INTRODUCTION

In this final chapter we will attempt to summarise the findings from the various empirical studies reviewed in this present work and interpret them in the light of post-war social change and the global developments which have been taking place in the Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. In this book three levels of reporting have been considered:

1. (a) Description: The first purpose has been simply descriptive, to provide a factual basis to replace hunches and unsubstantiated assertions about English Catholics and so contribute to the understanding of the current state of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. At the end of the 1970s Roman Catholics comprised over one-half of the adult members of the Christian Churches and one-third of adult church attenders in England. There were more Catholics at Mass on Sunday than attenders at the established Church of England (Anon., 1980a: 23). It is claimed that the data presented in this study provide the best empirical basis so far available for the understanding of the English Catholics in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

2. (b) Hypothesis testing: The second purpose of this present study was to test a number of hypotheses about English Catholics formulated at the outset. […]