A new briefing note from The Iona Institute, based on data from almost every Catholic diocese on the island of Ireland has found that over the past 10 years, the number of baptisms taking place annually has fallen by 30pc.
The research finds that the two big drivers of the decline are falling births, and rising secularism. Falling births account for about 60pc of the decline with the rest accounted for by secularisation.
In the same ten years during which baptisms have fallen by 30pc, births on the island have fallen by 18.8pc.
They have dropped by 17.9pc in the Republic and 21.3pc in the North.
Census data from the CSO allows us to look at the religion of mothers and children. In 2016, 78.3pc of 0-4-year-olds were marked down in the Census as Catholic, and 9.2pc were recorded as having no religion.
By 2022, these figures had changed to 65.4pc and 15.6pc respectively.
When we look at the mothers of these children, the same pattern emerges, that is 67.9pc marked themselves down as Catholic, and 15.7pc as having no religion in 2022.
It appears from Census data that almost all mothers of 0-4 years-olds who identify as Catholic are still having their children baptised.
This indicates that ‘cultural Catholicism’ remains a big factor in Irish life.
We can also see from the baptism figures obtained that there is considerable regional variation in the trend. Dublin archdiocese has seen a 40pc fall in the last ten years, whereas in Kerry diocese the fall has been 22.3pc.
Down & Connor, which contains the city of Belfast, has also recorded a big fall, as has Meath diocese, which largely covers Co Meath and Co Westmeath.
Notably, Dublin has seen its birth rate fall by more than the national average, and Dublin is also more secular than the national average.
Commenting on the figures, Dr Tom Finegan, Chairman of The Iona Institute said: “In a way the figures are not a surprise given the rapidly falling number of births and growing secularisation. Given that births have fallen by almost a fifth in the last ten years, and more people are ticking the ‘No Religion’ box in the Census, we could expect nothing but a big drop in baptism figures”.
He continued: “However, the figures also show that ‘cultural Catholicism’ remains strong on the island. We see that as at Census 2022, 67.9pc of mothers with children aged 0-4 still identified as Catholic, even though a big majority of these would not be regular Mass-goers.”
Dr Finegan said: “It remains to be seen whether cultural Catholicism will remain a force in Irish life. It’s worth noting that in Britain in 2023, according to the Vatican yearbook, over 42,000 Catholic children were baptised, even though levels of Mass-attendance in Britain are low.”
He concluded: “The fall in baptisms must be seen not simply as the result of secularisation, but even more as a result of falling births. Ireland’s fertility rate is now just 1.5, well below the replacement level of 2.1. This should be of concern to everyone, regardless of religious belief”.