Let’s take a walk on the wild side. Let’s go where angels fear to tread. Let’s talk about the most recent poll regarding Catholic attitudes bout the social issues. I think most of us are quick to ASSume that all Catholics feel one way or the other. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A disclaimer before we go on. I am a daughter of a lapsed Catholic and a wife of a lapsed Catholic. My husband was practicing until he was in his mid-30’s.
Most Catholics worldwide disagree with church teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception and are split on whether women and married men should become priests, according to a large new poll released Sunday and commissioned by the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision. On the topic of gay marriage, two-thirds of Catholics polled agree with church leaders.
Overall, however, the poll of more than 12,000 Catholics in 12 countries reveals a church dramatically divided: Between the developing world in Africa and Asia, which hews closely to doctrine on these issues, and Western countries in Europe, North America and parts of Latin America, which strongly support practices that the church teaches are immoral.
The widespread disagreement with Catholic doctrine on abortion and contraception and the hemispheric chasm lay bare the challenge for Pope Francis’s year-old papacy and the unity it has engendered.
Among the findings:
●19 percent of Catholics in the European countries and 30 percent in the Latin American countries surveyed agree with church teaching that divorcees who remarry outside the church should not receive Communion, compared with 75 percent in the most Catholic African countries.
●30 percent of Catholics in the European countries and 36 percent in the United States agree with the church ban on female priests, compared with 80 percent in Africa and 76 percent in the Philippines, the country with the largest Catholic population in Asia.
●40 percent of Catholics in the United States oppose gay marriage, compared with 99 percent in Africa.
The poll, which was done by Bendixen & Amandi International for Univision, did not include Catholics everywhere. It focused on 12 countries across the continents with some of the world’s largest Catholic populations. The countries are home to more than six of 10 Catholics globally.
“This is a balancing act. They have to hold together two increasingly divergent constituencies. The church has lost its ability to dictate what people do,” said Ronald Inglehart, founding president of the World Values Survey, an ongoing global research project.
“Right now, the less-developed world is staying true to the old world values, but it’s gradually eroding even there. [Pope Francis] doesn’t want to lose the legitimacy of the more educated people,” he added.
What is this survey telling us? Maybe it’s telling us nothing but I think we need to think about it before we declare something to be true or false regarding Catholics. Certainly times have changed regarding social issues.
No hot-bed of malcontentment?
When I was active in the pro-choice movement, most of the people I worked with were Catholic or had been Catholic in the very recent past.
How many people do we actually know who won’t divorce because they are Catholic?
12,000 out of how many millions? Doesn’t really sound like a very good sample. It sounds to me like they went hunting for something to prove their hypothesis. I suppose you could call my wife a “lapsed” Catholic because she is not allowed to take communion being married to a divorced, backslidden Baptist. I have no love whatsoever for the Catholic Church or any of its dogma and most of its tenets. I am glad to see them getting their long overdue just due over child molesting and the like. And now they have told the U.N. to stuff it over the U.N.’s request to turn over pedophile priests to the secular system of justice. They have circled the wagons in St. Peter’s Square.
I grew up under “Baltimore Catechism” and spent K-8 in a Catholic School taught by the Sisters of Mercy (in the days they still wore habits and veils). The Romans and I went our seperate ways when I was about 25. I don’t consider myself a “lapsed” Catholic as I found much of what the brainwashing tried to do just was not the real world.
I was happy though to see the Pope defrock 400 priests over the sex abuse; not far enough though – should have been “book, bell and candle” to excommunicate. Leadership failure, institution failure…
My husband doesn’t think of himself as lapsed either. I think he would freely use the word EX. He didn’t go to Catholic school either because he was of a mixed marriage. His mother was Irish Catholic and his father was Congregational. That was part of the agreement. The kids would all be raised Catholic and they would go to public school because the dad felt his taxes supported the public schools. The upbringing didn’t stick on any of the kids, apparently.
@George S. Harris
The UN has the nerve to criticize the Church over sex scandals?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!
The UN isn’t a spiritual leader.
You can say that again!