Madam, - Fintan O'Toole inaccurately claims (Opinion, September 30th) that "practising Catholics are now a minority in the Republic of Ireland" because last week's Prime Time/TNS mrbi poll "showed that just 44 per cent of people who regard themselves as Catholics attend Mass at least once a week".
However, he fails to take into account the poll's findings that a further 6 per cent attend Mass daily, making a total of 50 per cent who attend Mass either daily or weekly, not to mention that a further 18 per cent also attend Mass regularly (5 per cent once a fortnight, 7 per cent every three to four weeks and 6 per cent every two to three months). Only 17 per cent say that they "rarely/never" attend Mass.
Indeed, even the poll finding of 50 per cent for those who attend Mass at least weekly is out of line with most recent surveys (including the RCSI figure of 63 per cent reported in The Irish Times on November 6th, 2002) which consistently indicate a weekly practice rate of at least 60 per cent. In last week's survey from the Diocese of Killaloe, 96.6 per cent of respondents described themselves as practising Catholics, and 61.6 per cent as regular Mass-goers.
As Archbishop Dermot Clifford stated on Prime Time, no one in the Church should be either complacent or despondent about current trends. But is it not significant that over 240,000 people on this island (more than twice the current circulation of The Irish Times) now attend Mass daily, not to mention the 2 million-plus who attend weekly?
And with almost nine out of ten parents (87 per cent) preferring to have children raised in the faith, perhaps Ireland is not quite as "post-Catholic" as some would lead us to believe? - Yours, etc.,
Rev MARTIN CLARKE, Director, Catholic Communications Office, Maynooth, Co Kildare.