By MINA AMSO
A survey looking into church culture in New Zealand has found that the majority of Catholics are not involved in their parishes and are not tithing, prompting questions around engagement levels and their sense of belonging within their church.
The 2023 Church Life Survey NZ had feedback from nearly 25,000 Christians in Aotearoa New Zealand last year. Respondents came from some 500 churches, including Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians and Baptists.
People were asked questions around demographics, church life, community engagement, spiritual health and leadership.
Details of findings for Catholics
Survey committee member and historian Professor Peter Lineham said that there isn’t a strong sense of engagement in the local church for many Catholics outside Auckland, unlike their Protestant counterparts.
“The question around midweek activities – for events around the church other than the Sunday Mass, the figures show that there aren’t such events, or the proportion of people who attend is much lower than typical Protestants.
“For quite a lot of Catholics, the preaching does not engage them into action,” he said.
There is however a stronger sense of belonging in Auckland, as migrants make up a dominant majority, and therefore the church is a “critical basis upon which they’re able to feel a part of New Zealand”.
Some 44 per cent of Catholics surveyed said that they had no role within the life of the Church.
“They probably learned these habits from the tradition of leaving the work to the priests and religious orders; but another factor today is that Catholic churches are much larger than most other local churches, and so fewer participants can have roles,” said a report into insights from the survey.
The lower engagement could have possibly determined the poor sense of giving from Catholics, said Professor Lineham.
“If you’re engaged in the life of the parish, you’re more likely for example to sense that there’s a need, and therefore to be engaged in and participate in, and support the activities that are going on.”
Catholics have the lowest levels of giving, with just five percent giving 10 per cent or more of their earnings. This is driven by the reluctance of younger and overseas-born Catholics to give. Low levels of commitment beyond Mass are more common for new migrants, who are understandably preoccupied with settling into New Zealand.
There are striking differences across overall age groups, with 41 per cent of young people giving nothing.
Age, Education and Covid-19 Impact
Considering all the denominations surveyed, churches are gravely lacking in young people, and are over-represented in the older age groups when compared to the general population in the census. But the Catholic Church has a much younger cohort due to migrants, said the report.
Amongst Catholics, the percentage born overseas is 74 per cent in Auckland diocese, but 34 per cent in Wellington Archdiocese, and lower elsewhere.
“In the extreme case of Catholics, the median age of the New Zealand-born is 69, and the median age of migrants is 49. This means that the Auckland churches are significantly younger than other regions.”
Within Catholic churches, some 41 per cent are from Asia, concentrated in Auckland which is 55 per cent Asian.
When compared to the census, church attendees are significantly better educated than the general population.
“We may deduce that churches attract middle class people more than working class people,” said the report.
In fact church attendees are more likely to have a university qualification today (53 per cent) than 20 years ago (25 per cent). Nearly 67 per cent of overseas-born church attendees have a degree, as against 43 per cent of New Zealand-born respondents.
“This reflects trends in wider society, with the rising demand for education in the new generation and amog migrants.”
Church participation after Covid-19 [in 2023] is similar to pre-Covid-19 levels.
Anglican numbers declined by 3 per cent, Baptists 3 per cent, and Catholics 2 per cent. Major net gains were recorded by Independent (9 per cent), Christian Community Churches of NZ (7 per cent), and Confessing Anglicans.
God’s Presence, Values, Spiritual Growth
Some 58 per cent of Catholics responded that they nearly always feel God’s presence, while just 35 per cent of Baptists said the same. That sense of adoration of God curated at Mass seems to powerfully influence attendees’ perceptions, said the report.
In fact, Catholics value Communion the most (51 per cent say that this is one of their most-valued aspects), but this has dropped significantly from the figure of 63 per cent for Catholics in 2001. Traditional worship is significantly more popular among Catholic respondents than in 2001, rising from 28 per cent to 37 per cent.
Overall, nearly half of all church attendees consider that they have grown significantly in a spiritual sense over the past year, and the local church was identified as the key factor by many.
All denominations reported that churches are resourcing spiritual journeys of their attendees well. The results for Auckland Catholics are particularly strong, especially for those born overseas, who value the Church highly for resourcing their spiritual journey. Perhaps there is something in New Zealand Catholicism which really helps migrants, said the report.
However, local born New Zealanders, both Catholic and Protestant, do not feel so strongly on this question.
The survey showed that young people are only moderately satisfied with what is currently offered to support their participation.
“These results suggest many churches have a lot of work to do, if they really want to attract or retain youth. In fact, 15-24 year olds who participated in the survey are more dissatisfied than those older.”
According to the survey, Catholics don’t read their Bibles. Significantly more than half said that they occasionally, hardly ever, or never read their Bibles. Only around 30 per cent of Catholics read the Bible everyday/most days, a few times a week or once a week.
Community Service and Evangelisation
The report found that more than a quarter of respondents are involved in community service or welfare activities [operated by the church]. This is up from 18 per cent in 2001. Also, overseas-born Catholics are much more likely to share the faith with others than those born in New Zealand (27 per cent versus 15 per cent respectively).
“It is another signal that the future of the NZ church increasingly sits with overseas-born Christians.”
Professor Lineham said that there wasn’t such a “bad representation” amongst the different denominations. He felt that there was a balance despite a poor uptake from mega-Pentecostal churches in New Zealand.
“Some of those Pentecostals with their very large churches, we have little idea of representation of them, which is a great pity.”
Findings from the survey showed that people favoured building stronger communities within the church, more spiritual growth, and that they needed worship services that nurtured faith.
“For Catholics, the potential is that, if a priest can engage members of the congregation, there’s a tremendous potential for actual involvement,” said Professor Lineham.
For the denominations that responded to the survey, there were some 8300 Catholics, about 5000 broad Protestants [Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Uniting], and just over 6800 other Protestants [Baptist, The Salvation Army, Confessing Anglicans, Christian Community Churches [CCCNZ], Wesleyan Methodist and Independent].
The survey was made available online for the first time since its inception in mid 1990s, and has been running every five years in line with the NZ Census. It was also the largest since 2001, running from May to November.
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