Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What percentage of Ireland is Catholic?
In the 2016 Irish census 78.3% of the population identified as Catholic in Ireland; numbering approximately 3.7 million people. Unlike Catholics in the United States, Ireland has seen a significant decline from the 84.2% who identified as Catholic in the 2011 census.[18]
The states with the highest percentage of professing Catholics are central states, namely Guanajuato (96.4%), Aguascalientes (95.6%) and Jalisco (95.4%), whereas southeastern states have the lowest percentage of Catholics, namely Chiapas (63.8%), Tabasco (70.4%) and Campeche (71.3%). The percentage of professing Catholics has been on the decrease over the last four decades, from over 98% in 1950 to 87.9% in 2000. The average annual growth of Catholic believers from 1990 to 2000 was 1.7% whereas that of non-Catholics was 3.7%. Given that the average annual population increase over the same time period was 1.8%, the percentage of Catholics in relation to the total population continues to be in overall decline.
These percentages were calculated by using the above numbers. The first percentage, 4th column, is the percentage of population that is Catholic in a region (number in the region x 100 / total population of the region). The last column shows the national Catholic percentage compared to the total Catholic population of the world (number in the region x 100 / total RC population of the world).
"Who Knows Ireland Best?" has been likened to the British quiz show "Family Fortunes". Two teams of contestants would be asked to guess the results of various surveys. Prior to the show 1,000 Irish people were asked 100 questions regarding Irish life (e.g. "What percentage of people admitted to speaking on a mobile phone whilst driving?" or "What percentage of women said they would not date someone who was unemployed?").
Religious freedom is constitutionally provided for in Ireland. Christianity is the predominant religion, and while Ireland remains a predominantly Catholic country, the percentage of the population who identified as Catholic on the census has fallen sharply from 84.2 percent in the 2011 census to 78.3 percent in the most recent 2016 census. Other results from the 2016 census are : 4.2% Protestant, 1.3% as Muslim, and 9.8% as having no religion. According to a Georgetown University study, before 2000 the country had one of the highest rates of regular Mass attendance in the Western world.
While daily attendance was 13% in 2006, there was a reduction in weekly attendance from 81% in 1990 to 48% in 2006, although the decline was reported as stabilising. In 2011, it was reported that weekly Mass attendance in Dublin was just 18%, with it being even lower among younger generations.
Athea is predominantly Roman Catholic though a small percentage of residents belong to the Church of Ireland faith. Weekend mass is the centrepoint for practicing Catholics. However a decline of church-goers has occurred in recent times with just 40% of locals regularly attending mass.
The Catholic Church in Ireland (Irish: Eaglais Chaitliceach na hÉireann) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Holy See. With 3.7 million members, it is the largest Christian church in Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland's 2016 census, 78% of the population identified as Catholic, which represents a decrease of 6% from 2011. By contrast, 45% of Northern Ireland identified as Catholic at the 2011 census, a percentage that is expected to increase in the coming years.[1] The Primate of All Ireland is the Archbishop of Armagh. The Church is administered on an all-Ireland basis. The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference is a consultative body for ordinaries in Ireland.
The majority of the people of Northern Ireland are recorded as members of the various Protestant churches such as the Presbyterian Church, Church of Ireland, Methodist Church and several others. While the Catholic Church is the largest single denomination in either jurisdiction, it is smaller than the combined Protestant denominations in Northern Ireland.
In the Republic of Ireland, approximately 3% were recorded as members of various Protestant (1991). The proportion was more than 10% in 1891 – a drop to less than a third of the previous percentage. The percentage in 2011 is almost 5%.
Catholicism in Ireland is part of the worldwide Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in Ireland serves Catholics in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland under the spiritual leadership of Pope Francis and the Conference of Irish Bishops. In the Republic of Ireland, 87.4% of the citizens were baptised Catholic as infants while the figure for Northern Ireland is 43.8%.
Following the 2018 abortion referendum in the Republic of Ireland, public campaigning has increased in Northern Ireland for complete rights to abortion. Secularized practices in the Republic are influencing the North to follow suit. According to 2011 Census data, 41.5% of the Northern Ireland population identifies as Protestant and 41% identifies as Roman Catholic. Despite reports of religious affiliation, these percentages do not represent the secular attitudes of the majority of citizens under 60 years old in Northern Ireland. Their current government, Sinn Féin, aims to extend certain policies of secular nature from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin is a left-wing Irish republican political party in both the Republic and Northern Ireland with political goals toward a united Ireland. The party advocates for "Europe-wide measures that promote and enhance human rights, equality and the all-Ireland agenda”. One key social and cultural policy in their recent election campaign is to extend same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland. Although the party pledges support for minority rights, migrants' rights, and eradicating poverty, it is not in favor of extending legalized abortion to Northern Ireland. Only in certain cases, including incest, rape, sexual abuse, "fatal foetal abnormalities", or when risk or danger is threatening a woman's life, can abortion be permitted. The Quiet Revolution in the Republic has created pressure on Northern Ireland for an extension of secularized policies and influenced further discussion of a united Ireland. Former Northern Ireland politician and 1998 Nobel Peace prize winner, John Hume, has said “the country [the land mass] is not divided; it’s the people who are divided...We must learn to spill our sweat together rather than spill our blood together”. Today, Protestants, Catholics and agnostics over the whole island - both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - are calling for socio-cultural and socio-political change, despite Northern Ireland having a higher percentage of active and devout religious citizens. The peaceful developments from the Quiet Revolution in the Republic are creating political stresses for the North to follow suit for their citizens.
Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Ireland (proclaimed such in 1541 but only fully conquered for the Crown in 1603), tensions had also begun to mount. Thomas Wentworth, Charles I's Lord Deputy of Ireland, angered Roman Catholics by enforcing new taxes while denying them full rights as subjects; he further antagonised the native Irish Catholics by repeated initiatives to confiscate and transfer their lands to English colonists. Conditions became explosive in 1639 when Wentworth offered Irish Catholics some reforms in return for them raising and funding an Irish army (led by Protestant officers) to put down the Scottish rebellion. The idea of an Irish Catholic army enforcing what many saw as already tyrannical government horrified both the Scottish and the English Parliaments, who in response threatened to invade Ireland.
Pollsters have rarely asked the population of Northern Ireland about their attitudes to repartition but it was asked twice in the early 1980s. In June 1981 and February 1982, the percentages of Protestants agreeing to repartition was 9% and 8%; the percentages for Catholics were 22% and 24%.
The Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland (CBSI; ) was an Irish Catholic Scouting organisation active from 1927 until 2004, when it formed Scouting Ireland by merging with the former Scout Association of Ireland (SAI), a non-denominational Scout organisation. The CBSI changed its name to "Catholic Scouts of Ireland" (CSI) when it admitted girls and to "Scouting Ireland (CSI)" in the run-up to the foundation of Scouting Ireland. It was active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Anglicans of the established Church of Ireland and the other Protestant groups such as Presbyterians had had different legal rights and priorities, and mutual disagreements, until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland by the Irish Church Act 1869. While the Act was passed to reflect the small percentage of Church of Ireland members in the Irish population, and to increase the self-esteem of Irish Roman Catholics, the resulting level playing field allowed the different Protestant groups to act as political equals for the first time.
In 1902, the Education Act had been withheld from Ireland at the insistence of Roman Catholic bishops, the result of which was that education reform in Northern Ireland lagged behind that of the rest of the country by 1920. Lynn was asked by the Northern Irish government to look into reforms in education in 1921 and he set up what became known as the Lynn Committee. However, Roman Catholics refused to serve on or cooperate with the Committee. Much guidance was therefore rerquired of Roman Catholic Unionist, A. N. Bonaparte Wyse (who later became Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education in Northern Ireland).
Ireland has had links with the Holy See since at least the time of Saint Patrick. Patrick was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine I. Relations between Ireland and the Holy See continued through the appointment of bishops, and papal legates were sent to preside over reforming synods, such as the Synod of Kells in 1152. The Synod of Cashel (1172) continued this process after the Norman conquest. The Pontifical Irish College, the Roman Catholic seminary for the training and education of priests in Rome, was founded in 1628. Irish Catholics were the main promoters of Catholic emancipation that was achieved in 1829 in what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. From 1850 the Irish Church followed Ultramontanism under Cardinal Cullen and it became a conservative element in the Irish nationalist movement.
The Hussey Commission, also known as the "Catholic Church Commission on Child Sexual Abuse", was established in June 2002 by the Bishops' Conference and the Conference of Religious in Ireland to examine what was known by Roman Catholic bishops about complaints of child sexual abuse by priests and religious in the Republic of Ireland.
In 1891, Ireland refused to accept the clerical credentials of Byzantine Rite, Ruthenian Catholic priest Alexis Toth, citing the decree "Cum data fuerit", that married priests of the Eastern Catholic Churches were not permitted to function in the Catholic Church in the United States, despite Toth being a widower. Ireland then forbade Toth to minister to his own parishioners, despite the fact that Toth had jurisdiction from his own bishop and did not answer to Ireland. Ireland was also involved in efforts to expel all non-Latin Church Catholic clergy from the United States. Forced into an impasse, Toth went on to lead thousands of Ruthenian Catholics out of the Roman Communion and into what would eventually become the Orthodox Church in America. Because of this, Archbishop Ireland is sometimes referred to, ironically, as "The Father of the Orthodox Church in America." Marvin R. O'Connell, author of a biography on Ireland, summarizes the situation by stating that "if Ireland's advocacy of the blacks displayed him at his best, his belligerence toward the Uniates showed him at his bull-headed worst."
In the 2016 census, 78.8% (3.7 million) of the population identified as Catholic which is 132,220 fewer than 5 years earlier in 2011 when the percentage stood at 84%.[2]
Around 90.9% of residents were recorded as Catholic, 4.3% were of another stated religion (e.g. Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Orthodox or Islam). The percentage of residents with no religion was 4.1%.
Dunmanway is predominantly Roman Catholic with a large Protestant minority and a small Neopagan minority. There are two different Protestant denominations in the town, namely the Church of Ireland and Methodism, the former being larger. While still majority Catholic, the rural area around Dunmanway has one of the highest percentage of non-Catholics in the Republic of Ireland and the town acts as an important focal point for this community.
There are some very small pressure groups in the Republic of Ireland, such as the Reform Group and lodges of the Orange Order, that are sympathetic to Northern Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future, but their impact on the broader political opinion is negligible. A minority of politically conservative Catholic writers from the Republic of Ireland, such as Mary Kenny and Desmond Fennell have expressed misgivings about a united Ireland, fearing the incorporation of a large number of Protestants would threaten what they see as the Catholic nature of the Republic. A Red C/Sunday Times poll in 2010 found that 57% are in favour of a united Ireland, 22% say they are opposed, while 21% are undecided.
As the percentage of recruits from both communities did not reflect the religious demographics of Northern Ireland, it never became the model Lord Hunt intended. Catholics continued to join the regiment, but the numbers were never representative. They were highest in 3 UDR, which had the highest percentage of Catholics throughout the Troubles, beginning with 30%, although this was a much lower percentage than that of the battalion area. Some sections were staffed entirely by Catholics, which led to protests from the B Specials Association that in 3 UDR "preference for promotion and allocation of appointments was being given to Catholics". This was partially explained by the fact that the mostly Catholic Newry Territorial Army company of the Royal Irish Fusiliers had been disbanded in 1968 and the vast majority of its soldiers had joined the UDR en masse.
Between 2006 and 2011, Catholics decreased as a percentage of the population, but still showed a robust increase in absolute numbers due both to an excess of births over deaths as well as immigration from countries such as Poland. Most recently, Protestantism, including the Church of Ireland, has experienced a slight decrease in percentage, despite having earlier experienced some recovery. Those declaring no religion, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Islam showed significant increases.
According to articles published in 2018 by BBC and Periodista Digital, in Honduras and Guatemala there is a sharp decline in the percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic. This is due to rapid increase of Evangelism in the area. Additionally, the percentage of the population that identifies as Evangelical in these two countries practically matches or surpasses the percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic. The article published in the Spanish website, Periodista Digital, states that the percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic in Honduras is only 37%.