The Mass attendance census last month was, for the first time, held in conjunction with other studies, because the Church wanted to have “a more holistic view” of the situation, a spokesman said.
Questionnaires were distributed to churchgoers at 987 Masses in 329 places of worship, mainly churches or chapels, on December 2 and 3. This represents a slight drop compared to the last census, held in 2005, when 1,080 Masses were celebrated in 335 places of worship.
The last census found that Sunday Mass attendance in Malta stood at 51 per cent of the total population (see http://knisja.org/ Censiment2005 ).
We will use the findings for a pastoral plan that reaches out in the years to come
The Church spokesman said it was still too early to compare the number of questionnaires returned last December to 2005 because they were still being processed.
Some clerics have, however, openly declared they expect another drop in Church attendance. “It is not whether there has been a decrease since 2005. What we really want to find out is by how much,” one priest said just before questionnaires were distributed at the Mass he was saying.
The Church spokesman pointed out that one of the reasons Archbishop Charles Scicluna decided to carry out a census was precisely to have a realistic view of the prevailing situation. The findings will be used by the Church to develop a pastoral plan “that reaches out to people effectively in the years to come, both through evangelisation and diaconia”.
He said that, apart from the Sunday Mass attendance census, the Church had also conducted a survey based on a representative sample of the population that would help to gauge the percentage of those who might not attend Mass every Sunday but did so less regularly or were connected to the Church in other ways.
The faithful by numbers
Four Mass attendance censuses have been held by the Maltese Church so far, the first in 1967. However, last December’s is the first of its kind, as it aims to give the Church a wider and more detailed picture of today’s reality.
Also to be borne in mind is that previous censuses considered the population of Malta to be 100 per cent Catholic, which is no longer the case.
The 2005 census found that 50.6 per cent of Malta’s population (168,721) attended Mass on the day the census was held. In Gozo, the figure was much higher, at 81.4 per cent of the population (22,497).
Thus 53 per cent of the total population of Malta and Gozo attended Mass that day.
Between 1995 and 2005, attendance by Maltese residents fell by 11.1 per cent, from 61.7 per cent to 50.6 per cent. The drop for Gozitan residents was 2.1 per cent, down from 83.5 per cent to 81.4 per cent. Overall, attendance fell by 10.4 per cent – from 63.4 per cent to 53 per cent.
For Malta, the annual rate of change has risen since 1967, when it stood at -0.61 per cent. It grew to -0.85 per cent in 1995 and -1.1 per cent in 2005.
In Gozo, the annual rate of change dropped from -1.04 per cent in 1995 to -0.21 per cent in 2005 (figures for 1967 for Gozo are not available). For Malta and Gozo, the rate of change swelled from -0.9 per cent in 1995 to -1.04 per cent in 2005.