Dear Deborah BRIN has not looked into this, but I am hopeful that you may be able to find this…
-
Recent News
Recent Sources
- Perceptions of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as problems in the UK (4316)
- Observance of Christmas traditions (4315)
- Plans to attend a place of worship or carol concert over Christmas (4314)
- Alternative beliefs and perceptions of proportion of Muslims in country (4313)
- Trust in clergy and priests and other professions to tell the truth (4312)
Archives
- September 2024 (2)
- July 2024 (1)
- June 2024 (1)
- May 2024 (2)
- March 2024 (2)
- February 2024 (1)
- December 2023 (2)
- November 2023 (1)
- October 2023 (1)
- September 2023 (1)
- July 2023 (1)
- June 2023 (2)
- April 2023 (2)
- March 2023 (1)
- February 2023 (2)
- January 2023 (1)
- December 2022 (2)
- October 2022 (1)
- September 2022 (1)
- August 2022 (2)
- July 2022 (1)
- June 2022 (1)
- May 2022 (1)
- April 2022 (1)
- February 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (3)
- December 2021 (1)
- November 2021 (1)
- October 2021 (3)
- August 2021 (1)
- July 2021 (1)
- June 2021 (1)
- May 2021 (2)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (1)
- February 2021 (1)
- January 2021 (1)
- December 2020 (1)
- November 2020 (1)
- October 2020 (1)
- August 2020 (2)
- July 2020 (1)
- June 2020 (1)
- April 2020 (1)
- March 2020 (2)
- February 2020 (1)
- January 2020 (1)
- December 2019 (2)
- November 2019 (1)
- September 2019 (2)
- August 2019 (1)
- June 2019 (2)
- May 2019 (1)
- March 2019 (2)
- February 2019 (1)
- December 2018 (4)
- August 2018 (1)
- July 2018 (1)
- June 2018 (1)
- May 2018 (2)
- April 2018 (1)
- March 2018 (1)
- February 2018 (1)
- January 2018 (1)
- December 2017 (1)
- November 2017 (1)
- October 2017 (2)
- September 2017 (1)
- August 2017 (1)
- July 2017 (2)
- June 2017 (1)
- May 2017 (2)
- April 2017 (1)
- March 2017 (1)
- January 2017 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (2)
- August 2016 (1)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (3)
- May 2016 (5)
- April 2016 (7)
- October 2015 (3)
- September 2015 (4)
- August 2015 (3)
- July 2015 (4)
- June 2015 (4)
- May 2015 (5)
- April 2015 (4)
- March 2015 (3)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (3)
- December 2014 (6)
- November 2014 (5)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (5)
- August 2014 (4)
- July 2014 (3)
- June 2014 (7)
- May 2014 (4)
- April 2014 (7)
- March 2014 (5)
- February 2014 (3)
- January 2014 (5)
- December 2013 (3)
- November 2013 (5)
- October 2013 (5)
- September 2013 (6)
- August 2013 (3)
- July 2013 (3)
- June 2013 (6)
- May 2013 (8)
- April 2013 (5)
- March 2013 (10)
- February 2013 (7)
- January 2013 (7)
- December 2012 (13)
- November 2012 (8)
- October 2012 (5)
- September 2012 (7)
- August 2012 (3)
- July 2012 (7)
- June 2012 (9)
- May 2012 (6)
- April 2012 (12)
- March 2012 (14)
- February 2012 (15)
- January 2012 (14)
- December 2011 (20)
- November 2011 (16)
- October 2011 (13)
- September 2011 (16)
- August 2011 (9)
- July 2011 (14)
- June 2011 (19)
- May 2011 (15)
- April 2011 (18)
- March 2011 (32)
- February 2011 (16)
- January 2011 (14)
- December 2010 (24)
- November 2010 (19)
- October 2010 (23)
- September 2010 (25)
- August 2010 (18)
- July 2010 (23)
- June 2010 (19)
- May 2010 (20)
- April 2010 (30)
- March 2010 (19)
- February 2010 (20)
- January 2010 (14)
-
-
Hello, Do you happen to have a breakdown of the Religious affiliation of the Roma/Gypsy population in the UK? For…
Thanks for your query. There are no recent British data on these topics which spring to mind, at least so…
Is there any data on the number of converts to Christianity from Islam and vice versa in the UK?
The census of population (2001, 2011, 2021) is the main statistical source for non-Christian and other faiths and groups. Jews…
Recent Comments
- Clive D. Field on Counting Religion in Britain, February 2023
- Andrew Ducker on Counting Religion in Britain, February 2023
- Bernard Silverman on Christian decline: How it’s measured and what it means
- Clive D. Field on Counting Religion in Britain, November 2022
- Robert Wagener on Counting Religion in Britain, November 2022
-
2 responses to “Roman Catholic and Other Statistics”
-
Rob C.
I comment on the English Catholic statistics. I think that these are unreliable as regards marriages and baptisms because many of the former, and some of the latter, of people ordinarily resident in England occur outside of the country. This is particularly the case given the level of immigration into England from countries in Europe.
For example, my wife and I were married in Malta, where my wife’s family come from. We do not show up in the statistics. The 3 year old son of our neighbours’ born and lived all his life in London, was baptised in France where his mother is from. The 1 year old daughter of friends of ours was baptised in Poland where her mother is from. Neither of these shows in the baptism statistics. These are not isolated cases.
Of course there were always some such cases, but the reduced cost of travel and the availability of skype/electronic mail/etc. makes ties abroad stronger and arrangements easier to organise.
As regards marriages, it must be born in mind that couples marrying are often not particularly associated with any one parish (especially if they’re dutiful Catholics and not living together before they marry!) and the cost of weddings abroad is often a lot less.
I live in London and I can tell you that there is a massive Catholic revival happening here.
-
Rob’s comment stresses one aspect of the Catholic Church’s statistics system, but there are many others which make the official statistics quite unreliable until they have been carefully edited, a job that takes an age of time and an excellect library. He focuses on sacramental events abroad. My mother was born and baptised in Canada, a country where she spent just a few months. A cousin recently died in Italy, on a school trip. My wife’s uncle was killed at Alamein. After several years residence in this country my sister-in-law died in her native Australia. Those professionally concerned with vital and population statistics at national and international levels have over many decades worked out protocols to ensure that key events are neither duplicated statistically, or omitted altogther. Unfortunately the Catholic bishops of England & Wales have no professional training in vital and population statistics, and do not think it necessary to consult those who have. As a result, four years ago they decided to collect statistics of marriages celebrated abroad but prepared in this country, and to treat them as marriages celebrated in this country. In some diocesan yearbooks these marriage preparations are (quite properly) excluded in the total of those celebrated in the diocese. In others they are included, giving the impression that the number of marriages celebrated with the rites of the Catholic Church in this country is beginning to recover. Some professional statisticians might reflect that “there are lies, damned lies and Catholic statistics”.
But the other defects of the Catholic Church’s statistics system in this country are far worse. Since most unwise changes introduced by the bishops in 2000-1 the task of collecting, editing and tabulating the most important detailed pastoral and population statistics has been decentralised to the dioceses, as it was until the mid-1950s. Rob tells us that there is a massive Catholic revival happening in London. Of the three London dioceses, one produces each year excellent statistics in whose reliability I am in no doubt; one produces utterly incredible rubbish; and one lies somewhere in between. Five Pastoral Research Centre reports over ten years, pressing for reform of this statistical system, have been ignored, as it seems that the bishops prefer to live in statistical Never-Never Land.
And there is more. Failure to grasp the nettle of reform has left the Catholic Church in this country with not one but at least five separate systems of pastoral and population statistics. The 22 territorial dioceses of the Latin Rite include large numbers of Polish parishes, quasi-parishes and chapels that are controlled and administered by the Polish Vicariate. They are all Latin Rite, but most of them never get round to sending their annual return to their territorial bishop -especially in London. I have long assumed that the Vicariate collects the statistics itself but doesn’t publish them. I find that letters sent to the Polish Vicariate, and to Polish parishes (even in Polish), are just ignored. And now we have the Ordinariate, which makes its own arrangements about the collection of statistics, and doesn’t send them to the CBC. And, of course, there are all the Oriental Rite missions, chaplaincies, chapels, which show a marked reluctance to send annual returns to the bishops who head the 22 territorial dioceses. Finally, the Diocese of the Forces sent a return to the CBC for the first time for the year 2012, but we have no figures for all the years back to World War II.
-