From Sandro Magister:
The responses to the survey provided results close to the national figures over the past thirty years: 26 percent said they went to Mass every Sunday, and another 16.5 percent said they went from one to three times a month. In total, attendance was shown as 42.5 percent of the population of the patriarchate. But markedly lower attendance figures were shown in the on-the-spot survey conducted in all the churches on November 13 and 14, 2004. Those who said they had gone to
Mass on all of the previous four Sundays were 15 percent of the population. And
those who said they had gone from one to three times were 7.7 percent. In total,
22.7 percent of the population. In both of the surveys, the women who practice
their faith are more numerous than the men, and Mass attendance increases with
higher age and education levels. Castegnaro and Dalla Zuanna comment on this in
their essay for “Polis”: “Our results show a churchgoing population that is much
better educated than could have been imagined, and these differences are more
intense among the young than among the old: among the regular churchgoers in
their thirties, one out of three is a college graduate, while among those in their thirties in the overall population, only one out of ten is a college graduate.” The most striking result is, nevertheless, the wide gap between Mass attendance as reported by the interviews and as gathered in the churches. Declared attendance is much higher than actual attendance. And those most likely to overstate their religious practice are the persons with the least education.
