Hope springs eternal in religious institutions. It's part of their DNA. So even when numbers are plummeting, they tell you with a clear-eyed and defiant smile that they are really rising. This week's reports of a "papal bounce" – an upturn in those going to confession in England and Wales in the wake of the election of Pope Francis – should then be treated with caution.
The briefest trawl through the archives turns up a similar reports of a "Benedict bounce" after Francis's austere predecessor visited these shores in 2010. Plus countless other fillips attributed to the barn-storming tours that the charismatic former actor John Paul II used to love to undertake. But the true underlying story in Catholicism is of decline in mass-attendance in the developed world.
In some parishes, confession is so rare that you have to book a time in advance with the priest, as you would for a wedding. It is true that the Vatican has tried to make it easier of late to pour out your sins and seek absolution. A user-friendly app has done away with the need for a bruising encounter with a bulldog priest behind a purple velvet curtain. But surely the real "papal bounce" that can be attributed to Francis is that he is making Catholics no longer feel so bad/sinful about themselves and their church. And hence much less likely to feel the need to confess at all.
This, after all, is the pope who has gone out of his way to smooth the rough edges off Catholicism's out-of-touch teachings on homosexuality and the role of women. In Brazil, where he was greeted by a crowd of three million young Catholics on Rio's Copacabana beach, Francis was explicit in telling us to get out of church buildings, stop obsessing with liturgy and antique language, and build what Jesus wanted – "a poor church for the poor".
It is an inspiring message of social justice, and one too little heard of late as our own bishops have engaged instead in a doomed campaign against gay marriage. Pope Francis is trying to show that our church still has something to offer the real world. And in that, he is seeking not a short-term bounce, but a fundamental overhaul of an institution many current and one-time Catholics believe has lost its way. To get them to return enthusiastically to the flock will require more than the quick fix of fine words and photo opportunities.