In his letter on the Catholic Church, John Azzopardi quoted a book on the alleged “triumph” of faith (April 1).

This claim is no longer true in contemporary Europe.

The decline of faith can be traced back to the publication of The revolutions of the heavenly spheres (1543) by Copernicus, which revealed man’s minuscule place in the cosmos.

By 1611, John Donne was mourning that the earth had become a mere “suburb” in the universe and that the “new philosophy calls all in doubt”.

The late 17th century witnessed the rise of the English Deists who questioned Christian beliefs and doctrine. From England, Deism spread to France through the writings of Voltaire.

In the 19th century, the decline of religious belief had many sources, including the pioneering work in geology by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin’s On the origin of species.

Religious belief was further undermined by the revolutionary Hegelian version of Christ’s life, Das Leben Jesu by David F. Strauss and by The essence of Christianity of Ludwig Feuerbach.

A. N. Wilson observed in his book God’s funeral: “By the end of the 19th century, almost all the great writers, artists and intellectuals had abandoned Christianity and many had abandoned belief in God altogether…”

The late 20th century witnessed a decline in church attendance in Europe as scandals and harsh doctrine kept people away. At the dawn of the 21st century, Pope John Paul lamented the de-Christianisation of Europe while the late Archbishop Joseph Mercieca deplored the “haemorrhage” of faith in Malta.

A recent poll by Malta Today confirmed the decline of church attendance in Malta and revealed the cafeteria-style faith of contemporary Catholics.

“Where did God go,” asked Time in its cover story of June 16, 2004. “Churches are half empty and God can’t get a mention in the new EU Constitution.”