Scotland’s religious collapse

00:00 04:49

Melanie McDonagh has narrated this article for you to listen to.

Last week, I had a drink with a Catholic priest friend who works with young people in custody. Inevitably, our talk turned to how radically unchurched they are – not badly disposed to Christianity, just unfamiliar with much of the doctrine and almost all the forms of worship, even though many had a Catholic granny or a non-practising parent. He mused over the startling speed of the secularisation of society. ‘Protestantism has collapsed,’ he said, and not in any triumphalist spirit.

And so it has turned out in Scotland. The latest census, published last month, shows that for the first time a majority of Scots identify as ‘no religion’ whatsoever. This makes Scotland that bit more secular than England and Wales, which are majority non-Christian but not majority non-religious.