The first anniversary of the publication of the Ryan Report was marked earlier this month by both victims and support groups. Such an anniversary rightly belongs to those who suffered and continue to suffer and had to endure the humiliation of not being listened to or acknowledged for too long.
Following the devastating revelations of the Ryan Report some people were so disturbed that they felt they could no longer call the Catholic Church home. Indeed, such was their anger that they felt the best way to register their anger was to exercise their right to formally defect from the religion of their birth.
As the first anniversary of the Ryan Report came and went several newspapers ran headlines about the ''more than 10,000 people'' who have defected from the Church since the publication of the report. The figure doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny however.
In another sign, or the all-too-familiar lowering in journalistic standards when it comes to checking facts concerned with the Church, what the newspapers failed to point out was the fact that the much-heralded figure of 10,000 refers simply to those who clicked the link to generate the form to defect. That is to say the 10,000 figure includes:
-Those who formally defected;
-Those who considered defecting and then thought otherwise;
-Those who generated the form but didn't go to the trouble of sending it to the Church;
-Those who clicked on the link out of curiosity or to see the defection formula including journalists from this paper.
A simple survey by this newspaper this week reveals that the real figure for those who have formally renounced their baptism (based on completed and returned forms) is likely less than 10pc of the figure widely quoted in the media (see page 6). And this is despite the fact that the countmeout.ie phenomenon has received huge media exposure.
This is not to minimise the dramatic effect of people leaving the Church as a result of scandal nor can it be taken as a smug assurance that less people are leaving than we expected. What it does highlight is the uncritical attitude taken by many newspapers to apparent instances of bad news for the Church.
Accepting inflated figures fits nicely into a narrative that would seek to portray the Catholic Church in Ireland as being in terminal decline. If that is what some commentators believe let them back it up with credible evidence.
While there is a decline from the days of 98% Mass attendances, there is still phenomenal support for ordinary Christian faith as it is lived in homes, schools, hospitals, parishes and communities in every corner of this country on a daily basis. The Church in Ireland is suffering from a crisis of identity and confidence, but any other organisation with the numbers that the Catholic Church has in Ireland would consider itself successful and well placed to begin a renewal.
