Australian Mass Attendance Fell by Over 200,000 in Five Years to 2021, Columnist Says

Dr Philippa Martyr writes that the National Count of Attendance for May 2021 shows a sharp fall in Mass attendance across Australia, with more than 200,000 Catholics lost over five years. She says there is no single cause and sets out several explanations, beginning with the death rate.

Martyr estimates that between 2016 and 2020 around 700,000 Australians over the age of 60 died, and that around 161,000 of them were likely at least nominal Catholics, about 23 per cent of the population at that time. Using an average Mass attendance rate of around 27 per cent for that age group, she calculates that about 44,000 of the deceased over-60s were likely to have been Mass-going Catholics. That leaves, in her account, a remaining loss of about 156,000 people.

To explore that remainder, Martyr draws on a COVID-19 study she conducted. She surveyed 806 Mass-going Catholics nationally between August and October 2020, in parishes that had reopened. Victoria, which was still under restrictions, was largely left out of the sample. Respondents were asked about their Mass attendance before and after church closures. According to Martyr, about 3 per cent had increased their attendance, around 71 per cent had returned to their former rate, and around 25 per cent were not returning as often as before. She notes that these were people who had been regular Sunday Mass-goers, and she suggests that irregular attenders may have been even less likely to return.

Martyr also gives her own estimate of the Mass-going population. She puts the number of Mass-goers in 2016 at around 600,000. Removing the 44,000 she believes had died leaves about 556,000, and a quarter of that figure, about 139,000, is close to the number she says has been lost since 2016 when combined with deaths. She acknowledges that these are estimates based on her own calculations.

She also cautions that some apparent local losses may not reflect actual departures. People may move between dioceses, and fewer people may have identified as Catholic in the 2021 Census than in earlier years, which can reduce numbers in the pews. Martyr also points to a large itinerant migrant Catholic population, mostly Filipino and Vietnamese workers, whose numbers rise and fall. In her account, many of these people went home during COVID-19 and did not return. The migrant figures point to the call to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35).

Martyr says that around 288 members of her survey group, about a quarter of those surveyed, offered written comments on COVID-19 church closures. She reports that the main theme was what she called “Church and State,” because respondents expressed strong views about both authorities. She says there were both pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown views, and describes the responses as lively.

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