“It is not surprising that in our country — with all the recent economic problems and hardship, with increasing disillusionment in politics and institutions including the churches, with the pandemic, with war on all continents — that peoples’ faith is wavering. We understand people are struggling to believe,” the spokesman said.
He added: “As the late Pope Benedict XVI said, ‘When the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping.’”
When asked about whether a failure to evangelize by the Church’s hierarchy was a contributing factor, the spokesman told CNA: “We could always do better. Evangelization is always a priority for the bishops. Unfortunately, the ground over the past decade since the last census has been particularly dry with all the issues mentioned above.”
The Church of Scotland remains the largest group among those who said they had a religion, but the overall number of people who identified as Church of Scotland has also decreased in the past decade.
In 2011, 32.4% of respondents said they belonged to the Church of Scotland, but this figure now stands at 20.4%, according to the latest results. This means a decrease of 610,000 people since 2011 and more than 1 million since 2001.
Meanwhile, the second largest religious group in Scotland is listed as Roman Catholic, with 13.3% identifying as such in 2022. The number of people who described themselves as Catholic decreased by 117,7000 since 2011, according to a statement from Scotland’s Census released on May 21.
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