Fr Micheál Mac Gréil’s new book, ‘Pluralism and Diversity in Ireland’, has some interesting findings as regards religious practice in Ireland.

Perhaps one of the most interesting points he makes is that only 38.7pc of of Catholics who report having completed secondary schooling attend weekly Mass as against 62.2pc of those who went to a VEC and 42.1pc of the overall population.

Thus, 4.8pc fewer Catholics who have completed secondary school report attending weekly Mass compared to the rest of the Catholic population, and it is a whopping 23.5pc less than the number who were educated in a VEC.

Commenting on this, Fr Mac Gréil, a sociologist, said that the figures did not reflect “all that well on the Catholic ethos of the the secondary schools attended by the vast majority of these respondents”.

There was also a discrepancy between fee-paying and non-fee paying secondary schools. Those who had completed non-fee paying secondary schools had a Mass attendance rate of 36.1pc while those attending fee-pay school had a Mass attendance rate of 46.5pc.

Whatever the reason for the high level of practice among VEC graduates, the figures would certainly cause one to reflect on why the level of participation among those coming out of many Catholic-run schools is so low.

One might also refer back to an opinion poll conducted by Landsdowne Market Research on behalf of the Iona Institute in 2007 on religious knowledge.

It showed that young people had very poor levels of basic religious knowledge. 

For example, less than half (38pc) of respondents aged 15-24 knew that there were four books in the Gospel. Only 52pc in that age bracket could name the authors of the Gospels.

Only 47pc in that age cohort knew the Persons of the Trinity, while only 48pc knew that the first book of the Bible was Genesis.

Only 10pc could say what was the meaning of the Immaculate Conception, while only 15pc could give the correct definition of transubstantiation, the transformation during Mass of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, which is at the core of the Catholic faith.

Obviously, the reasons for the collapse in religious knowledge and practice are complex and interrelated. But the fact that young people coming out of Catholic secondary schools are less likely to practice than the average, and the fact that so few seem to know basic facts about their faith ought to prompt some serious soul-searching.