THE WIDESPREAD decline in church attendance and rapid growth in apathy towards religion were addressed in vivid terms by a report presented to the Church of Ireland General Synod in Armagh, yesterday.

The commission on ministry report by the Archdeacon of Tuam Gary Hastings said that “metaphors of cancer and the Titanic may be too dramatic; it’s more a matter of slow, quiet respectable deflation, a gentle haemorrhaging allowing us to drift off to sleep in the damp and hallowed halls of elder glory.

“If it is a crisis, it is a crisis in slow motion,” he said.

He predicted that “in 20 years’ time, or possibly before that, many small rural churches will either be gone, or on their last legs”.

A large proportion had “an elderly or at least later middle-aged population and the gap between the very young (under 12 or Confirmation age) and the next age group above them is widening”.

It was no longer the case that young people, having departed after Confirmation, returned in later life with their own children as was once the case.

“A cord has been cut, the tradition of osmotically passing on the faith, combined with weekly church attendance, is past,” he said. This was “also the case for other denominations, especially the institutional churches, both here in western Europe and North America”. Religion had been marginalised from mainstream culture, he added.

This decline would require “deeper thought than a knee-jerk reaction or metaphorical call to arms. It will need conversation and discussion with all the patience, farsightedness and wisdom we can muster and result in change at levels deeper than liturgy and robes and hymn books”, he said.