RELIGION IN A PANDEMIC: EFFECTS OF COVID-19 ON CATHOLICISM AMONG OLDER ADULTS

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges for the rapidly ageing population in Singapore. Studies have predominantly focused on epidemiological outcomes such as infection and fatality from such a crisis but tend to ignore the sociocultural consequences. This study focuses on how religious practices have been affected in this pandemic. More specifically, this thesis seeks to investigate and explore how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the practice of Catholicism among older adults in Singapore. Despite a corpus of established literature on the salutary effects of religion on health outcomes during a crisis, the ways religion and religious practices are affected by the public health crisis has yet to be studied. This thesis proposes a framework utilising the macro-meso-micro levels of mechanisms to gain a more holistic understanding of the issue. Using qualitative in-depth interviews with older adults identifying as Singaporean Catholics, individual experiences of living through a pandemic were explored. Questions were set against the context of their Catholic religion to understand the role of religion and its varied responses to and from COVID-19. Significantly, this thesis found multileveled changes to religion and its practices experienced by older adults, thus affirming the need to analyse the subject matter at the macro, meso, and micro levels. This research finally discusses the theoretical and practical implications to conceptualise a holistic view of changes to religion in such a public crisis.