Who Goes to Mass and Who Doesn’t. The Uncertain Tomorrow of Catholic Italy
Catholic Italy is an “exception” in the secularized landscape of Western Europe and as a model for the other Churches of the continent has been one of the chief points of reference for the last two popes.
John Paul II talked and wrote about it many times. For example, in the “Great prayer for Italy” of 1994:
“Italy as a nation has so much to offer to all of Europe. [...] To Italy, in keeping with its history, is entrusted in a special way the task of defending on behalf of all of Europe the religious and cultural heritage established in Rome by the apostles Peter and Paul.”
And in his speech to the general leadership of the Italian Church gathered in Verona, on October 19, 2006, Benedict XVI said:
“Italy constitutes a rather favorable terrain for Christian testimony. The Church, in fact, is here a very lively reality, which retains a grassroots presence among people of every age and condition. The Christian traditions are often still rooted here and continue to bear fruit. [...] The Italian Church and Italian Catholics are therefore called to seize this great opportunity. [...] If we are able to do this, the Church in Italy will render a great service not only to this nation, but also to Europe and to the world.”
One of the figures that would seem to prove the tenacity and vitality of Catholicism in Italy is attendance at Sunday Mass. For more than thirty years, all of the findings have shown levels of attendance at Mass that are very high compared with other countries of Western Europe: about 30 percent of the population say that they go every Sunday, another 20 percent from one to three times a month, and another 30 percent on Christmas, Easter, and the other major feast days.
It should be enough to consider, for the sake of comparison, that in France those who say they go to Mass every Sunday are less than 5 percent of the population.
But these figures, properly speaking, register “stated” Mass attendance, meaning what is gathered from responses to surveys.
Much less is known about “real” attendance, made by counting those who actually go to Church.
Tags: Church Life