FOUR out of five parents intend to let their children choose their own religion rather than force them to join the Catholic Church as compared to just 7% of parents who felt the same 30 years ago.

This modern picture of Ireland is revealed in new research which revealed 82% of parents would let their children make up their own minds about faith. It also found that 12% of Irish people no longer believe in God and 22% do not think there is an afterlife.

The findings of the MRBI/RTÉ poll come just one week ahead of separate research on 700 young couples compiled by the Accord marriage counselling service. Reacting to those and the MRBI/RTÉ findings, Accord’s director of counselling services, John Farrelly, said recent surveys show young parents do not want to force faith upon their children.

He suggested people are now more wary of teaching beliefs from mass-organisations such as religion or politics, and welcomed the emergence of individual thought.

Mr Farrelly warned that parents must be wary of the fact that children will seek moral guidance elsewhere. “It’s about giving children a blueprint. You cannot force opinions on children, but you have to give them fundamental concepts of right and wrong and the golden rules to live by. I believe the Christian teachings provide a very good blueprint for life, but that is up to each parent to decide. You cannot just leave them without any direction,” he said.

David Quinn of the religious think-tank, the Iona Institute, suggested the spiritual message was being lost. “Parents need to realise that if the parent does not provide some guidance, their children will end up being influenced by something else and that will probably be some peer group or an outside influence,” he said.

Mr Quinn said parishes around the country were willing to spend millions restoring churches, but would not put emphasis on filling seats.

“The Church pays lip service to communication but it needs to spend a little of its resources actually getting its message out to people,” he said.

Mr Farrelly disagreed and said the Church should not get sucked into a sound-byte culture. He said it was the role of the Church to be clear in its message and trust people to make their own mind up.

The results of the poll were unveiled in tandem with calls for the dominant position of Catholic teaching in primary schools to be relaxed. General secretary of the Irish National Teachers Organisation John Carr said those providing education had a responsibility to reflect changing trends and give children alternatives. “We must face the reality that within the primary education system many of our schools give little or no formal knowledge or understanding of our relationships with some Christian and non-Christian religions. Children in many cases are not afforded the opportunity of exploring the beliefs and practices of other faiths,” he said.

This comes in the wake of census figures which showed a growing number of people from different faiths living in Ireland.

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