POPE FRANCIS has inspired a surge in attendances and confessions in the Roman Catholic Church, reversing decades of decline.
In the eight months since he was chosen, cathedrals in Britain have seen a rise of about 20% in congregations, drawing in both new and lapsed members.
More than half of the priests surveyed in Italy said there had been a rise in support for the church. In Spain, the church has halted a decade-long slump in attendance.
Catholic leaders in the US, France and Latin America report growth in the faithful. In Argentina, the Pope’s home country, 12% more now define themselves as religious than before his appointment.
The results suggest Francis’s “electrifying” appeal is breathing new life into a church badly stained by the serial paedophile priest scandals. It is understood he is now talking about setting up church courts around the world to deal with paedophile priests more swiftly and severely.
Francis has spurned a chauffeur to travel by bus, carries his own suitcase and refuses to stay in the lavish papal apartments. There have been humble acts, never seen from a Pope, such as living in a hostel, washing the feet of female prisoners and embracing a man with the grotesquely disfiguring condition of neurofibromatosis, the rare disease said to have affected the Elephant Man.
The church’s appeal also seems to have been broadened by radical policies such as announcing that Francis will not judge gay people, reforming Vatican bureaucracy and consulting ordinary Catholics on controversial topics including contraception and sex before marriage.
Last night, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, hailed the “Francis effect”. He said “God’s love” shone “through the words and actions of Pope Francis”.
This week The Catholic Herald newspaper called on priests across Britain to copy the Pope’s style. Luke Coppen, its editor, said Francis had had an “electrifying” effect on Catholics in the UK.
In a Sunday Times survey of the 22 Catholic cathedrals in England and Wales, 13 responded, and 11 of those reported a rise. In the nine cathedrals that provided figures, 11,461 people attended in October last year against 13,862 this year — a 21% increase. The largest rises were in Leeds (35%), Sheffield (23%) and Bristol (20%).
Lolly Bell, a 42-year-old mother of two from Bromley, southeast London, is a new convert. Raised as a non-believer, she was so moved by Francis’s inaugural speech on the Vatican balcony she began attending church.
“The words he speaks, they’re not words shrouded in tradition that make you pensive or fearful,” she said. “What he conveys to me is that my faith in God and God’s faith in me is at my level. His very words, just there in a moment, enabled me to completely U-turn.”
Attendances at the Pope’s weekly address have surged to 85,000 last month against 5,000 for his predecessor, Benedict XVI. It has had to be moved to St Peter’s Square to accommodate the numbers.
In Italy, 51% of 250 priests interviewed by a church monitoring group, Cesnur, reported a rise in support. Massimo Introvigne, a researcher, said hundreds of thousands of people could be returning to the church.
In Spain, the proportion of people attending Mass has risen from 12% to 13% this year, according to a survey.
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