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Editorial
Faith In Ireland Today
The Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) has released results of a survey which it has conducted on the subject of ‘faith on the island of Ireland’, last week seeing the launch of its findings at the ISE’s Belfast campus. A total of over 1,600 responses were analysed in the process.
Survey reports have been made available at the ISE’s website, www.ecumenics.ie, and include many ‘vox pop’ comments. The ISE has highlighted a number of its major findings: "Individualism trumps community when it comes to matters of faith"; "Nearly three quarters of lay people reported that their faith communities include some immigrants or ethnic minorities"; "Preaching and teaching about immigration and diversity has become a regular part of life in more than half of faith communities on the island"; "Atheists are talking, but they feel like no one is listening"; "Faith leaders do not spend as much time as they would like preaching and teaching about reconciliation. Nor did they spend as much time as they would like on ecumenical activities"; "Laypeople were more likely than faith leaders to include Other Religions (non-Christian faiths) in their definitions of ecumenism"; "67% of lay people reported positive conceptions of ecumenism, but some complained that it was too ‘politically correct’ or something they thought of only in the context of the sitcom, Father Ted".
The survey has been an important initiative and the findings deserve careful consideration in the Churches, but will they receive the attention they deserve? Therein lies the challenge. The indication that ‘faith leaders’ do not consider that they have sufficient time for preaching and teaching on reconciliation or on ecumenical activities suggests that clergy may often be swamped with too many different concerns. Somewhat striking in the study is the finding that "Church of Ireland ministers were the most likely to have accessed general resources on reconciliation (59%), and among the most likely to say that their denomination had not provided them with adequate training (31%)". The fact that some lay people associated the term ‘ecumenism’ with its use in Father Ted, rather than with anything they had learned through their faith communities, perhaps speaks well for the show but not so well for the Churches’ efforts. A comment signed, "Catholic, Co. Sligo" should cause ecumenists to sit up: "[Ecumenism is] sitting in some cold church with the same few faithful members of either congregation in early January, following some strange prayer leaflet that nobody sees as facing issues that need facing - just let’s be ‘nice’ to each other. Cynical? Sorry."
The principal investigator for this project has been Professor Linda Hogan, Head of the ISE, with Dr Gladys Ganiel overseeing the survey research. Certainly, the Churches could use more straight-talking studies like this one.