Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 26, 2024 / 10:10 am (CNA).
The Pew Research Center has released the results of a survey of how Catholics in the United States and six Latin American countries feel the Church should handle a variety of issues related to the priesthood, contraception, and sexuality as well as their views of Pope Francis.
In its survey of more than 12,000 Catholics in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru, Pew found widespread dissent from Church teachings, including majorities of Catholics in every country except Mexico in favor of allowing women to become priests.
Support for the ordination of women to the priesthood ranged from a high of 83% in Brazil to a low of 47% in Mexico. Sixty-four percent of U.S. Catholics surveyed were also in favor, slightly higher than the 62% when Pew surveyed American Catholics on the issue 10 years ago.
Support for female ordination varied widely by age, however. For example, only 34% of Mexican Catholics above age 40 favor female ordination, compared with 64% in the 18-39 age bracket.
In the U.S., by contrast, older Catholics are more supportive of female ordination than younger Catholics, with 66% of those above age 40 in favor, compared with 57% in the 18-39 age bracket.
According to the survey, most Catholics in all seven countries want the Church to allow Catholics to use birth control, including 86% of Argentinians and 83% of Americans.
Opinion is more divided on whether the Church should allow priests to marry. Roughly two-thirds of Catholics in the U.S., Argentina, and Chile are in favor, but majorities in Mexico and Peru say the Church should not allow priests to marry.
Views on whether the Church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples also varied, with majorities in four of the countries opposing such recognition, while just over half of U.S. Catholics are in favor.
What the Catholic Church teaches
The survey results reflect a divergence from several of the Catholic Church’s teachings, such as the ordination of men as the only valid recipients of priestly ordination.
According to canon law, both a woman who receives priestly ordination and the one who ordains her incur “latae sententiae excommunication” (excommunication occurs in tandem with the act itself), which can only be lifted by the Holy See.
On priestly celibacy, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that in the Latin Church, priests are chosen from men of faith “who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate ‘for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.’”
The catechism clarifies that while married men can be ordained priests in Eastern Churches, celibacy is also held “in great honor,” and bishops are chosen only from celibates.
Birth control was addressed by St. Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae and the catechism, which states that “any action, which either before, during, or after sexual intercourse, seeks to make procreation impossible, is intrinsically evil.”
Regarding Communion, canon law prohibits its administration to those “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin,” including cohabitation and sexual activity outside of marriage.
On same-sex unions, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, emphasizing that marriage is the union between one man and one woman.
Pope Francis’ popularity
The latest Pew survey also finds that most Catholics in the U.S. and Latin America still view Pope Francis favorably, although this percentage has declined over the years.
In his native Argentina, however, over the last decade his favorable rating has fallen from 98% to 74%. Chile has seen the second-largest decline, going from 79% to 64%.
In Colombia, the Holy Father’s favorable rating has fallen from 93% to 88%, in Brazil from 92% to 84%, and in Mexico from 86% to 80%.
In the U.S., his favorability has fallen from 85% to 74% and in Peru from 83% to 78%.
The survey also found that most Catholics believe “Pope Francis represents a change in the direction of the Catholic Church,” though whether that change is considered major or minor varies significantly.
In the United States, 42% of Catholics surveyed consider that Pope Francis represents a major change in the direction of the Catholic Church, while 30% say he represents a minor change, 12% say he represents no change at all, and 14% aren’t sure.
In Colombia, by contrast, 62% believe the pope represents a major change, while 19% see only a minor change. Chile is where Catholics are least likely to believe Pope Francis is bringing major change to the Church’s direction, with 21% seeing it as major and 26% as minor.
Pope Francis has led the Catholic Church since March 2013 when he succeeded Pope Benedict XVI, becoming the first Latin American pope.
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I’m sick and tired of these surveys. They are TOTALLY meaningless. Unless they specifically define the major independent variable i.e. what it means by “Catholic”, it’s useless.
-Is a “Catholic” someone who is baptized and has received no other Sacraments?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who calls him/herself Catholic without any further explanation (as when homosexuals say they are “married”)?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who says they’re a Catholic and hasn’t practiced the religion in 30 years?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who was baptized a Catholic but now belongs to some non-denominational worhip community?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who has received all the Sacraments of Initiation, attends Mass weekly, goes to Confession at least monthly, and does not practice contraception?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who rejects the work of Vatican Council II and believes the Chair of Peter is vacant?
-Is a Catholic someone who only attends Mass in the Extraordinary Form?
-Is a “Catholic” a person who lives in a homosexual relationship with a man whom he thinks is his wife?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who belongs to the Society of Jesus?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who was baptized Catholic but now is an atheist?
-Is a “Catholic” someone who was baptized a Catholic but married a Jew and received instruction in the Jewish faith and now attends synagogue?
I think everyone gets the point that it’s pointless to refer to “Catholics” as a group without any further specification.
You’re not God’s ID checker, mate, these people are Catholic.
That’s about the most uneducated comment I’ve yet to read in these pages, mate.
Why not respond to the point I’m making. When you do a survey, it’s essential to define the terms. But, then again, you don’t seem terribly educated.
You cannot set your own criteria for who can be considered a Catholic and who cannot. You are like the takfirists of the Islamic world. Check your own education, mate.
Perhaps, mate, you should do some study about conducting survey research and their statistical treatment before leveling charges.
As an addendum, the very least the Pew “survey” could have done (which would still be woefully inadequate) would have been to conduct a stratified random sanple of “Catholics.” The survey, if they knew anything at all about Catholicism and its teachings, could have looked at the opinions of two groups of Catholics: a. those who practiced the religion by weekly Mass attendance, at least monthy Confession and who accepted all the teachings of the Catholic Church as contained in the Catechism and b.those who identified as “Catholic” but who hadn’t attended Mass and been to Confession in the previous twelve months and who rejected some or all of the Church’s teachings. Then the survey respondants could reply to questions about: married priests, women priests, opinions about the current Pope, etc. To have lumped all “Catholics” together and then generalize about this to views held by ALL Catholics leads to grossly misrepresented realities. That’s why the Pew Survey is worthless.
Spot on, Deacon. Useless, Meaningless. And more than likely Very Misleading.
Years ago, a friend told me how annoying he found it that whereas someone raised Protestant might say something like “My family is Prebyterian, but I don’t consider myself much of anything,” someone raised Catholic will still identify as Catholic even if he or she hasn’t set foot in a Catholic church since the last wedding or funeral, disagrees with (or even denounces) much of what the Church teaches, and practices it even less.
I’m reminded of a scene in a movie (title forgotten) I saw a number of years ago, in which upon hearing one of his sons take the Lord’s Name in vain, the father says, “We don’t talk like that in this house!” The son replies, “Aw, Dad, you don’t even believe in God,” to which the father replies, “That don’t mean I can’t be a good Catholic.” I believe it’s the ounce of truth that makes a joke funny.
Thank you, Edward. Your questions are very, very relevant, especially as the numbers of attendees at mass in Catholic and other Christian churches plummet across the world and “vocations” from indiginous congregations are close to extinction and have to be supplemented with often dubiously motivated “imports” from poor countries where a career as a catholic priest in a western country is seen as an excellent way for people, even with zero faith, to dramatically improve their standard of living, income and ability to pull up the living standards of family and friends by assisting their “ripple-effect” “follow-on” emigration.
The precipitous fall off in membership, the growing numbers of vacant churches and other surplus church properties show-case the increasing irrelevance of the Roman Catholic Church as an institution, in the lives of people around the world.
I am a retired senior UN official who carried a diplomatic passport for many years and was involved at the highest levels within UN administrations in very many countries. What I write next conforms to my rigorous approach to all such serious arguments. I NEVER write on such subjects that which I have not had exhaustively researched and That the Church is a deeply misogynistic, appallingly hypocritical cabal of elderly Cardinals, with reputedly over 80% of them practising homosexuals, most making frequent use of homosexual or transexual prostitutes ( ref. bokk entitled In the Closet of the Vatican-author Frederic Martel ) seems to be now an un-deniable fact of reputable research and extensive judicial and legal uiry. The exhaustive and validated research for this sad but extremely important book, named above, demonstrated, beyond any reasonable doubt, with copious US State dept file references, easily viewable at the library of Congress ( my ex- colleagues in Washington did this for me ) that the appalling Pope Wotila had long complicitly presided over the most extra-ordinary overt excesses of this overt homosexuality in the Curia and in the shocking protection of senior prelates and religious involved in the most appalling deviant sexual crimes against not only children but against student religious across the world. In an un-deniable demonstration of the then in-human values of the RCC, Pope Wotila groomed, then employed, funded and directed a particularly perverted homosexual Cardinal, Lopez Trujillo, from Columbia, to search out and inform the murderous right-wing military juntas all over South America, about hundreds of priests active in South America, helping poor communities through the Liberation Theology movement. Dozens of these saintly priests were arrested or “disappeared, tortured for information and subsequently murdered, with the active collusion of Trujillo and his boss, Wotila. These accusations are fully supported by CIA documents now publically available at the library of Congress, through US freedom of information laws. All the necessary details are available in the book, to allow easy cross-checking and validation.
I repeat, the book makes for unpleasant reading, especially as it provides all necessary references and sources. The RCC would like the book to be forgotten. People with a real interest in what the RCC stands for, in today’s world, should at least review what it is all about, in that cess pool that is the Curia.
“According to the survey, most Catholics in all seven countries want the Church to allow Catholics to use birth control, including 86% of Argentinians and 83% of Americans.”
According to the survey, Most Catholics in all seven countries want the Church to affirm their choice to dissent from Church teaching guilt-free regarding contraception . . .
There, fixed it.
No catechesis, erroneous catechesis, marginal catechesis abandoned before high school, comprehensive catechesis willfully abandoned since 1966 — what do you expect? I witnessed it then as a student, and a few years later as a secondary school religion teacher. Boy, did I witness it then, and scandalously so from Catholic educators in positions of administration, religious.
Today I suspect you could find support for the spectrum of immorality amongst self-identifying Roman Catholics.
Here we read of the collapse of Roman Catholicism at the hands of a post-conciliar episcopate addicted to the zeitgeist in support of their personal hubris.
The inspiration of the Holy Spirit is always present but men most frequently do not listen, so said Joseph Ratzinger.
By their fruits you shall know them.
I would venture to humbly suggest that Holy Mother Church could use more Protestant converts, especially Evangelical Protestant converts who are already regular Bible studiers who are generally thrilled to find that the Bible that they know backwards and forwards and have memorized hundreds of verses out of actually has MORE books than they grew up with and who eagerly open their new Catholic Bible and read/study/devour these books which they have always been told were “apocrypha”!
Also, these converts already regularly read and study Christian books (including ancient Christian books) and buy up giant tote bags of all the Catholic books at the Catholic conferences they attend and from Catholic online sites (like this one!)!
They also love hearing Catholic speakers who present hour-long talks on “deep subjects” and hand out 20 pages of notes which include an extensive bibliography of classic theology texts which usually includes works by the early Church Fathers!
And Evangelical Protestant converts already know how to play/sing inspiring music of all genres that encourages, comforts, and energizes Christians.
And most importantly, Evangelical Protestants are used to working in their churches and are eager to be invited to help teach a class or Bible study, become a youth group sponsor, help with various outreaches to children (VBS can be done in Catholic parishes!), volunteer to sing or play at Masses, sign up for Eucharistic Adoration, attend prayer meetings and devotions, and help with other work in the parish. What Evangelical Protestants don’t like is sitting around doing nothing and becoming “fat Christians” gorged on all the information that they have acquired during their studies!
So let’s get crackin’ on that outreach/evangelism to Protestants, shall we?! Then we’ll have even more people who want to help with all that needs to be done in Holy Mother Church!
My late husband and I converted to Catholicism in 2004, and our daughters and son-in-law converted, and our grandson has been baptized Catholic and when there are openings, will attend Catholic pre-school! We have talked to many other friends who are Evangelical Protestants and I believe that many of these folks will eventually find their way home to Rome!
Keep doing the Eucharistic Conferences and add “mini-conferences” in every city and town in the U.S.–these conferences are a great way to reach out to Protestants who are looking for teaching, preaching, and really good music (which isn’t necessarily present at all Masses in most Catholic churches). In the process of experiencing the teaching, preaching, and really good music, Protestants will eventually be confronted by Jesus in the Holy Eucharist–and yes, they will recognize him. We did.
And when they come home, put ’em to work! Start out slow (Lenten fish fry servers) and build them up to more and more work! They’ll love it!
God reward you. Who could contradict you…your personal witness and that of so many other Protestants who have braved the Tiber in this tragic epoch in the history of the Church, Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, Marcus Grodi come to mind.
A Catholic from my birth long before “the” mid-century council, I don’t know if I’d be willing to take the journey now during the Bergoglian debacle.
You have a courage inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Mrs. Hess above (2:10 p.m.) – Touche!
I am very surprised with the support for female ordination to priesthood as such. (Married priests do exist and have existed including married bishops, so the support of married clergy is entirely logical and beneficial for the Church, for many reasons including deflating “so-called clericalism.) But “a female ordination” simply cannot exist because a priest during the Liturgy is an icon of Christ and Christ is a male. As long as Catholics believe in the Real Presence and that the Sacrifice is done today and in eternity, a female priest will convey a destruction of that reality.
I connect this strange idea (of a female ordination) with the loss of experience of Mass as a whole as the metaphysical reality and also with the loss of understanding of the holy images as a representation of that reality. To my mind, a push for female priesthood indicates a loss of a belief in the Real Presence.
Important suggestion;
Read, re-read with notes, the deeply researched and fully referenced, but truly sad and yet most important book, “In the Closet of the Vatican”, by Frederic Martel and then ask yourself, ” Should the RCC ban MEN from EVER being priests ? Should the priesthood be reserved solely for women, who have a far, far lower rate of sexual, homosexual, paedophile perversions ( all different and not necessarily linked categories ) criminal tendencies, corruption, misogyny and violent tendencies.
The RCC is a deeply and irredeemably misogynistic organisation, run by a predominantly homosexual and deviant Curia. It is dying on it’s corrupt feet as we watch. If it’s potential for social betterment is to be realised before it dissapears completely, after a relatively short life of just 2000 years, it needs to be replaced, not reformed, by a female-led alternative. Have a close look at what is happening with women-led parishes there. That is the only future, but you will have to hurry before the sand of numbers runs out in the great hour-glass in the sky !!!
“… by Frederic Martel…”
Complete loss of credibility right there. Next.
According to the survey, most Catholics aren’t.
And shocking news that is…if you’ve never been to any large gatherings of Catholics, or been in churches with them, when they go…best chances to see one there, though, would be Christmas and Easter, often best described as the annual or semi-annual nationwide meeting of heretics anonymous.
DeaconEdwardPeitler, jpfhays, and Mrs. Hess are absolutely correct. But the problem is much bigger than bogus woke surveys like this one purporting to describe what “Catholics” believe. What such surveys, corrected and understood properly as noted by these comments, is that the number of true, practicing, orthodox Catholics is a tiny fraction of the total. Among such real Catholics the “favorability” of Bergoglio is vanishingly small.
The sheer volume of uncatechised “catholics” is shocking. In many Catholic schools, more than half the teachers don’t practice the faith, 80% of students don’t attend Sunday Mass, and the pastor pops up once a week to offer Mass. Nobody cares about any doctrine, nor dilution of doctrine, nor bad vs good priests, the students on FB and TikTok like any secular school.
But this survey also proves – the Church cannot be a “democracy”, never was in history, and Jesus did not start the Church thus. Because the vast majority are unschooled in theology. Even the apostles, 3/4 of the time they didn’t understand and Jeusus pulls them aside to teach more. Therefore this “Synodality” is absolute elephant-sh!t. All the “listening” is “feel good” but will bring demands for women priests, gay marriage, and communion for the divorced and even divorce without bothering with annulment. “Synodality” has fractured the Anglicans, the Vatican knows that, and that they keep pushing “synodality” means it is deliberately to say “oh it is the voice of the Holy Spirit”. There will be Judgement.
Chris: Even though Deacon Edward’s survey comments are true, Your comments in your first paragraph are also very much true, and well put.
I suspect the lack of clarity in definitions, such as what is a Catholic, is one of the conscious objectives. The main objective is to meet the demands of the Liberal objectives of the elites and the Left.
It is a shame when simple observance of moral laws and the value of human life is always classified as “conservative”.
The sad reality is that most Catholics are totally clueless slaves of the Devil who base their opinions on nothing more than their own worldly desires.
Evidence of resurgent Pelagianism…the 5th-century Pelagius was of the opinion (another opinion!) that man is naturally perfectible, without grace or even growth, and that at worse what is involved day-to-day is only infractions of some superficial rule or other, followed by a superficial reset. Ever upward, hoisted by our own bootstraps! Maybe even “walking together”…
St. Augustine, however, detected, even from his own life, an interior accountability to very deep truths (about which even the Church is “neither the author nor the arbiter” as affirmed in Veritatis Splendor). Something about a “sin” original to ourselves–and sometimes an abysmal betrayal of both God and self–not simply a broken rule awaiting societal amendment. (Recalling, too, that Islam also denies the dimension of original sin and, in the Qur’an, also omits the moral absolutes in the last six prohibitive Commandments.)
So, in the PEW survey, surely there was the unreported and most basic question: “Beyond evolutionary social conventions and taboos, are you a follower of Pelagius (say what?) and totally clueless about the profound difference between good and evil?”
Probably 86% opinionated, “Yes”! So, have a smiley-button day, y’all, and a doughnut.