.webp?h=8 "Merry Fistmas!")
The dumb mick distant cousins of mine too dumb to have gotten off the island have apostatized and turned to Moloch. It is absolutely shocking to see what has happened in just a few decades. 
Please pray for them. There is no greater evil in the world today than the ritual sacrifice of children for pagan promises of wealth. It is being performed all around us today.
A devotion kept within my family on special feasts was the Litany of All Saints of Ireland, dating back centuries but this is a version published in 1921. If you have the time, these prayers are most needed.
For the sake of brevity, I ask you to join me:
O Lord, our God.
We place our trust in You,
Because you are mercy itself.
We repent of our sins and turn to You for mercy.
We trust You to provide for our every need, according to Your will.
Help us to forgive others as You forgive us.
We promise to be merciful by our deeds, words and prayers.
Though we have fears because of human weakness, we rely on Your infinite goodness and mercy.
We entrust to You the future of our planet, our Church, our nations, our families and all our needs.
With loud cries we implore your mercy on us and on the whole world.
Look upon us, created in your image and likeness.
Form us in the Heart of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit into the living images of mercy.
May all come to know the depth of Your mercy and sing the praises of Your mercy forever.
Amen!
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Ah, so that's why Ireland's birth rate tanked the past few years. They were one of the very few EU countries that hovered around 2 kids per woman, now they're at like 1.6
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They went from ~90% Mass attendance to below 10% within my lifetime. It's nuts. No other country has seen that type of decline in such a short period.
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How true are those numbers? I don't care about religion one bit but that's pretty wild honestly.
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https://ewtn.ie/2023/03/17/signs-of-hope-and-renewal-amid-the-dramatic-decline-of-the-catholic-church-in-ireland/
This quotes 91% weekly attendance in 1975-30% attendance in 2021. It's dropped further since then, but maybe the 10% number was looking at the younger generations alone(?). I do know I've seen that number in an article before.
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Incredible, it's such a massive shift.
I guess it's somewhat similar here, just the numbers were much smaller to begin with - 30% down to 6%
We do have mass on state TV though not sure how much that changes things
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If by here you mean the USA, it's far less dramatic. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/
Mainline Protestantism cratered, everyone else has seen a comparably modest decline. A majority still identify themselves in some way as Christian.
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No, France.
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Oh... France's numbers have been bad for quite some time yes. I know I've read in a book that by the late 50s (so prior to the rest of the world) only ~25% of Catholics attended Mass weekly yet something like 60% took at least one pilgrimage a year.
Confusing if true, but I want to say it was included in one of the books on V2 I've read. I'll try to pull it up and CC you if/when I do. I was gonna longpost about 20th century Catholic history soon so it'd be relevant to find.
I mean your country was ground zero for secularism in Europe after all.
@WayOut
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The less french people in Heaven the better, I already have to deal with them down here I'm not spending my eternity with Parisians.
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I always wondered, are there any concrete reasons for that?
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S*x abuse scandal, large number of gay priests and one of the worst run national seminaries in Europe, similarly to Canada there were falsified claims of mass graves at Catholic orphanages in Ireland going back to the 90s or 2000s.
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I would guess the troubles and a couple of scandals turned young people off the church entirely.
While the troubles were ongoing, membership was possibly inflated by sentiments like "I don't really believe in the church but I have to support them against those Cath/Prot bastards." and people generally turning to religion in times of strife.
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Probably the whole kiddy fiddling thing
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The entire western
world 
is seeing a huge drop in birth 
rates. This isn't unique to Ireland.
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