Drop in Sunday Mass attendance hits parishes hard all across Malta

A steep decline in Sunday Mass attendance cuts across all parishes in Malta, the results from a census carried out by the Church show.

The census was carried out in December 2017 and the detailed results were published recently by the Maltese Curia.

The findings show that on the weekend of the census, only 36% of Catholics in Malta obliged to attend Sunday Mass did so. In the 2005 census, 51% of Catholics had attended.

The census found that 111,863 people attended Sunday Mass, a drop from the 167,839 who did so 12 years earlier.

The census was carried out by the Maltese diocese and covers only the island of Malta.

Parishes in the Southern Harbour region experienced the heaviest losses with a drop of 38% in Sunday Mass attendance when compared to the census results of 2005.

Likewise, parishes in the Northern Harbour region saw significantly fewer people attending Sunday Mass, recording a decline of 37% over a 12-year period.

The least decline was registered in the parishes in the Northern region, where attendance dropped by 21%.

Overall Sunday Mass attendance declined by 33% in 2017 when compared with 2005.

The census covered a particular weekend, covering all Masses taking place between Saturday evening and Sunday evening. It also included Masses organised by religious groups held in places other than churches.

Sunday Mass attendance is obligatory for Catholics and is deemed as a measure of engagement between the faithful and the Church.

The figures cannot be attributed to a decline in the service offered because in 12 years, the places of worship increased and the number of Sunday Masses declined by a mere 5%.

The census also showed that 76% of those who attended Sunday Mass received Holy Communion, while 20% did not. The rest did not answer.

The census was accompanied by a survey commissioned by the Curia, which was held in the week after the census.

The survey found that 54% of Catholics claimed to have attended Mass the previous Sunday, a figure which contrasts with the 36% recorded by the census.

However, the researchers explained this discrepancy by citing social desirability bias. This is a tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favourably by others, a factor which tends to be present in such surveys.

According to the survey, attendance was highest in the Northern Harbour region with 59% and the lowest in the Western region with 49%.