it was struggling to stay open.

My youngest is finishing up in that school this year, neither of us ex-RC atheist parents were keen on either of the local single-sex RC schools run by orders with strong histories of child abuse... or the secondaries they feed into either.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120463481#Comment_120463481

They weren't all that far wrong though really were they?

Women in the Irish Free State in 1922 had more rights than women in the Republic of Ireland in 1972.

Divorce, contraception, jobs for women... the rights which existed as part of the UK started to slowly evaporate under Cumann na nGaedheal rule, and Fianna Fail soon ensured the destruction of what was left - in accordance with RCC teaching.

It was only entry into the EEC which started the slow process of recognising women as equal citizens.

To this day we have constitutionally enshrined discrimination against non-Christians in the judiciary and presidency, and fully legalised discrimination against non-Roman Catholics in a large number of state jobs.

Edit: typos

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120463481#Comment_120463481

With the greatest of respect to the forum we're posting in - that's an egregious slur you're calling me! My cultural background is that of Southern Church of Ireland and I can tell you without any doubt in my mind at all, that there would be a strong sense that 'Home Rule is Rome Rule' came to pass in essence and that the Free State/ Republic became a Catholic state for a Catholic people. This is also tempered by a little resentment towards Northern Church of Ireland and other anglicans who chose to abandon their southern counterparts and run a Protestant state.

Re OP though, there is growth in some parishes with the influx of peoples from abroad.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120463481#Comment_120463481

Mod: You've been infracted for personal abuse of another poster, also note that any swearing is prohibited on this forum. Please read and understand the charter before posting here again. Any feedback by PM or using the feedback thread only.

Drifter100

Yes I`m sorry to say it is a trend

There are 17 on my parish register, maybe 7/8 on a Sunday. Old spool type tape recorder to pay the hymns. Rector hurries through the service in 40 mins as he has 5 parishes to do on a Sunday

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120463626#Comment_120463626

DUP members would overwhelmingly be Presbyterians though, not CoI.

It is said that some of the opposition Arlene Foster faced from within her own party stemmed from the fact that she is CoI.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120464192#Comment_120464192

That's the future the RCC is staring into also.

It's not sustainable and sooner or later both are going to have to reduce the number of churches which have a service each Sunday. But that'll reduce attendance even further.

Madeleine Birchfield

Unfortunately, the Anglican world is currently undergoing a schism with 75% of Anglicans around the world no longer in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury after the General Synod in the Church of England voted for same-sex blessings in February, and as a result GAFCON (Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) and GSFA (Global South Fellowship of Anglicans) came together in April to declare that the instruments of communion - the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates' Meeting - to be beyond repair and no longer recognized as valid.

IMO it is likely the Church of Ireland is probably going to split into two different Anglican churches in the near future with the more conservative/evangelical types aligning with GAFCON and GSFA and the more liberal types aligning with Canterbury and the Church of England. Either that or if the Church of Ireland stays cohesive enough and maintains communion with Canterbury I could see GAFCON/GSFA launching a new Anglican church in Ireland in the same way they did the Anglican Network in Europe for England and continental Europe, peeling away the conservative evangelicals away from the Church of Ireland.

Peregrinus

The CofI is broad enough, and small enough, and aware of its smallness, to be in general strongly averse to schism and strongly committed to remaining a church in which diverse views can be accommodated. When the ordination of women was introduced there was an attempt by those opposed to launch a rival Anglican movement in Ireland which would not ordain women; it pretty much withered on the vine almost immediately.

I'm sceptical that a split over the (less ecclesially fundamental) issue of blessing same-sex marriages, should the Cof I decide to do that, would get off the ground. And it certainly won't get off the ground purely on the basis that the CofI in is communion with churches that do that.

homer911

There are diverse views, and then there is biblical teaching..

Many would say that it is ecclesially fundamental - you cannot bless what Biblical teaching views as sin

I would hope that there wouldn't be a split, but for many the issue is a line in the sand that should not be crossed. The problem is that you cant split a church down the aisle - You will generally find people in every CoI church that have one view or another. The Presbyterian Church went through a similar process already and while many churches lost members, there was no split - the people just went elsewhere, or stopped going to church altogether.

(The PCI broke communion with the Church of Scotland..)

In an increasingly secular world there are ridiculous calls for Christian churches to change their views on issues like this - usually from outside the church but sometimes from within. What's worse for a church? to slip into irrelevancy by slowing conceding to every human whim, or to stand its ground on biblical teaching serving an unchanging God?

A church that does not teach biblical truth is itself a lie

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120464854#Comment_120464854

Already happening. I'm aware of parishes in Kerry where the only weekly service is on Thursday (or whenever). Officially there's a still a "Sunday obligation". In practice, people are smarter than that.

smacl

In an increasingly secular world there are ridiculous calls for Christian churches to change their views on issues like this - usually from outside the church but sometimes from within. What's worse for a church? to slip into irrelevancy by slowing conceding to every human whim, or to stand its ground on biblical teaching serving an unchanging God?

A church that does not teach biblical truth is itself a lie

It is no doubt a tough call. You could equally argue that the church is already slipping into irrelevancy by failing to keep pace with what broader society considers to be fair and decent treatment of all of its members. As a non Christian myself, I'd ask whether the primary message of Christianity of kindness and decency in how one treats others is more important than specifics such as same sex marriage? If the church adopts a stance that could be viewed as intolerant bordering on homophobic, this will increasingly be that narrow and rather extreme demographic that it draws on for its continued membership. For the record, I wouldn't consider discrimination against a same sex couple to be a whim.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120570490#Comment_120570490

People might say the Catholic Church as declining as it holds until traditional values but the same liberal societies that promote progressive values are dying through non reproduction. Ireland's birth rate is below replacement since 1990. I imagine what we will see is a trend already established in religions further along the tracks like Judaism or the Dutch churches where the distance between secular and religious grows, but only religious have kids so there is a form of hemostasis. The Israel example is pretty famous but you see similar things in Netherlands and Finland.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120804697#Comment_120804697

You might want to have a look at a population graph covering the last couple of decades, our population has grown substantially and continues to do so. The semi-rural neighborhood I moved to 20 years ago is now covered with apartment blocks with dense traffic outside most of the day. If the population were to fall back by a bit I for one would not be complaining. It is also pointless to talk about birth rate without talking about average life expectancy, where the latter has also grown in this country as has immigration. What is key to out future is not growth, it is sustainability.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805138#Comment_120805138

The population is growing through migration, linked to a strong economy.

People arent having as many kids because of the cost of living, but the population of ireland is only going to increase over the next decade or so, at least.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805154#Comment_120805154

Yep. People are starting families much later because they can't afford to buy their own homes until much later and are reluctant to start a family in rented accommodation. Lack of accommodation is, of course, also directly linked to population growth. Not sure religion or lack thereof has much to do with it.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805171#Comment_120805171

Exactly. I dont think religion is anything to do with it.

Its purely the cost of bringing up kids.

But overall the population will increase and there will be more kids in ireland.

Just that many will migrate here, rarher than being born here.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805138#Comment_120805138

Yes our population is growing, but without immigration, we'd have no growth at all and across many Christian countries there is no growth. I don't think a society that depends on immigration is healthy. Religion has a massive impact on willingness to have kids. Pretty much everywhere you look, whether it is EU countries or the US, being more religious tends to mean you tend to be fertile than your peers and the very religious have more kids than the slightly religious.

The cost of living discourages having kids but it is a secondary factor to worldview. The cost of living was far tougher years ago and people had far bigger family. The main factor is changed view of the world. The hard proof is that the very rich don't have huge families. They only have families that are slightly larger than middle earners.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120805427#Comment_120805427

I think you'll find that, in the past in this country and in the developing world today, lack of widespread availability of birth control is the bigger influencer of high birth rates. High birth rates in these circumstances are also closely linked to high mortality rates. The countries with the highest birth rates are by and large the poorest countries. I would also dispute the need for increasing either local or world population sizes. Yes, we will have to deal with an ageing population in the coming years but that is inevitable for whichever generation sees stabilisation or decline of population and the worlds population cannot continue to grow unchecked forever.

If you take issue with immigration you should perhaps ask yourself why people immigrate in the first instance? In very many cases it is to escape a society that has grown to the degree where there are insufficient local resources to support the population.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120810856#Comment_120810856

Right but the availability of contraceptives have no explanatory power for intra country variation. If your theory ( from I can see) was correct, that family size is just about cost of living, that rich it would always be having the biggest families but it is not as simple as that.

I totally agree that we need to help with issues in developing countries but migration tends to be taken by the reactively better off in society to obtain a better life, but the lives they try to leave behind are nearly always superior to the the lives of their parents. If these countries had smaller populations, it would not 'solve immigration'. That is a very reactionary idea related to the Noble Savage concept, something along the lines of that everything was fine until populations grew. People are not immigrating to Europe because of shortage of rainforest or clean freshwater habitats. Everywhere, farming fields are far higher than decades ago. People live longer lives. They do so, because they want to live like us.

Hotblack Desiato

If you take issue with immigration you should perhaps ask yourself why people immigrate in the first instance? In very many cases it is to escape a society that has grown to the degree where there are insufficient local resources to support the population.

Escaping religious fundamentalism is a factor too...

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120812410#Comment_120812410

I think there are a wide range of factors that affect family size, where tradition / religion is one, access to and education around family planning is another, and wealth is a third. For intra-country variations between wealthy and poorer countries, I suspect the biggest factor by far is education around, and access to, family planning. Gapminder is a fascinating tool here, for example have a look at variations in life expectancy against babies per woman for a variety of countries over time. We can clearly see as number of babies per women dropped in recent years in countries like India, life expectancy rises. The same can clearly be seen in Ireland from the 1900s onwards. Of course correlation is not causation and many of the deaths would relate to childbirth itself, but it seems clear that family planning is an essential part of becoming a healthy modern society.

I'd also disagree that the larger part of migration is for solely economic reasons, either now or in the past. Much is due to people being displaced by famine, war or natural disaster. This was as true of Ireland in the past during famine as it is in other countries such as Ukraine and Sudan today.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120812710#Comment_120812710

Larger family size is certainly an insurance against death. If you have more child deaths, you have more babies to compensate. This can be a deliberate choice but also occur without any planning due to cession of breast feeding.

I think you meant to say smaller family sizes are feature of being healthy and modern (there was a typo in your text).

You say being displaced by famine, war or natural disaster is the main cause of emigration, but in the Irish case, the vast majority of emigration left outside the famine years (7 out of 8 million).

I am not sure if you are up to speed with the numbers. Demographics can badly very fast. For example, South Korea with its current TFR is modelled to lose 94% of its population in three generations. If Ireland's 2019 TFR ratio continues, we will see a halving of population, which barely has grown since 1990 anyway when we strip out immigration. We can have different definitions of healthy but halving, is not healthy. Extinction is not healthy... Modern secular society is in decay.

Peregrinus

It may be true that the population of Ireland "has barely grown since 1990 anyway when we strip out immigration". But why would we strip out immigration? Serious question. After all, if we strip out emigration, the population of Ireland would vastly, vastly bigger than it is today. But both of these are hypothetical models for fictional alternative histories. In the real world, the population of Ireland is what it actually is.

Hotblack Desiato

You say being displaced by famine, war or natural disaster is the main cause of emigration, but in the Irish case, the vast majority of emigration left outside the famine years (7 out of 8 million).

Well duh. The famine was devastating but only lasted a few years. Economic ruin with better opportunities easily accessible overseas lasted for well over 150 years.

65535

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120457232#Comment_120457232

One of my daughters (RC) who was involved in Scouting with a few CoI friends wanted to attend the local CoI Secondary School - we applied - we were told in no uncertain way - we have a 'pecking order' here and RC is at the bottom of the list - in other words just like the English - you can be any religion or none but you can not be RC to play their games.

In fairness I guess it's because the overwhelming religion is RC and they feel that to keep themselves relevant they have to take all comers - except those of RC.

Many of our ancestors on branches of the family tree were CoE and in those times it was more 'up front' as to what religion you were.

I was thinking of joining the Quakers myself but it clashes with other work on Sunday morning.

I have in the past 'reached out' to organisations to join but was asked in many ways as to what religion I was.

In Edinburgh one time when on a course - one of the lecturers went out of his way to ask what football team I supported etc. in a bid to determine which religion I was - Once the CoI can leave that behind and get with the times it will thrive.

It's not as bad as it used to be - when in the Army in the '80's you'd know the Protestants because they were excused the mass parade....

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120817137#Comment_120817137

Plus, the two are closely connected. One of the consequences of the famine was radical change to landholding and land use patterns, and that gave rise to a large class of younger sons, and of daughters who did not marry or who married younger sons, who were landless. They had to emigrate because the famine had destroyed a social and economic system which, previously, had afforded younger sons etc a place in the rural economy which provided at least subsistence. That's the reason emigration didn't stop when the famine stopped.

The distinction that you often see made between the victims of war, disaster or oppression on the one hand and "economic migrants" on the other is often an unrealistic, even spurious, one. Very often the victimhood that is caused by war, disaster or oppression manifests itself as dispossession, relegation to an economic underclass or economic exclusion.

smacl

I think you meant to say smaller family sizes are feature of being healthy and modern (there was a typo in your text).

Yep, typo which has been edited. My point was in relation to family planning rather than just family size.

I am not sure if you are up to speed with the numbers. Demographics can badly very fast. For example, South Korea with its current TFR is modelled to lose 94% of its population in three generations. If Ireland's 2019 TFR ratio continues, we will see a halving of population, which barely has grown since 1990 anyway when we strip out immigration. We can have different definitions of healthy but halving, is not healthy. Extinction is not healthy... Modern secular society is in decay

Not sure what your sources on Ireland's population are, from statistica we can see Irelands population in 1900 was ~3.2 million as opposed to ~5.1 million in 2023 and rising. You need to go to pre-famine Ireland to see larger population followed by the population collapse brought on by the famine. A more pertinent question perhaps is what is the optimal size (or population density) for an egalitarian technologically advanced society? What would your ideal population size for Ireland be for example? Is it reasonable for people to aspire to live in their own house which has a garden or are we better suited to apartment blocks?

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120817192#Comment_120817192

This is nonsense.

All schools have to have an enrolment policy and make it available online.

They will enrol pupils of any religion or none if there are places available. If they have more applicants than places then CoI followed by other 'reformed faiths' get priority.

My children attended a CoI primary (younger one has just finished), we're not CoI, and most of the kids there aren't either. If it was relying on CoI pupils it would have closed years ago.