Australia: A Religious Country?

With parents who both grew up in devout Catholic families, attending church weekly and looking to prayer in times of need, my siblings and I have always considered religion a very fundamental part of our lives. It was therefore no surprise to me that in the first phone conversation I had with my mother when I arrived in Australia, less than an hour after I hopped of the plane following a 24-hour journey, she asked me where the nearest church was to my apartment. Embarrassed, I told her I was unsure, but locating one would be one of the first things I did.

On that first day in this new country, when exploring the town I would be living in for the next four months, I found what I was looking for 2 blocks from my apartment: St. Brigid’s Catholic Church. St. Brigid’s appeared very similar to the church I attend at home in New Jersey with stone exterior, wooden pews, and stain glass adorning the walls. Not only was the structure similar but also after attending mass that first Sunday, I realized that the mass itself was almost identical: the parishioners were dressed in their Sunday best and the order of the mass was the same, having also adapted the new words to several songs and prayers as in the United States. The one difference I can account for was the accent of the priest, posing a listening challenge for me.

Prior to arriving in Australia, I had hoped to observe the religious differences that existed between the United States and Australia. Aware I was not going to observe these differences at St. Brigid’s, I turned to two alternates: the internet and my personal day-to-day observations throughout my stay. Through Internet research, it was apparent that religious diversity in Australia is profoundly shaped by immigration. At the end of World War II, a boom created by Australia’s large-scale immigration program has since led to over 7 million people settling in Australia since 1945.

As these immigrants came to Australia, they brought over with them their diverse collection of religious affiliations, reshaping Australia’s religious identity. The migration waves over recent decades in combination with the increasing number of nonreligious people in the country (22.3% of Australian’s declaring “no-religion” on the 2011 Census) has led to a decrease in Christianity. Although Australia remains a predominantly Christian country in the 21st century, with 61.6% of Australian’s adhering to the religion as reported in the 2011 Census, Christianity has historically displayed much higher percentages.

Upon completing this research, I decided that over the next four months I would pay close attention to the religious presence in Australia. As I explored the city of Sydney, I kept an eye out for places of worship, rarely seeing anything except Christian churches, which were also few and far between. Nowhere around the university campus I attended did I ever see religious fliers, which frequent the bulletin boards at Georgetown. Was Australia not a religious place?

Based on my observations and the research I had done, I had concluded that Australia was in fact not a religious country comparative to the United States. However, upon making this conclusion, I realized this deduction was made entirely based on my personal definition of religion: a group of people who hold common beliefs. I would consider the United States a religious country as a consequence of the countless places of worship located across the country, the excitement surrounding religious holidays, and the emphasis on religion in each school I have attended, all of which were missing in Australia.

The definition of religion is complex given that many people have differing views, with no consensus on what is deemed to be the “correct” definition. Thus, although I may not consider Australia a religious place according to my personal definition, others may disagree with me and believe that Australia is in fact religious, just in a different way.