The aim of the survey was to discover the changes in the daily life of the believers and their religious practices after dealing with two years of the pandemic. How will this change in the consciousness of the believers affect the life of the church in the future and what are the ways the church will face these changes in the pastoral life?
It was a random selection of 4879 laypeople, 175 priests, 384 women religious, 44 men religious, for a total of 5482. A survey was made in May of 2020 by the 'Our Theology Research Institute' this is the second one on the pandemic situation in the church. The first survey was made when we had no Mass for over two months. This survey was made after 1 year with certain restrictions, but Masses continued, and comparisons were made.
This present survey has clearly shown that the crisis feeling of the believers has weakened. In the first survey, the religious life of the believers was the biggest change with 90.7 % response, but in the second survey, it decreased to 34.1%. Also, awareness of the importance of faith and the church community decreased from 89% to 76% in the second survey.
While the sense of crisis was blunted, there was a high awareness that the role of the church for the Christian life has to change. Respondents answered for the most part that the most important pastoral activities after the pandemic was to seek a new role for the parish, to shift from the liturgy being the center to faithfulness in the daily life of the believers.
The ordinary understanding of our religious life: liturgy, devotional activities, requires we re-examine the meaning of faith and the religious life centered on the liturgy and pious activities, which were previously considered to be the religious life, they are experiencing a crisis and are demanding new answers.
The church's common concern is interest in the world and our neighbors and agreed to by almost all. The respondents wanted to learn how to live in the world with this priority. Not only the individual believer but also the community has to learn how to face the world.
Many of the respondents hope that Synodality (all the members of the church walking together) which has begun will bring a change in the pastoral life of the church. Most of the respondents thought that the church is managed for the most part by the clergy. One-third of the laity said the ideas of the believers don't reach the clergy and hope this will change with Synodality.
