.....LOS PAÍSES.....

Religion in Ireland

Ireland is a very religious country. Most of its population is Catholic (86.8%), but in the last few years, a lot of people has stopped going to church (between 1996 and 2001, the regular attendance to Mass fell from 60 to 48%). One of the reasons of this fact are the numerous sexual scandals of the Irish Catholic clergy discovered during the decade of the nineties.

                                                                                                                                                  An Irish Catholic woman prying

The rest of the religious people in Ireland practise another variants of Christianity (the Church of Ireland is the one that has more faithful) or they are Muslims. The number of faithful of these secondary religions has increased recently.

Finally, there is about a 5% percent of the Irish population who doesn’t practise any religion; they are atheistic or agnostics.

As the religion is very important in Ireland, it influences the people’s way of thinking about topics like the divorce, the abortion, the contraception and the homosexuality, which is more conservative than in another European countries.

The religion also plays a decisive role in the political conflict in Northern Ireland, where the religious ideology that you have decides your political ideology. In this way, if you are a Catholic, you will be definitely a nationalist (it means that you will want Northern Ireland to be independent of the United Kingdom), and if you are a protestant, it’s sure that you will be a unionist (you will defend that Northern Ireland must be part of the UK).

                                                                                                                                                                                            

A catholic nationalists’ demonstration in the city of Derry, in Northern Ireland, asking for their independence of the UK

It’s completely logical that a country as religious as Ireland has many religious buildings like churches, monasteries, cathedrals, etc. Some of the most important ones are Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Saint Michan’s Church (which belong to the Church of Ireland), in Dublin; Saint Columba’s Cathedral (which is Roman Catholic), in Londonderry; The Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity (Roman Catholic), in Waterford; Christ the King Cathedral (Roman Catholic), in Mullingar; Saint Mel’s Cathedral (Roman Catholic), in Longford; Saint John’s Cathedral (Roman Catholic), in Limerick; Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Roman Catholic), in Kilkenny; Belfast Cathedral (Church of Ireland), Carlow Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Ballaghaderren Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Ennis Cathedral (Roman Catholic) and Galway Cathedral (Roman Catholic).

                                                              St. Patrick’s Cathedral                                                                                                                                               
            St. John’s Cathedral

                                             

                                                                                            St. Mary’s Cathedral 

                                                                                       Belfast Cathedral

                                                       

                                                                                            Carlow Cathedral           

    
                                                                      Galway Cathedral

                              

                    Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity                                                                           Christ the King Cathedral

Ennis Cathedral

Religion in England

The religion in England in similar to the religion in Ireland, but it is different in some ways. The Christianity is the most important religion, because it is practised or declared by the majority of the English population, but it is not as popular as in Ireland (there are approximately 79% of Christians in England, a 15% less than in Ireland). The proportion of Catholics is much lower: there are only about a 15%. The official church in England is the Anglican Church of England, which has got almost 25,500,000 faithful (50% of the population); this Christian Church is distinguished by its tolerance and liberality (for example, women can be priests since 1994). The rest of the Christian English people are Presbyterians or Methodists (14%). Because of the high number of Protestants, English people don’t usually assist to Mass nor consider very important the sacraments, instead they prefer preaching.

An English Anglican priest

Apart from Christianity, there is a 6% of the population in England who follow other religions: they are Muslims (3.2%), Hindus (1.2%), Sikh (0.7%), Jewish (0.6%) or Buddhist (0.3%). The people who have no religion represent the 15% of the total population, quite more than in Ireland.

There are many religious buildings in England. The most numerous are the Anglican churches, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, in London; Canterbury Cathedral, Bristol Cathedral, Chester Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, Leicester Cathedral, Manchester Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, Portsmouth Cathedral, York Minster, etc. There are some Catholic churches too, like the Cathedral Church of Saint Marie, in Sheffield; Westminster Cathedral, Arundel Cathedral, Brentwood Cathedral, Lancaster Cathedral, Northampton Cathedral, Salford Cathedral..., and a very few of mosques, synagogues, etc.

                                                 

St. Paul’s Cathedral                                                                                                                 Westminster Abbey

                  

Canterbury Cathedral                                                                                Bristol Cathedral

                                                   

Exeter Cathedral                                                                                                   Leicester Cathedral

                                           

Liverpool Cathedral                                                                                                   Manchester Cathedral

                                

Peterborough Cathedral                                                                                    Portsmouth Cathedral

                                                                  

York Minster                                                                                                             Cathedral Church of St. Marie

                                  

Westminster Cathedral                                                                                Arundel Cathedral

                                     

Northampton Cathedral                                                                                          Salford Cathedral