Perth Catholics are being invited to contribute to a study working to collect data about Catholics in Australia and what they believe.
Led by Professor Stephen Bullivant from the University of Notre Dame Australia and St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK and Dr Philippa Martyr from the University of Western Australia, the study is being undertaken through an online anonymous questionnaire.
Professor Bullivant has recently co-published a book titled Catholics in Contemporary Britain which looked at the demographics of the British Catholic community and their religious ‘believing’, ‘belonging’, and ‘behaving’ as well as social-moral issues, church leadership and schooling, and party allegiances and voting behaviour.
Dr Martyr said
the study came about following the wide range of Catholics in Australia – who
contributed to the recent Plenary Council which took place over four years – shared
their vision for the future of the Church in Australia.
“These sessions have thrown up a lot of interesting questions,” Dr Martyr said.
“We would like to try to understand these perspectives by finding out more about what ordinary Catholics across Australia think and believe, and how they feel about the Church and ‘being Catholic’,” she said.
The questions mostly require participants to tick a box to respond, so there’s very little writing involved.
Participants must be 18 years or older and reasonably fluent in English, participation is voluntary, and participants can withdraw at any time without explanation by closing their web browser.
The questionnaire can be completed at a time that is convenient to you, and should take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.
The survey is being conducted from October to December 2022.
The link to the survey is https://notredame.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bdyxQ0e3Ivj5qOa
There is a participant information sheet at the beginning of the survey which will give you more information about it, and some relevant contact details if you have any concerns.
For more information, or if participants have any questions about the study, contact Professor Bullivant at stephen.bullivant1@nd.edu.au or Philppa Martyr at philippa.martyr@uwa.edu.au.