Credibility Enhancing Displays, religious scandal and the decline of Irish Catholic orthodoxy

Abstract

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Credibility Enhancing Displays have been shown to be an important component in the transmission of empirically unverifiable cultural content such as religious beliefs. Decreased Credibility Enhancing Displays are a major predictor of religious decline. However, because declines in belief are often paired with decreasing importance of religious institutions, existing research has not yet shown the effect of Credibility Enhancing Displays as separate from this institutional decline. Here, we assess the role of past Credibility Enhancing Display exposure among the baptised Catholic population of Ireland in predicting who retains a Catholic identity and religious beliefs among those who reject the Catholic Church. We find that leaving Catholicism outright (i.e. ‘Ex-Catholicism’) is predicted by low Credibility Enhancing Display exposure, but rejecting the Church while retaining a Catholic identity (i.e. ‘Liminal Catholicism’) and theistic belief is not. High perceived prevalence of clerical paedophiles (i.e., religious hypocrisy) predicts both groups similarly. Higher exposure to Credibility Enhancing Displays predicts higher orthodox Catholic beliefs and Catholic morality among Catholics, but with inconsistent and even negative effects among the other groups. High perceived prevalence of clerical paedophiles predicts the rejection of orthodox Catholic beliefs, but not the rejection of theism or a Catholic identity.