Two polls in America illustrate just how out of step the Catholic Church is with the people it purports to represent – at least in the USA.
The polls show that Catholics are significantly more supportive of gay rights than even the population at large.
One was for the Washington Post-ABC News and the other was from the Public Religion Research Institute which showed a more comprehensive portrait of Catholic attitudes on gay and lesbian issues.
Protection of gay people against workplace discrimination is favoured by 73 percent of Catholics, versus 68 percent of the general public.
Gays serving openly in the military got support from 63 percent of Catholics compared with 58 percent of the general public.
And adoption by same-sex couples was given a nod by 60 percent of Catholics, but only 53 percent of the general public.
There are two more significant data points from the PRRI report.
A majority of Catholics (56%) believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex is not a sin. Among the general population, less than half (46%) believe it is not a sin (PRRI, Religion & Politics Tracking Survey, October 2010).
Catholics overwhelmingly reject the idea that sexual orientation can be changed.
69% of Catholics disagree that homosexual orientation can be changed; and 23% believe that it can be changed.”
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life noted that Catholics have been the “biggest losers” in the American religious market place.
More than 1-in-10 Americans are former Catholics, and approximately half of all former Catholics remain unaffiliated with any faith.
Among this group, majorities said they moved away from their former faith because they stopped believing in Catholicism’s teachings overall (65 percent) or became dissatisfied with Catholic teachings about abortion and homosexuality (56 percent).
Dr. Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic University of America, summed up the future options for the Catholic Church hierarchy on the heels of these findings.
As a practical matter, winning over rank and file Catholics to official church teachings seems highly improbable, he said; rather, “the question facing the American bishops, who oppose same-sex marriage on doctrinal grounds, is how they will choose to address this momentum.”
Meanwhile, the liberal Catholic group Catholics for Choice, based in Washington DC, has gathered data about Catholic attitudes to social issues from various polls and studies and brought them together in a booklet called “Catholics and Choice” .
The headlines are:
- Number of Catholic women who use a form of contraception banned by the Vatican: 98%
- Sexually active Catholic women who use Vatican-approved method as primary contraceptive: less than 2%
- Catholics who approve of abortion when the woman’s health is endangered: 86%
- Catholics who approve of abortion if pregnancy is result of rape: 78%
- Catholics make up 27% of the US population. The percentage of women having an abortion who identify as Catholic: 28%
- Catholics who favour sexuality education in public schools: 95%
- Catholics who believe family planning information should be available to teens: 83%
- Catholics who believe condom use is pro-life because it prevents the spread of AIDS: 79%
- Catholics who believe Government-funded Catholic hospitals should provide condoms for AIDS prevention: 73%
- Catholics who support medical research using embryonic stem cells left over from in-vitro fertilisation: 69%
- Percentage of Catholics who think the views of their local bishops are “very important” in deciding how to vote: 8%
No comments:
Post a Comment