IX Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2017

One of the themes that characterises the spirituality of post-modern youth is that organised religion and other institutions are suspect. In this context, it is important to point out that the apathy towards inherited religious institutions reflects an indifference towards institutions in general, this being a hallmark of post-modernity. In other words, institutional religious faith is a victim of a post-modern culture.

The Catholic theologian, Robert Ludwig, while acknowledging that new spiritual opportunities are emerging as young people ‘become more and more open to the experiences that lie at the core of [Catholic] tradition’, points out that the new generation is ‘increasingly alienated from the institutional Church’. The analysis of in-depth interviews with young people certainly reveals a de-emphasis on, and in some cases a rejection of, organised religion. One young Irish woman had this to say: ‘Right now I would see myself as having a loose affiliation with the Catholic Church… I have my own beliefs and my own faith and I am quite happy with that’ . A young man from a socially deprived area commented: ‘The Church as an institution is very middle class and therefore excludes people of my class. The young people with whom I work, the so-called underclass, all feel alienated from the Church and not only from the Church, but from all institutions of the State’ After interviewing young people from all over the United States, Cohen discovered some diversity in religious attitudes, but a response typical of many young people was expressed in the words of one respondent who explained that ‘one of the reasons I don’t go to Church like I should [is that] they’re just hypocrites’. Beaudoin concurs in saying that this is the most common charge that he has heard from young people about religion. ‘The perception of hypocrisy’, he says, ‘is one reason religion is not a security blanket but a wet blanket to so many’ . Howe and Strauss report that ‘religion ranks behind friends, home, school, music and television as factors [young people] believe are having the greatest influence on their generation’. However, when one looks at the broader picture in the results of Cohen’s research across the United States, it is clear that more than criticism is afoot. In the book, Twentysomething American Dream, one of those interviewed, Lavona, expresses another common attitude among young people: ‘What the hell’s going to church for? These days you’ve got to take religion in your own hands’.

It is interesting to note that while 90% of people stated that they were Catholic in the 2006 census, a Europoll conducted several months earlier found that just 72% of people believe there is a God.

Which appears to suggest there are a good many Catholics in Ireland who don’t believe in God.

These apparently irreconcilable numbers however make a certain sense when looking at the place religion has in everyday life in Ireland to-day. Church attendance is dropping. A number of survey suggest that only between 30% and 35% of Irish Catholics now attend mass weekly, a huge reduction on the 90% plus who attended in the 1970s.

For an increasing number of Irish people church is a place they go to on special occasions – to baptise their children, get married or bury their dead – but rarely ever visit outside of those events.

One of the most striking findings of Ganiel’s research is that people on the island could not stop talking about Catholicism – whether they were Catholic or not, whether they were Irish-born or not. Some of them spoke about Catholicism to contrast or define their own faith against it. Their religious practice tended to be “outside” or “in addition to” the Catholic Church in Ireland, which adds credence to the use of the term post-Catholic as a descriptive, empirical concept which involves a shift in how the institutional Catholic Church is viewed. It is no longer embraced as it used to be by the majority of the population, is no longer feared in the same way by Protestants, and it does not wield anything like as much power in the realm of social and political life.

Some will rejoice in the fall from grace of one of Ireland’s traditionally most revered institutions, others will regret it, but wherever one stands on the issue, what this book shows clearly is that Catholicism has not gone away but has mutated into something different that could yet prove to be transformative and lasting.

References

1.Научно-популярная энциклопедия «Кругосвет» ; Центральноееропейский университет М., 2004. – 502 с. от 22.10.2013 г.

2. Религиозная ситуация и государственно-конфессиональные отношения в 2010 году. URL: http://www.belarus21.by/ru/main_menu/religion/sotr/%3C##href (дата обращения: 10.01.2012).

3.Федуленкова Т.Н. Библейская фразеология и культура речи (на материале английского, немецкого, шведского и русского языков) / Т.Н. Федуленкова // Международное сотрудничество в образовании: Материалы III Международной конф. Ч. 1. СПб, 2002. С. 240-250.

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