by Diana Lazar

For centuries, Catholicism has been the leading religion in Ireland. While it still leads by far, no one can deny the steady decline of Catholic identification and church attendance numbers in the past few decades.

According to the Census 2022, there has been a 10% decrease from 79% to 69% of the population who identify as Catholic since the previous Census six years ago.

Evangelical churches such as the Pentecostal and Presbyterian churches have been noticeably growing due to inward migration, particularly from Africa, Asia, South America, and certain eastern European countries. They tend to be more conservative in their theology and social beliefs than other branches of Christianity.

Maria Pop grew up in the Pentecostal church community, “I attended church regularly every Sunday, and occasionally on other days of the week,” she said. “Parents in the church are told that since the first few years of a child’s life are the main formative years and the framework for the rest of the child’s life, it is imperative to expose the child as much as possible to the church.”

She took part in many of the church activities as a child.

“My main experiences as a young child in the church are mostly positive. I would attend Sunday school with other children my age. We’d read books and comics, watch movies, play games, and occasionally prepare songs to sing in front of the rest of the church.

“Of course, all these activities were Christianity presented in a child-friendly manner. That is until you reach ‘older child’ status and suddenly the Sunday school teachers are talking about alcohol, sins, lust, purity, Satan, spiritual warfare, and the rapture. At this point, my church attendance had trailed off. I tried to push away some of the ideas they were putting on us,” Pop said.

After her attendance started to drop, things were not the same for her anymore.

“When I did attend, it was nice to catch up with my church friends, but the heavy, seemingly philosophical topics covered in Sunday school were always a source of unease. It felt like anytime someone would mention the evil world, they would be referring to people like me, who weren’t completely engrossed in the church,” she said.

For Pop, being a part of a community did come with positive aspects.

“The church has been a consistent source of community my whole life. They were alwaysthere, and they continue to always be there. We were taught how to play instruments, we’d go on trips locally, and abroad. We’d go Christmas carolling with our families. It was a positive experience to grow up with the sight of the church adults carrying out charity events and travelling to areas of poverty to support people in need. The church raises money and transports necessities to impoverished areas every Christmas,” she said.

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Pop does not agree with some of the ideologies shared in the church, however.

“Most of the churchgoers are simple, humble people with good intentions, but they’ve just been raised to see the world as this horrifying monster that wants to break apart their families and corrupt their kids. Some of the ideas that have been passed down through the generations are damaging, and they continue to be passed down, despite the progressive century we are in.

“Not unexpectedly, most of the churchgoers, including women themselves, are prejudiced against women. Frequently during church services, the pastor, or the men in leadership will preach about women’s faults. How women lead men to perversion by wearing skirts that are too short, or too tight. How women of today need to learn how to listen to men, because God made men rational, but women emotional. Often, they will list things that women in the church are not allowed to do like paint their nails, get Botox, wear jewellery or heavy makeup,” she added.

Judgement fell upon her from her community as she grew older.

“Throughout my adolescent years, my church friends, and other church adults found my posture, my humour, my lack of style, and my aspiring career goals distasteful. It is a commonly accepted idea that women need to be meek and kind, always dress nicely, and they must always assume a mature motherly persona, even from a young age. Yet, the men in the church are allowed to make crude jokes, be loud, attend Sunday service in jeans, lack basic manners, and most of all, have dreams bigger than just a wife and children,” she said.

The women are expected to start a family as soon as possible.

“If a woman is unmarried in her mid-twenties, people begin to wonder what is wrong with her. But if a man is thirty and unmarried, nobody bats an eyelid. There isn’t much of a concept of a woman wanting anything other than a husband and as many children as the Lord gives her. College is just something we’re supposed to do while we wait to get married. Once we’re married, we’ll forget about everything that we’ve learnt, and start giving our husband children.

“The concept of submission is taken very seriously in the church, and the nineteen-year-old girls who get married are expected to fully submit to their husband’s wishes and wait on them hand and foot. This submission can be from something as minor as permission for a new hairdo, to something as major as their career choice or number of children to have,” Pop added.

Image: Unsplash

The church places a great deal of focus on the Biblical Book of Revelation’s ‘End Times’ which is an ideology about the rapture coming to Earth soon. The belief is that all repented Christians will get brought to heaven, while everyone else gets left behind to suffer.

“In my personal experience, it was a great way to introduce an abundance of anxiety into a nine-year-old child. I would constantly ask my parents for reassurance that I was good enough to be saved. Innocuous thunderstorms, flight turbulence, news of wars and environmental disasters, all seemed, to my fragile mind, as signs that the end was possibly occurring, or just about to occur,” she said.

The idea of some people not being saved in the apocalypse created a division between Pop and others.

“Mentally, I saw myself and my church friends as completely cut off from the world. We were different, and we were going to go to Heaven. All the other kids were sinners and would go to hell. Many churchgoers, even as adults, have adopted this divide between themselves and the ‘unholy’ world. Their interactions are superficial with people of different beliefs, including other denominations.

“Being raised in the church gave me a sense of superiority as a child, but as I became a teenager and distanced myself from the church, I realised how alienating it is to think that way. All humans are brought onto the same earth, we all have the same fundamental needs, and we are much more similar than we are different, even down to a genetic level,” she said.

Her drift from religious belief strained her relationship with her family.

“This is a common occurrence for anyone who slightly strays away from the church. It is baffling how families that would express excitement for the birth of their child, and that nothing else matters except that their baby is healthy, are the same families who are willing to cut off their grown-up child, all because they no longer share the same beliefs.

“Many are under the illusion that having a child means that the child will only ever be an extension of themselves, rather than a person with independent beliefs and wishes. So, they do not accept when the child deviates away from the good Christian soldier-for-Christ script. It is easier for them to reject their child and lose their emotional connection to them because if they are unbelievers, they are going to eternally suffer in Hell, and that reality would be too difficult to bear,” she added.