New poll shows most Irish Catholics ignore church teachings, skip mass

Ken from Dublin -- Brilliant. The Holy Bus. Is it a Class 2 relic?

Stanchaz i agree with you 100% the Church & the Pope, Cardinals,Bishops have lost their way they are so out of touch with the people. no wonder the church is in Decay. its rotten from the Top Down to the local Pedophile Priests.Maybe God is giving enough Rope to hang them ! and start a new Church of God

why should i Bother to Comment! you Deleted what i had to say 24 hours ago now put that in your Pipe and smoke it

Interesting survey! While I attend weekly mass, I, as previously reported, utterly reject Matthew 5:28, and the guilt ridden writings of St. Augustine. Old fashioned Catholics, along with the Fundamentalists, worship an ego maniacal, control freak god, who feels that eternal damnation is the just "punishment" for minor, and even non transgressive matters! Most of us have happily become enlightened enough to not feel the need to go to confession over such innocuous things as sexual thoughts, masturbation, looking at Playboy/Playgirl, and pre marital sex. The well being of one's partner is what matters most in any sexual encounter, NOT the fact that the activity was engaged in. I can draw an analogy with the colonies rising up against England, during the American Revolution. Human beings reach a point of enlightenment, when they break free of repressive,guilt inspiring teachings, just as the colonies fought to overcome the domination of the British Empire. Priests can hardly stick to the old teachings, when their vocation has endured the pedophile scandal!

@ken from dublin - like yourself and indeed a good part of the population of Ireland, as a youth of 17 I travelled to Ballybritt Racecourse in Galway to a mass for the youth of Ireland, and officiated over by his Holiness Pope John Paul II. On many levels it was a very moving day; but then I also recall that two of the leading lights and speakers on that day were Bishop Eamon Casey and Father Michael Cleary. Great orators they were, they asked us, the youth of Ireland to re-double our efforts to answer the call to prayer. And I listened in wonderment to Eamon Casey and Michael Cleary that day in September 1979, and I was proud to be a catholic then, just like those two good men!!!!!!!

@mairint - "Those who are first shall be last, and those who are last shall be first"!!

mairint. As long as you`re prepared to to leave your family at the mercy of those who practice differant from what they preach.

Survey shows a woeful ignorance among Irish Catholics, already acknowledged by Abp. D Martin. Survey shows that some lack common sense about simple matters- such as "Catholics" do not believe in God! Survey did not ask: IF parish priests could marry, would they support them and their families, and IF some would want to serve in villages or very rural areas where their sppuses could not find a job and their childdren a decent school? No one asked what criteria were used for the survey questions, see latest US election polls as one example. AND headline tells us the negative, MOST etc. Ireland has been battered by "one size fits all media" so far Left they are ready to jump into Galway Bay or off the Cliffs of Moher, main target being the Catholic Church with such a bias it is the subject of serious commentary. And their Government has bailed out the crooks and left them with little economic hope. There is a lot more praying going on in the past few years since the CELTIC TIGER turned out to be a tiny Puddy Tat.

If they do not believe then they are not Catholics. They can call themselves whatever they like or think but that has no bearing on their status. As our Holy Father said, "it will be a smaller Church but a more perfect one". Have the readers here ever heard "many are called but few are chosen"?Well, I hope that my faithful family, and me, will make it to the "few"....

I would guess that most of those polled say a wee prayer to God when their backs to the wall, regardless of their answers. The faith should not be getting mixed up with the way it is being taught either.

I have always been a follower of Jesus and will die as one. -Not much can be done about the general decay of Christianity at this stage- The deterioration of Catholic faith is a logical consequence of incompetent leadership in the Christian communities for centuries. They should have been cooperating to gradually adjust and modernize the teachings of Jesus to reconfigure and restate them to keep them abreast as man's understanding of the universe and science expanded. Already feeling sad today at the burial Mass for a great friend --present in the form of a small jar ashes- I felt worse when I heard "he'll rise again with HIM on the last day"-if only some Church Leader had the backbone to grapple with that type of thing in a timely way..... Beannacht daoibh go leir

wtf. I think it’s a contradiction to say most Irish Catholics don’t believe in god. One of the first requirements to be a catholic is to believe in god, so therefor if you don’t believe in god you would not be considered catholic. A more fitting statement would be the fake Irish Catholics do not believe in god.

Is it a Catholic-Trad patella reflex that gets some folks complaining about IC's anti-Catholic bias? I read the following sentences and became convinced that this was another Traditional Catholic Complaint about the changing times: "The survey reveals ala carte Catholicism is very much in fashion in Ireland, with 78 per cent saying they do not follow church teaching but their own individual conscience on issues." As though following one's conscience were not at the heart of Christian faith in action!

More catholic stuff... of course I forgot Ireland is 100% catholic!!

Yes, they really should SNAP out of it.