Meet the 'nones': An ever increasing group across Europe with little to no religious affiliation
In Italy, the cradle of Catholicism, new research suggests that only 19% of citizens attend services at least weekly, while 31% never attend at all - and it's a trend already growing in some European nations.
They’re called the “nones” and are growing in numbers every day.
It’s a term for those increasingly rejecting organised religion, even in countries in which faith is typically at the core of their very identity.
Scandinavian countries and north west Europe - think France and the United Kingdom - have been well known for their widespread secularism for years.
According to recent findings from the Pew Research Centre survey, 78% of Italians still profess to be of the Catholic faith.
So far, so believable.
Dig a little deeper though and you’ll see a very different picture.
The Italian statistics agency, ISTAT, says only 19% attend services at least weekly - while 31% never attend at all.
“‘I don’t have time, I don’t feel like it’ - there isn’t a real reason. That’s what’s scary”, the Reverend Giovanni Mandozzi, a parish priest in the central mountain village of Isola, tells AP.
Despite his attempts to persuade his parishioners to return to services - “I tell them, ‘I do Mass in under 40 minutes, you can leave your pasta sauce on the stove, and it won’t even stick to the bottom of the pot” - attendance is at an all time low.
Mandozzi is forced to preach in a former butchers shop after two earthquakes in the Abruzzo region have caused significant damage to Isola’s church since 2009.
Next door, though, the atmosphere can best be described as buzzy. The venue? A bar - packed with young families.
“Sunday used to be church with your family. Now youths don’t even want to hear about it, like an ancient thing that’s useless”, the mother of two teens expands.
At another bar nearby - which, a little ironically, faces a mediaeval chapel - a group of friends in their 20s enjoy a drink.
Catholicism is still a central part of another rite of passage for many - wedding ceremonies.
They remain the choice of about 60% of Italians marrying for the first time.
Catholic funerals, too, are still said to be favoured by 70% of Italians, although some funeral directors are opting to build ‘neutral’ wake rooms in their establishments to appeal to those keen not to focus on God at the end of their lives.
To qualify as ‘highly religious’, respondents had to tick at least two boxes out of the following criteria: attending religious services at least monthly, praying at least daily, believing in God with absolute certainty or saying that religion is very important to them.
In Greece, for example, roughly half of adults fall under that category whereas, in countries like Denmark, Sweden and the UK, that number falls to just one in 10.
That statistic doesn’t mean, though, that all countries in Western Europe have low levels of religious commitment - and also that not all countries in Central and Eastern Europe are at the higher end of the index.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/08/meet...s-affiliat
In Italy, the cradle of Catholicism, new research suggests that only 19% of citizens attend services at least weekly, while 31% never attend at all - and it's a trend already growing in some European nations.
They’re called the “nones” and are growing in numbers every day.
It’s a term for those increasingly rejecting organised religion, even in countries in which faith is typically at the core of their very identity.
Scandinavian countries and north west Europe - think France and the United Kingdom - have been well known for their widespread secularism for years.
According to recent findings from the Pew Research Centre survey, 78% of Italians still profess to be of the Catholic faith.
So far, so believable.
Dig a little deeper though and you’ll see a very different picture.
The Italian statistics agency, ISTAT, says only 19% attend services at least weekly - while 31% never attend at all.
“‘I don’t have time, I don’t feel like it’ - there isn’t a real reason. That’s what’s scary”, the Reverend Giovanni Mandozzi, a parish priest in the central mountain village of Isola, tells AP.
Despite his attempts to persuade his parishioners to return to services - “I tell them, ‘I do Mass in under 40 minutes, you can leave your pasta sauce on the stove, and it won’t even stick to the bottom of the pot” - attendance is at an all time low.
Mandozzi is forced to preach in a former butchers shop after two earthquakes in the Abruzzo region have caused significant damage to Isola’s church since 2009.
Next door, though, the atmosphere can best be described as buzzy. The venue? A bar - packed with young families.
“Sunday used to be church with your family. Now youths don’t even want to hear about it, like an ancient thing that’s useless”, the mother of two teens expands.
At another bar nearby - which, a little ironically, faces a mediaeval chapel - a group of friends in their 20s enjoy a drink.
Catholicism is still a central part of another rite of passage for many - wedding ceremonies.
They remain the choice of about 60% of Italians marrying for the first time.
Catholic funerals, too, are still said to be favoured by 70% of Italians, although some funeral directors are opting to build ‘neutral’ wake rooms in their establishments to appeal to those keen not to focus on God at the end of their lives.
To qualify as ‘highly religious’, respondents had to tick at least two boxes out of the following criteria: attending religious services at least monthly, praying at least daily, believing in God with absolute certainty or saying that religion is very important to them.
In Greece, for example, roughly half of adults fall under that category whereas, in countries like Denmark, Sweden and the UK, that number falls to just one in 10.
That statistic doesn’t mean, though, that all countries in Western Europe have low levels of religious commitment - and also that not all countries in Central and Eastern Europe are at the higher end of the index.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/08/meet...s-affiliat
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
