Shocking Survey of Irish Knowledge of Christianity

The Iona Institute, an excellent new venture to support marriage led by David Quinn has published the results of a poll to measure knowledge of some basic Christian teachings among various age groups in Ireland. The results are truly shocking.
Ten fairly simple questions were asked and the results are given for the age groups 15-24, over 65, and for the general population. It appears that on third of the younger group do not know where Jesus was born or why Easter is celebrated. Only 5% could say what is the first of the Ten Commandments. Perhaps the most surprising finding was that in all categories more people were able to name the Evangelists (overall 66%) than were able to say that there were four of them!
So much for the wonderful Alive-O RE syllabus used in Irish schools.

Fr. Iggy Unrepentant

Some of you may remember the fuss last Easter when an Augustinian priest in Drogheda 'concelebrated Mass' with the local Anglican clergyman. A friend in that part of the world has just sent me a snippet from last week's Drogheda Independent describing the award of a civic honour to Fr. 'Iggy' O'Donovan for 'bringing religion back to the centre stage'.
In relation to the infamous Easter 'Mass', "when asked if he would do it all again, he answered a clear 'yes, but not in the same way
'I don't think people were quite ready for it. But having said that, Drogheda is a great place to try things out. When you look at Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams this week, my gesture looks very small indeed. It shows what can be done.
'It has been a very tough year and we have had to back off on what we were trying to do. But not trying is definitely failing.'"
So it was all just a 'gesture'. How sad!