So my ma doesn't believe in god.....

MagicMarker

... and she was gonna stick herself down as catholic on the census.

Thankfully I got to her just in time!

Does anyone think they should rephrase the question, and instead of asking what religion you are it should ask whether you're a theist/deist/pantheist etc? A lot of people will put down catholic without much of a thought but with this question I think the results would be a little more accurate overall.

Aswerty

To be fair if someone doesn't believe in God but still considers themselves Catholic they should still put down Catholic. Or course they have to justify the contradiction to themselves. On the other hand if they are doing it out of habit I think the AI push for people to consider if they are being truthful is a push in the right direction.

I don't think your belief is important in the census just your religious affiliation. Whats the difference to the government if you are a non religious theist or an atheist.

Aswerty

Aswerty wrote: »

To be fair if someone doesn't believe in God but still considers themselves Catholic they should still put down Catholic. Or course they have to justify the contradiction to themselves. On the other hand if they are doing it out of habit I think the AI push for people to consider if they are being truthful is a push in the right direction.

I don't think your belief is important in the census just your religious affiliation. Whats the difference to the government if you are a non religious theist or an atheist.

you what

Ghost Buster

Aswerty wrote: »

To be fair if someone doesn't believe in God but still considers themselves Catholic they should still put down Catholic. Or course they have to justify the contradiction to themselves. On the other hand if they are doing it out of habit I think the AI push for people to consider if they are being truthful is a push in the right direction.

I don't think your belief is important in the census just your religious affiliation. Whats the difference to the government if you are a non religious theist or an atheist.

:eek::eek: Funnily enough I would have thought "No religion" would be slightly more apt?

MagicMarker

bluewolf wrote: »

you what

This...

Aswerty wrote: »

I don't think your belief is important in the census just your religious affiliation. Whats the difference to the government if you are a non religious theist or an atheist.

you wha

Zillah

Aswerty wrote: »

To be fair if someone doesn't believe in God but still considers themselves Catholic they should still put down Catholic. Or course they have to justify the contradiction to themselves. On the other hand if they are doing it out of habit I think the AI push for people to consider if they are being truthful is a push in the right direction.

I don't think your belief is important in the census just your religious affiliation. Whats the difference to the government if you are a non religious theist or an atheist.

You know, that's actually an interesting point. The government doesn't care about your philosophical position, if you count yourself as Catholic, will attend Catholic services, will baptise your children an send them to a Catholic school...then I suppose you probably should put yourself down as Catholic, even if that whole Jesus thing is silly nonsense. The purpose of the census is to predict the nation's needs, not a survey of philosophical positions.

mariebeth

Zillah wrote: »

You know, that's actually an interesting point. The government doesn't care about your philosophical position, if you count yourself as Catholic, will attend Catholic services, will baptise your children an send them to a Catholic school...then I suppose you probably should put yourself down as Catholic, even if that whole Jesus thing is silly nonsense. The purpose of the census is to predict the nation's needs, not a survey of philosophical positions.

But if people who don't practice Catholicism & don't have any faith put down that they have no religion, it will help to predict the nations needs in terms of how religion has an impact on daily life for people who don't believe. If there are more non-religious, it will go a long way to reducing the impact of the Church on everyday life in things such as education, or even having the pubs closed on Good Friday.

I do believe and have faith in God, but I don't think that the beliefs of what seems to be a minority should impact on the majority.

Zillah

Zillah wrote: »

if you count yourself as Catholic, will attend Catholic services, will baptise your children and send them to a Catholic school

mariebeth wrote: »

But if people who don't practice Catholicism

And mariebeth stumbles at the first hurdle.

Ghost Buster

Zillah wrote: »

And mariebeth stumbles at the first hurdle.

Not sure I get ya either but I do need coffee.:o

Aswerty

Ok I put down the clause of people having to justify the contradiction of supporting a religious organisation with their own personal non-beliefs. I didn't say it was a reasonable position to be in but I'd imagine there is many in this country who fit it due to cultural pressures. From this I would conclude putting oneself down as Catholic is a far truer representation than anything else as information being fed back to the state. Surely the fact that you participate in the Catholic religion is more important than your personal belief. Considering the fact that most people here seem to agree with having a secular government I would have assumed that telling the government which particular personal delusions you hold would not be all that important.

From my lurking here I've seen much scoffing of the notion of putting down atheist. Atheists don't put down their belief they put down their religion (or lack of it).

I'm not saying those atheist who have zero contact with the church should put down Catholic. I'm also not saying those who attend a Catholic service such as a wedding or funeral should (including all other unavoidables such as baptism to get into a school). I'm saying those who participate voluntarily for whatever reasons they have should put down Catholic.

The flip side of this coin is people who are areligious with christian beliefs shouldn't put down a religion in the census. They fall under the non religous with all us heathens.

I'm open to correction on why religion is taken in the census, it's not something I've ever looked at closely. Nor is it something I've considered closely. I hadn't expected any disagreement so it's something I can chew on.

Dan_Solo

Shouldn't be on the census at all. Simple as. And you can get sent to jail for filling it out incorrectly, so if you put down Catholic and you're not it's the slammer for you!

MagicMarker

Aswerty wrote: »

Ok I put down the clause of people having to justify the contradiction of supporting a religious organisation with their own personal non-beliefs. I didn't say it was a reasonable position to be in but I'd imagine there is many in this country who fit it due to cultural pressures. From this I would conclude putting oneself down as Catholic is a far truer representation than anything else as information being fed back to the state. Surely the fact that you participate in the Catholic religion is more important than your personal belief. Considering the fact that most people here seem to agree with having a secular government I would have assumed that telling the government which particular personal delusions you hold would not be all that important.

From my lurking here I've seen much scoffing of the notion of putting down atheist. Atheists don't put down their belief they put down their religion (or lack of it).

I'm not saying those atheist who have zero contact with the church should put down Catholic. I'm also not saying those who attend a Catholic service such as a wedding or funeral should (including all other unavoidables such as baptism to get into a school). I'm saying those who participate voluntarily for whatever reasons they have should put down Catholic.

The flip side of this coin is people who are areligious with christian beliefs shouldn't put down a religion in the census. They fall under the non religous with all us heathens.

I'm open to correction on why religion is taken in the census, it's not something I've ever looked at closely. Nor is it something I've considered closely. I hadn't expected any disagreement so it's something I can chew on.

Do you know anyone who partakes in catholicism who doesn't believe in god? And by partake I don't mean getting married in a church or going to a catholic school.

If you don't believe in god, you're not a catholic, ergo, you shouldn't label yourself as one.

brianthebard

There are faiths that allows people room to interpret what they believe on their own, and the are some that don't. The Catholic Church does not allow you to do that, but as a Catholic you still have the opportunity to do so under that umbrella term. You could also become a Quaker or something else but people might not realise. Bottom line people will see themselves as culturally or spiritually Catholic despite not adhering to all aspects of Catholic faith. I know a lot of Catholics would have a problem with transubstantiation for instance, which is just as much a key principle of Catohlicism as whether they believe in God or not.

Zillah

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Not sure I get ya either but I do need coffee.:o

Most people don't actually realise the purpose of the census. It might have a side benefit for posterity, but they're not asking out of curiosity. For example, lets look at the current situation with education. Right now most schools are run by the Catholic Church, and they are planning on handing many of them over to state operation. During that planning phase they need to know answers to questions like "How many people will want to send their children to a Catholic school?" or "Five years from now, what percentage of children will be doing their confirmation?"

They don't care about your opinion on the divinity of Jesus, transubstantiation, or the authority of the Pope. Even if you're sending your kids to a Catholic school because you like being around nuns, for their purposes it is no different to Joe and Mary Popegood sending their wee one to school, its still just a +1 on the demographics.

Hence, if you think Jesus was a load of bollox, but think the Catholic Church are just the bee's knees anyway, and go to mass and will send your kid to a Catholic school, then you should put yourself down as Catholic, because from a planning point of view there's no difference between you and the Popegoods. (For the exact same reason that atheists, agnostics and the theologically disinterested are all just "no religion")

Their position is a retarded and inconsistent mess, but that's a private matter.

magicbastarder

brianthebard wrote: »

Bottom line people will see themselves as culturally or spiritually Catholic despite not adhering to all aspects of Catholic faith. I know a lot of Catholics would have a problem with transubstantiation for instance, which is just as much a key principle of Catohlicism as whether they believe in God or not.

can someone explain to me what being culturally catholic means, bar having been baptised as one?

Ghost Buster

magicbastarder wrote: »

can someone explain to me what being culturally catholic means, bar having been baptised as one?

"ah sure I dont think too much about it. Its what we are"....

Thats kinda it

Zombrex

MagicMarker wrote: »

... and she was gonna stick herself down as catholic on the census.

Thankfully I got to her just in time!

Does anyone think they should rephrase the question, and instead of asking what religion you are it should ask whether you're a theist/deist/pantheist etc? A lot of people will put down catholic without much of a thought but with this question I think the results would be a little more accurate overall.

It should ask you what religious organisation you regularly attend, stressing the regular bit, and give the option "None"

That is all we need. I nor the State see much difference in terms of resource planning between an atheist and a "Catholic" who goes to church once every 12 years.

robindch

brianthebard wrote: »

There are faiths that allows people room to interpret what they believe on their own, and the are some that don't. The Catholic Church does not allow you to do that [...]

Quite false. The Vatican specifically allows people to believe whatever they want, while still permitting themselves to believe they're "catholic".

See what's known as the "Supremacy of Conscience" clause in the Vatican's catechism. Paragraph 1800 here:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm#1800

robindch

magicbastarder wrote: »

can someone explain to me what being culturally catholic means, bar having been baptised as one?

It means that the church can pretend that you are a full-on member, even though you're not, and it knows that you won't complain about it.

Aswerty

Do you know anyone who partakes in catholicism who doesn't believe in god? And by partake I don't mean getting married in a church or going to a catholic school.

If you don't believe in god, you're not a catholic, ergo, you shouldn't label yourself as one.

Well what I have been saying is in relation to the OP's question. Which was should the census be changed to allow people to put down their belief as opposed to religion. My points were made primarily to disagree with this. The fact of whether or not I know any atheist Catholics (by their standards) is moot (though I don't) because I'm merely putting forward the premise that entering a belief as opposed to the religion that you avail of generates no worth while data.

You could sum my argument up into, if a person (e.g. a father) is for some reason attending a religious service (e.g. going with his family to church) even though he holds no belief he still has to be accommodated for. This is not arguing that people that go to other peoples ceremonies (e.g. marriage/funeral) or due to problems in the system (e.g. schools prioritising baptised children) fall into this same category. The former the person is choosing to accommodate his family and the latter is people being forced into services because there is no alternative.

I suppose this brings up the fact that people actually are putting down their "belief" even though they don't practice it. This causes the data to become corrupt anyways. So maybe it's all a bit redundant because everyone is answering the question within a different context.

I would agree with others that the current questions is pretty terrible for gathering any usable data.

can someone explain to me what being culturally catholic means, bar having been baptised as one?

Someone who does the Catholic thing to some sort of degree but don't have any philosophical reason for doing it. They do it because they've always done it.

brianthebard

robindch wrote: »

Quite false. The Vatican specifically allows people to believe whatever they want, while still permitting themselves to believe they're "catholic".

See what's known as the "Supremacy of Conscience" clause in the Vatican's catechism. Paragraph 1800 here:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm#1800

Fine go to 100 parish priests and tell them you are catholic but don't believe in transubstantiation, see how that goes down.

robindch

brianthebard wrote: »

Fine go to 100 parish priests and tell them you are catholic but don't believe in transubstantiation, see how that goes down.

Er, I'm pointing out what the Vatican's rules are -- chapter and verse. Not my fault if the guys on the front line disagree!

Aswerty

brianthebard wrote: »

Fine go to 100 parish priests and tell them you are catholic but don't believe in transubstantiation, see how that goes down.

I don't imagine they'd do anything beyond tut tut, or would they?

The one priest that I'd have known wouldn't even go as far as tut-tutting.

Bloody Nipples

My dad attends mass every sunday despite being an atheist. My mom is quite religious so he goes with her, and he says it's good discipline and a social event. He's probably going to put himself down as Catholic, which for all intents and purposes he is. I'd say the fact that he actively partakes in the religion would trump the fact that he doesn't believe in it from a governmental standpoint.

My brother and I are putting ourselves down as Jedi on the census as a tongue-in-cheek method of saying "no religion" because it would upset our mother if we put it down...

MagicMarker

Bloody Nipples wrote: »

My brother and I are putting ourselves down as Jedi on the census as a tongue-in-cheek method of saying "no religion" because it would upset our mother if we put it down...

That's not a tongue in cheek method of putting down no religion, it's just a stupid method of achieving nothing but inconsistency.

I have to suggest putting down no religion would be more productive

The Mad Hatter

I think the Jedi thing was funny in its time, but the point has been made and now we need real figures for non-believers.

Ghost Buster

Bloody Nipples wrote: »

My dad attends mass every sunday despite being an atheist. My mom is quite religious so he goes with her, and he says it's good discipline and a social event. He's probably going to put himself down as Catholic, which for all intents and purposes he is. I'd say the fact that he actively partakes in the religion would trump the fact that he doesn't believe in it from a governmental standpoint.

My brother and I are putting ourselves down as Jedi on the census as a tongue-in-cheek method of saying "no religion" because it would upset our mother if we put it down...

Yup. That'll will help you in getting your kids into Jedi school down the line..:rolleyes:

RandomName2

bluewolf wrote: »

you what

"Come on Ted, you don't really believe all that"
"It's the cornerstone of our religion!"
"Oh... right."

Morbert

Zillah wrote: »

You know, that's actually an interesting point. The government doesn't care about your philosophical position, if you count yourself as Catholic, will attend Catholic services, will baptise your children an send them to a Catholic school...then I suppose you probably should put yourself down as Catholic, even if that whole Jesus thing is silly nonsense. The purpose of the census is to predict the nation's needs, not a survey of philosophical positions.

People baptise children and send them to catholic school because they have to. If the census accurately reflected the theological positions of the population, this would no longer be the case. In otherwords, those are not needs, but vestiges of an earlier time.

Regarding tending services, that is generally moot, as very few people attend services and don't believe in God.

Peregrinus

Religion can be a matter of

(a) what you believe; or

(b) how you live; or

(c) the community with which you identify.

(Obviously, there can be some overlap between these.)

Atheists/agnostics/sceptics who object to the non-believing identifying as “Catholic” (or anything else) are implicitly accepting that (a) above is the appropriate way to understand religion. (Ironically, they are adopting a classically Protestant position.)

The State, however, is not really concerned with what people believe (and, in my view, rightly so). It is much more interested in (and affected by) religion as a social phenomenon. Therefore (c) above is what they care about, and the census question is phrased accordingly.

You can’t rely on the census to give an accurate picture of what people believe, and it is silly to object that the census doesn’t do so - that is not its purpose. If you want an overview of people’s beliefs or religious practice, you’ll need to look for more focussed and relevant forms of social research.

MagicMarker

Peregrinus wrote: »

Therefore (c) above is what they care about, and the census question is phrased accordingly.

No it's not, it asks what religion you are, not what religious community you identify with. Its phrasing is pretty clear.

gbee

No Religion.
Non Religious [meaning not following anything]
Multi Denominational
My Own Business

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

You can’t rely on the census to give an accurate picture of what people believe [...]

The function of the census is not to list the nation's supernatural beliefs.

On the contrary, the census tells people how many people self-identify with the given religions. And these statistics are used by organizations like the church in order to legitimize their claim to speak on their behalf.

Peregrinus

MagicMarker wrote: »

No it's not, it asks what religion you are, not what religious community you identify with. Its phrasing is pretty clear.

Asking what religion you are is not asking you what you believe. Nor is it asking you how you live. It is asking you how you identify yourself in religious terms.

It may be that there are some people - Protestants, for example, and as this discussion shows at least some atheists and agnostics - who identify themselves in religious terms on the basis of what they believe, but this is not a universal characteristic of all religions. Somebody who tells you that he is Jewish, for example, is telling you little or nothing about what he believes; if you want to know that you'll have to ask him further questions.

Thus the census does not measure religious belief, and does not pretend to. It may be that some people's answer to this question is affected by religious belief, but that is a matter for them. Nothing in the census forms suggests to people that they should answer this question by reference only to their religious beliefs.

Peregrinus

robindch wrote: »

The function of the census is not to list the nation's supernatural beliefs.

On the contrary, the census tells people how many people self-identify with the given religions. And these statistics are used by organizations like the church in order to legitimize their claim to speak on their behalf.

And to an extent that's fair enough. I don't think we can ignore the reality that people choose to identify as Catholics, or disregard their self-identification on the basis that it isn't made by reference to the criteria that we, the elite, think they should have used.

I think myself that self-identification on the census form is often a fairly weak kind of identification. If I were a policymaker I would pay some attention to it, but not a lot. I certainly wouldn't assume that everbody who identifies as Catholic passionately supports everything that every Catholic bishop says on any matter of public concern.

But on the other hand I'm going to accept that their self-identification may have some implciations that are relevant to public policy. If lots of people identify as Catholic and comparatively few as Jewish or as nonbelievers, I'm going to expect, for instance, that the demand for places in Catholic schoools is likely to be stronger than the demand for places in Jewish schools or secular schools. (Whether and to what extent the state should meet that demand is of course another question.)

Jesus Wept

Hate this country. :-/

MagicMarker

Hmmm, the census also asks what age I am. Should the answer be what age I feel or what age I actually am?

I'm 27 but don't feel 27, I actually identify myself more with 25 year olds.

Peregrinus

MagicMarker wrote: »

Hmmm, the census also asks what age I am. Should the answer be what age I feel or what age I actually am?

I'm 27 but don't feel 27, I actually identify myself more with 25 year olds.

Mutton dressed as lamb?:)

nkay1985

I find the issue of religion in the census interesting. Let's say the question is "What religion are you?". I answer "No religion", my friend answers "Atheist" and one of you guys answer "Non-religious". In my hypothetical situation, these three individuals all have the same (non) beliefs, yet have answered the question three different ways. Will all three get grouped together as the one answer?

Or will this be a multiple choice question with the most common answers listed, including "No religion" and "Other, please specify:", does anybody know?

Galvasean

nkay1985 wrote: »

I find the issue of religion in the census interesting. Let's say the question is "What religion are you?". I answer "No religion", my friend answers "Atheist" and one of you guys answer "Non-religious". In my hypothetical situation, these three individuals all have the same (non) beliefs, yet have answered the question three different ways. Will all three get grouped together as the one answer?

Or will this be a multiple choice question with the most common answers listed, including "No religion" and "Other, please specify:", does anybody know?

We had a massive argument about this on here before. Apparently if you want to not count as being religious just tick 'no religion'. Ticking the 'other' box and writing 'atheist' gets you lumped in with the 'other religions' category. And we all know atheist is not a religion.

Galvasean

Was looking at the census website:
http://www.google.ie/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://media.teamxbox.com/dailyposts/spider-man3_venom.jpg&sa=X&ei=692ITfygLs25hAeRo9y5DQ&ved=0CAQQ8wc&usg=AFQjCNE0PUsCjY6M2JeG9XuVxjVezHRtVA
If you look at question 12 it clearly says under the 'Other' category 'write in your RELIGION.
Emphasis theirs. So they are definately not looking for atheists to tick the 'Other' box. Atheists definately go in the 'No religion' box.

nkay1985

Galvasean wrote: »

Was looking at the census website:
http://www.google.ie/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://media.teamxbox.com/dailyposts/spider-man3_venom.jpg&sa=X&ei=692ITfygLs25hAeRo9y5DQ&ved=0CAQQ8wc&usg=AFQjCNE0PUsCjY6M2JeG9XuVxjVezHRtVA
If you look at question 12 it clearly says under the 'Other' category 'write in your RELIGION.
Emphasis theirs. So they are definately not looking for atheists to tick the 'Other' box. Atheists definately go in the 'No religion' box.

Was that lonk meant to be something to do with the census website? Or were you using it to illustrate the venom you spit when speaking about this? :P

See I agree wtih your thinking and would automatically tick 'No Religion' but I have a feeling some people might fall prey to the 'Other' box.

Galvasean

nkay1985 wrote: »

Was that lonk meant to be something to do with the census website? Or were you using it to illustrate the venom you spit when speaking about this? :P

Amazing what happens when you are not careful with your clip board...
This is the actual link i meant to post:
http://census.ie/The-Census-Form/Each-question-in-detail.109.1.aspx

I agree that we do lose some to the other box. I recall looking at the details of the last census and sure enough a small minority wrote down 'Atheist' as their religion. It's quite annoying when David Quinn types then go on to use that small number in a 'look how few atheists there are!' way.

Nollog

I just think you guys are trying to attack other religions as usual.
Also, you're confusing practicing catholic with catholic.

Some people out there don't go to church or follow the rules of their religion, but still consider themselves in that religion.
It's up to them how they rationalise that, not you.

Improbable

/\/ollog wrote: »

I just think you guys are trying to attack other religions as usual.
Also, you're confusing practicing catholic with catholic.

Some people out there don't go to church or follow the rules of their religion, but still consider themselves in that religion.
It's up to them how they rationalise that, not you.

It's not about attacking religion, it's about getting accurate census data so that the government can make a better informed decision about public policy with regards to the effect that religion has on such decisions as in the case of education and whatnot.

As to practicing vs. non-practicing members of a faith, if it's up to each individual to decide what religion they belong to, regardless of whether they are practicing or non-practicing, then is it not the case that those who are non-practicing are catholic in name only and not catholic in any practical sense? And wouldn't using practicalities be better for making practical decisions?

Peregrinus

Improbable wrote: »

As to practicing vs. non-practicing members of a faith, if it's up to each individual to decide what religion they belong to, regardless of whether they are practicing or non-practicing, then is it not the case that those who are non-practicing are catholic in name only and not catholic in any practical sense? And wouldn't using practicalities be better for making practical decisions?

But we know that large numbers of nominal Catholics who do not practice their faith (in the sense of going to mass themselves) do want their children to go to Catholic schools, and indeed want them to participate in sacramental preparation in the schools, etc. And they may want other encounters with/participation in church life in ways that may or may not be of relevance to public policy.

Whether we think that this is a good thing or a bad thing, a hypocritical thing or an inconsistent thing, is not the point. It's a real thing; that's all that concerns the state.

It's true, of course, that not everyone who puts "Catholic" on the census wants to send their child to a Catholic school. But it's also true that the number of parents who want to send their child to a Catholic school vastly exceeds the number of parents who go to mass every week. The suggestion that only those who go to mass every week are "Catholic" in a way that is of relevance to public policy is just nonsense.

We're relatively fortunate in the Republic in that, when we think of ways in which religious identification might be of relevance to public policy, educational preferences are the first thing that leaps to mind. We don't have to look too far to find societies in which religious identification has a much wider, and sometimes dangerous, relevance.

We may or may not like the implications of religious identification , but we certainly don't improve our response to it by putting our hands over our ears and singing "la, la, la" in a desparate attempt to ignore, or not to know about, people's religious identification. Yet reframing the census question so that it asked about people's religious beliefs or their practice rather than their indentifications would be precisely that.

Ireland is not alone here. I think most pluralist democracies seek religious identification information in the census, and they do so by inviting people to self-identify without taking any a priori stance about what is a "proper" basis for self-identification.

Doctor DooM

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's true, of course, that not everyone who puts "Catholic" on the census wants to send their child to a Catholic school. But it's also true that the number of parents who want to send their child to a Catholic school vastly exceeds the number of parents who go to mass every week.

I know it's not your main point here but I think this is misrepresenting the situation somewhat- those people want their child sent to a good school, it just so happens that the vasy majority are controlled by the Roman Catholic Church.

robindch

Doctor DooM wrote: »

those people want their child sent to a good school, it just so happens that the vasy majority are controlled by the Roman Catholic Church.

There was an interesting report released two years ago, I think, in the UK which concurred with this -- schools which are controlled by religious organizations really do get better results.

However, when analysed carefully, it seems that they achieved this by excluding, on religious grounds, people who had low academic results -- so they ended up with only the clever kids.

Grinding the numbers further, another, more recent, report suggested that even when they selected the clever people, the clever kids didn't perform as well equivalent groupings of clever kids who'd been sent to schools which didn't pretend that irrational nonsense is true.

Nollog

Improbable wrote: »

It's not about attacking religion, it's about getting accurate census data so that the government can make a better informed decision about public policy with regards to the effect that religion has on such decisions as in the case of education and whatnot.

As to practicing vs. non-practicing members of a faith, if it's up to each individual to decide what religion they belong to, regardless of whether they are practicing or non-practicing, then is it not the case that those who are non-practicing are catholic in name only and not catholic in any practical sense? And wouldn't using practicalities be better for making practical decisions?

Because you want their crucifixes out of your school, right?

Trouble with that is how do you put it down on a census form?
Do you attend church on the sabbath?
-Doesn't apply to some religions, so how do you word it?
And why should it be based on what people do, religion is about what people think, believe and feel.
Some religions don't ask you to sit in a church, some ask you to get bitten by snakes, some ask you for money so they can give you a stress test.
It's too varied to ask about practice, and irrelevant to the thought process of religious people.

I'd personally scrap the question altogether and ask something like "Do you believe the state should acknowledge organised religion?"
I'd hope there'd be a resounding No to that question.