Special Report

Issues That Divide

The results of a CWR poll point to some revealing differences in the beliefs and practice of Catholic Americans

Back in January, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger drew headlines--and more than a few angry editorial responses--when he told an audience in Rome that Catholics who reject the Church's teaching barring the ordination of women have placed themselves outside the community of faith. Although proponents of women's ordination are not likely to face formal canonical trial and excommunication, he said, "they support erroneous doctrine which is incompatible with the faith." The impossibility of ordaining women, he explained, is "for always, everywhere, and by everyone part of the reposit of Catholic faith."

The results of the Roper poll of Catholic attitudes, commissioned earlier this year by Catholic World Report, provides ample evidence to support Cardinal Ratzinger's statement. When the results of that survey are broken down, a very clear picture emerges. Supporters of women's ordination have, indeed, distanced themselves from the Catholic tradition--not only on this issue, but on a wide range of issues involving Catholic teachings and the practice of the faith.

Thus, for example, among those who disagreed with the statement that "women cannot be ordained to the priesthood:"

In every case, these figures vary markedly from the overall results of the Roper poll--and of course even more markedly from the responses given by Catholics who acknowledge the impossibility of ordaining women.

These results demonstrate that Catholics who reject the Church teaching on the all-male priesthood are also at odds with the Church on a number of other issues. Even if the Church could ordain women, it is unlikely that these dissidents would be satisfied. Nearly half of the proponents of women's ordination (46 percent) strongly reject the notion that abortion is unjustifiable; clearly these respondents are not in tune with the thinking of the Catholic Church.

The results are also consistent with the hypothesis that a core of feminist Catholics have become thoroughly alienated from the Church. That hypothesis could explain the consistent finding that at least 10 percent of the survey sample never frequent the sacraments. Although they continue to identify themselves as Catholics--in answer to the first question of the Roper survey--their notion of what it means to be Catholic is apparently quite elastic, involving no real interest in Church teachings or the active practice of the faith.

If that core of alienation is a reality, and if the Catholics most alienated from the Church are the same ones who most enthusiastically champion the ordination of women, then efforts to accomodate dissent in this area would be unlikely to produce any pastoral results. The Roper poll did not test that possibility. But the survey did test a more limited question involving the use of inclusive language, and found that, while supporters of women's ordination are more likely than other Catholics to favor inclusive-language translations, the introduction of such translations would not make them any more likely to attend Mass on a regular basis. A resounding 81 percent of the dissenters--a figure identical to the overall result--said that the introduction of inclusive-language liturgical texts would make no difference in their own practices.

That intense alienation (along with a good deal of confusion) might also explain one of the more puzzling findings of the Roper poll: the fact that among the respondents who argue that women can be ordained, only 70 percent add that women should be ordained. When asked whether the Church should "allow women to be priests," a startling 12 percent of those who had previously indicated their rejection of the Church tradition nevertheless said that the Church should not ordain women, while another 7 percent indicated that such a move would not matter.

Who are these Catholics who dissent from the Church teaching on the all-male priesthood? The first answer to that question is the most troubling. Despite the recent, clear, emphatic, and repeated magisterial pronouncements that women cannot be ordained, a solid majority of the respondents in the Roper poll--58 percent--disagreed with that statement, and 42 percent disagreed strongly.

However, it is a mistake to assume that support for women's ordination is a "women's issue." In fact, the responses given to that question by women--who constituted 55 percent of the survey respondents--are virtually indistinguishable from those of the overall sample.

A much sharper picture emerges, however, when the answers are broken down according to the age of the respondent. The survey sample was divided into three categories: young adults aged 18-34, those 35-59, and those 60 or older. The first two groups yielded nearly identical results, but the third group--the oldest members of the sample--were distinctly more supportive of the Catholic tradition. In fact, the older Catholics were the only age group in which support for the Church teaching (barely) exceeded dissent.

The only Catholics who supplied a majority in favor of Church teaching were those with less than a high-school diploma. (Since that category accounted for barely 5 percent of the sample, the results are not as reliable as those of other, larger subgroups within the survey.) Among college graduates, the dissent from Church teaching was overwhelming.

However, when the results were broken down according to religious education, no such pattern could be discerned. Catholics who had pursued theological studies in college or beyond were not distinguishable from the overall sample, nor were those who had only rudimentary formal training in the faith; the variation in these answers all fell within the 3 percent margin of error for the Roper poll.

Here, too, the Roper poll points the way toward a tentative conclusion. Catholic Americans are being strongly influenced by an overall feminist trend, most notable in academic life. Thus younger Catholics, and those who pursue higher education, are likely to drift away from the teaching of the Church. Regrettably, Catholic religious-education programs are not effectively countering this influence. In time, therefore, unless Catholic educators make a more determined effort to counteract secular influences, it would be safe to predict a steady decline in support for Catholic traditions.

The weakness of Catholic catechetical programs can be clearly seen in the results to three other questions in the Roper poll, involving the frequency with which respondents frequent Mass and the sacrament of Penance, and read the Bible. If religious education programs were effective in communicating the riches of the Catholic tradition, students who had attained higher levels of religious instruction should be more likely to frequent the sacraments regularly.

But the Roper poll shows no such pattern. In practice, the respondents who have pursued theological training are only barely more likely than their less-educated counterparts to attend Mass regularly, and they are slightly less likely to frequent the sacrament of Penance. And while those who have continued their religious education are a bit more likely to read the Bible with some regularity, full 51 percent of them still read the Scriptures once a month or less. Clearly the existing religious-education programs have failed to establish a pattern of Catholic practice among their American students.

Nor does religious-education training make a noteworthy difference in the respondents' answers to doctrinal questions. The Roper poll began with four questions involving Church teaching: on abortion, on the ordination of women, on contraception, and on the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. On each question, when the results were broken down according to the religious education of the respondents, the variations fell within the margin of error for the survey. In short, the level of religious education produced no statistically significant difference in the answers.

One final result from the Roper poll cries out for attention: the sharp difference in attitudes among respondents who have large families. Of the 1,000 individuals surveyed, 74 percent were (or had been) married, and 69 percent had children. Understandably enough, the youngest respondents--aged from 18-34, with some time still remaining in their child-bearing years--were unlikely to have produced large families; only 9 percent had three or more children. And given the demographic changes that have swept American society in the past generation, it is not surprising that the oldest respondents had produced the largest families; 45 percent of the respondents over 60 years old had four or more children, as against just 19 percent for the overall sample.

However, age is not the only factor that influences family size. Catholics who are more consistent in their religious practices are also more likely to have large families. Among those who attend Mass each Sunday, and read the Bible regularly, the number of children falls into a fairly even pattern, with those who have five or more children nearly matching those who have only one. But among those who rarely attend Mass or read the Bible, it is much more common to have no children at all, and comparatively rare to have more than two children.

The most dramatic differences of all can be found in the responses to the Roper survey questions on Church teaching. Among the Catholics who consistently supported Catholic teaching on all four issues (abortion, ordination of women, contraception, the Real Presence), a remarkable 25 percent have five or more children; among those who reject at least three of those teachings, that figure is only 5 percent.

Here the conclusions to be drawn from the poll are obvious. Catholics who practice their faith, and support the teachings of the Church, show their faith in their decision to have large families. They are--in the actions as well as their beliefs--active proponents of the "culture of life."

As with last month's CWR story, this report is based on a random sample of 1,000 respondents, taken by the Roper Institute in late January and early February 1997. Because figures are rounded, and because some respondents did not answer every question, the figures presented in this story may not add up to 100 percent. Full results of the Roper poll are available, at a token cost to cover postage and handling, from the CWR editorial offices: PO Box 567, Dedham, MA 02027.

Philip F. Lawler is editor of Catholic World Report.