Excellent post! I pretty much knew these kinds of survey trends, but the new and surprising metric for me is that only 0.9% of U.S. Catholics agree with all three of those doctrinal-ethical points at once. It just goes to show that we (we practicing U.S. Catholics, of which I am one, and anyone still claiming the title) are ALL cafeteria Catholics. The term is so meaningless and tendentious that Catholic leaders and those holier-than-thou should stop using it. It's just a cudgel.
One more note: while it is fair enough to say that the three ethical teachings are solid doctrines of the official Church, in a more technical sense they don't, and shouldn't, rise to the level of doctrine (as compared to the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, etc.). All ethical issues have context; the Church has made a mistake, in my opinion, in trying to make them one-size-fits-all. Some prelates, such as Cardinal McElroy of San Diego, sensitively try to acknowledge this, and they get hammered for it (https://www.ncronline.org/news/illinois-bishops-provocative-essay-suggests-cardinal-mcelroy-heretic).
This is mostly old hat among Catholics with an interest in data. Add the GSS variables about current use of artificial contraception into the mix and you can make the number of actual practicing Catholics even smaller than that!
However, I don't find it terribly useful to look at the universe of all self-identified Catholics, since Catholic is almost as much a cultural marker as a religious one. Like the secular Jew, the lapsed Catholic is indistinguishable from an atheist yet still replies "Catholic" on these surveys, which distorts the results. For example, the Catholic religion is improperly understood to be the largest Christian denomination in America, but -- as you can see from these charts -- the Catholic religion is actually quite small.
So I would be interested in seeing what these graphs look like if restricted to self-identified Catholics who attend religious services once a week or more. (This is the bare minimum required by the Church, and is a useful test for who identifies with Catholicism on a more than cultural level.) I'm sure they would still be distressing for priests, but, based on my work with the contraception data in the GSS in 2012, I suspect they would not be quite *as* distressing.
I would also like to know whether that 2010s spike in abortion support happened among pew-sitters, or just among lapsed/secular Catholics.
On things like abortion, there's a big difference between following God's way (as you understand it) and favouring a law requiring everyone to follow as strictly as you do.
That's true as a general principle, though in tricky with abortion.
Keep in mind your basically saying "murder isn't alright for me, but if its alright for you!"
I'm with you but less out of support for legal abortion and more as not seeing any realistic path to outlawing it. I put it in the same category as an abolitionist in 1776.
Ryan, this is fine to rehash--it does not seem like new news to me-- but I'm disappointed in how truncated your FOCUS is here. Do not these count as hot topics: the need for a global green new deal, or the need to have fair taxation of billionaires, or the need to focus on homelessness and access to healthcare, or unjust wars in Gaza and elsewhere? Pope Francis is especially clear on the climate parts linked to questions about militarism and economic inequality globally. I for one don't need new data about rank and file Catholics ignoring Vatican preaching about contraception, abortion, etc. Everyone knows that basic plot. But we CAN really use good data about who is following Francis's lead and who is not, both in the US and more widely. Can you give us any of this? thanks!
Pope Francis might be loud and active on a lot of issues, but that doesn't elevate any of them to the level of Catholic Doctrine, unless and until he makes a binding declaration "ex Cathedra". Explaining what that means would take a while. On the other hand, other than translations, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a document clearly stating what Catholics must or must not hold to be true and hasn't changed in decades (which might as well be a true constant in political timelines). That, and where polling exists, make these better questions to look at for this kind of post.
My gut tells me that there is a lot of well-done/thorough research "out there" on who, among the Pope's "counselors" is following his lead and who (publicly and privately) isn't.
Data collection and mathematical sorting are relatively new, as are valid survey methods. Religious flashpoints are not. In my lifetime, though before Ryan’s, divorce was a Catholic Church taboo. Oral contraceptives and barrier contraceptives still are. The sanctity of life is more of a moving target, as the divide between pregnancy termination and the ending of the life of convicted murderers attests. Some might argue that Mother Teresa, despite her noble efforts, created unnecessary mortality by withholding condoms in the AIDS era despite her ability to make a reasonable prediction of what the premature mortality in Calcutta would be from the decision to follow the church’s policy. Even with abortion today, and the absoluteness of Vatican determinations on this, there aren’t papal representatives marching in India, China, and Japan where this procedure has already been accepted by the population and sponsored by the civil governments.
We have Protestantism at all because of its flashpoints centuries ago. Indulgences were unacceptable to parts of Central Europe, denying divorce the turning point in England. To some extent Henry VIII might have been the prototype of the Cafeteria Catholic had he not opted instead for the New Broom approach instead.
Some absolute pronouncements such as geocentrism or policies relating to doctrines of Jewish Deicide and what to do about it had enough negative consequences to mandate formal abandonment. And in a more theoretical sphere, there probably aren’t that many diehard defenders of Papal infallibility. There might even be modern surveys to quantify the prevalence of this belief.
What you really have, not just with the Vatican and SBC, are the formal tenets and a form of Folk Religion of what the followers actually do. So Catholic women take oral contraceptives and get divorced in the modern day. Nobody shuns them from communion. SBC physicians still treat those with AIDs or other venereal diseases in a professional way.
We Jews have our own flash points, mainly intermarriage in the last fifty years but also a decline in sabbath observance or dietary law adherence extending much further. The extent of authority that some umbrella agencies grant the local rabbi has been another. Shunning was tried in some sects on intermarriage with some undesirable outcomes to the organizations that went that route. Acceptance with prudent accommodation has prevailed.
We also have our own form of a la carte Judaism. Fifty years ago, the first volume of The Jewish Catalog, a manual on how to pick out the parts of Judaism that you find personally meaningful and bypass the Rabbi’s was published and remains widely read. For a masterful description of pushback by the traditionalists who sat on the Jewish Publication Society’s editorial committee, there is a wonderful recent essay in The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/07/the-jewish-catalog-50th-anniversary/674846/
What they found is what should have been discerned in Jesus’ day, when his ministry and followers originated from those who simply would not salute the dominant Temple authorities of that era.
It seems, when it comes to Catholics, we must look to what the Church states about conscience formation. Data points from surveys cannot account for what happens deep within an individual’s mind and heart.
Read carefully Paragraph 16 from Gaudium et Spes, Vatican Council II’s 1965 Constitution of the Church in the Modern World:
“16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.”
This statement contains a double-edged sword. Conscience is inviolable but it must be open to the truth. No easy undertaking! The Church’s teachings should be grounded in truth but that’s not always the case.
So, when Catholics disagree with their Church on certain ethical matters, it hardly makes them “cafeteria Catholics” - a simplistic, dismissive and self-serving term. It’s also not surprising that research data would reveal such disagreement.
RE: Conscience is inviolable but it must be open to the truth. No easy undertaking!
That which is accepted "truth" can and quite often does change as we (mere) humans gain more knowledge/insight/understanding of our world. Galileo and the germ theory of disease come immediately to mind.
Thank you, Eileen, for your reply. Totally agree and let’s take the lead of John Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) in this who said: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
Mr. Burge, I am an ardent reader of your data analysis and observations. This .9% is a shocking number indeed. I assume, however, that this data is for all those who identify in any way as Catholic. Correct? If so, do you have data or can you point to where I may find data on this issue for those who are practicing Catholics as defined as attending Mass once or more times a week? I say this as the Catholic Church professes the Eucharistic Liturgy as the “source and summit” of its belief, if someone doesn’t go to church on a weekly basis, it is not surprising to find nearly zero agreement on issues of morality. (We saw this same divergence when folks were asked about the Eucharist as real presence or symbol.) My assumption is that there is a higher adherence to the Catholic Church’s teaching on these three moral issues among regular church goers than among those who simply identify as Catholic. Sadly, my guess is that the correlation number on agreeing with all three is not likely to exceed 1/3, but that certainly is a great deal higher than .9%. Indeed, I know priests who do not accept all three, diverging especially as regards the death penalty.
Okay, now I’m really depressed. 🤷♂️ Is there one particular issue among these (eg, capital punishment) that skews the numbers much lower than the others? The reality of course is that the vast majority of Catholics (church goers or not) either do not believe or simply do not know what the church teaches on a whole array of doctrinal or even dogmatic issues. I’m beginning to think that the phrase “cafeteria Catholic” is more subjective commentary about “others” and less objective observation about “self” as it styles itself to be. Thanks for responding.
I've heard of research for the general population in the US that differs from the results stated here. For example, it remains commonly said that the majority (over 50%) of Americans are against abortion. So I tried to find the sample sizes of the data you used. Following your links in this paragraph:
"at least three quarters of Roman Catholics favor a woman’s right to obtain an abortion if she became pregnant due to a sexual assault. Nearly the same share are supportive of abortion if the child has a serious birth defect."...
Looking at the results you linked to, 46.7% (230 people) said they support abortion for child with defects, and 47.5% (237 people) said they support abortion for victims of rape. I cannot find where your claim of 3/4 (75%) is found. Again the links you've provided are the 2018 data not 2022.
It is extremely important that we reasonably present data. Errant representations of data, or accurate but sensationalized reporting of it, can effect a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank you for your efforts and I hope you will consider rethinking this assessment.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand how polling works.
Yes, you are correct. There about 60 million Catholics in the United States. However, that's not entirely relevant to how polling works. If we collect a random sample of 1000 Catholics, that will very closely approximate the views of all Catholics. That's the foundational principle of polling.
If there were 6 million or 60 million - that random sample of 1000 would be sufficient to help us understand the views of all Catholics.
For instance - have you ever had a blood test conducted? If so, do you trust the results?
How much blood did the draw from you for this test? Half? A quarter? One tenth?
It actually a typical blood test requires about one tenth of one ounce of blood. The average human has 160 ounces of blood in their body.
So it's 1/1600 of the blood in your entire body in that little tube. Yet, we rely on that little sample to tell us about what is happening in your body.
Major flaws in this. First of all, the Catholic Church supports the death penalty in some circumstances. In recent years, starting with pope John Paul II and now Francis, there's been an attempt to change that but it's more about politics than faith. Second, the "Catholics" who support abortion/euthanasia aren't really Catholics. They identify as Catholic but they don't go to Church. Finally, saying 0.9% of catholics oppose abortion/euthanasia/death penalty is incorrect logic because the same 25% or so of Catholics hold the church's stances on all those issues. Saying that the 30% of catholics who are completely pro life are just as likely to support euthanasia as the pro choice catholics is a foolish assumption.
This post is a total unscientific tour of the data. Everyone who has every studied Statistics for Social Sciences knows that any survey or poll about human behavior must be conducted under the most rigorous standards to reflect authentically the demographic about which data is being sought. Yet in absolutely none of the data presented from ARDA is there any reference at all concerning the manner in which the "data" was collected. Moreover, for any graph of the change of views to be truthful and accurate, the same methodology for collecting data would have to be used decade after decade. Yet the science of statistical analysis of human behavior has grown up tremendously in the last 5 decades, so that is totally impossible. -- In addition to all these errors in the ARDA presentation, the author of the above article does not articulate with precision the Catholic position on Abortion. The Church has never taught that abortion is always morally wrong, as all the manuals of moral theology admit rare cases to save the life of the mother as legitimate, so long as the killing of the child is not intended. Thus if the survey incorrectly presents the question, they will always get the wrong data.
"Any survey or poll about human behavior must be conducted under the most rigorous standards to reflect authentically the demographic about which data is being sought."
This data comes from the General Social Survey, which is widely considered by academics to be the absolute Gold Standard when it comes to polling in the United States.
Look at their clients and you will see that they are all organizations very antagonistic if not openly hateful of Catholics. But even if other think their data is "gold", I have already given you solid reasons why it cannot be worth more than lead.
My instinct/gut on this issue is to think that the "source that she trusted" was having a bad day....as do we all. I am a former teacher (i.e. "service oriented" as I suspect those in the clergy/clergy admin are) and too often I know I painted (whined about) my students with a TOO BROAD BRUSH.
I make this statement due to the fact that she left where she was to "check out evangelical churches," which, IMO, anyway, tend to be more conservative than many/most mainline churches.
Please DO correct me if I'm waaaaaaaaaaaay off base on this.
Or even if I'm a little off-base.
BTW, growing up I often went to the Methodist Church in my small, NE Oklahoma town. Loved the "liberation theology" being taught/lived at that church and the minister eventually rose quite high in the Methodist hierarchy . (Only learned what liberation theology was in my 30s.)
As a Catholic priest myself, I experience this tension everyday! It’s a pastoral task at turns exciting and exasperating.
Excellent post! I pretty much knew these kinds of survey trends, but the new and surprising metric for me is that only 0.9% of U.S. Catholics agree with all three of those doctrinal-ethical points at once. It just goes to show that we (we practicing U.S. Catholics, of which I am one, and anyone still claiming the title) are ALL cafeteria Catholics. The term is so meaningless and tendentious that Catholic leaders and those holier-than-thou should stop using it. It's just a cudgel.
One more note: while it is fair enough to say that the three ethical teachings are solid doctrines of the official Church, in a more technical sense they don't, and shouldn't, rise to the level of doctrine (as compared to the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, etc.). All ethical issues have context; the Church has made a mistake, in my opinion, in trying to make them one-size-fits-all. Some prelates, such as Cardinal McElroy of San Diego, sensitively try to acknowledge this, and they get hammered for it (https://www.ncronline.org/news/illinois-bishops-provocative-essay-suggests-cardinal-mcelroy-heretic).
I have always tended to think of doctrine and dogma as the same thing....much thanks for this clarification.
This is mostly old hat among Catholics with an interest in data. Add the GSS variables about current use of artificial contraception into the mix and you can make the number of actual practicing Catholics even smaller than that!
However, I don't find it terribly useful to look at the universe of all self-identified Catholics, since Catholic is almost as much a cultural marker as a religious one. Like the secular Jew, the lapsed Catholic is indistinguishable from an atheist yet still replies "Catholic" on these surveys, which distorts the results. For example, the Catholic religion is improperly understood to be the largest Christian denomination in America, but -- as you can see from these charts -- the Catholic religion is actually quite small.
So I would be interested in seeing what these graphs look like if restricted to self-identified Catholics who attend religious services once a week or more. (This is the bare minimum required by the Church, and is a useful test for who identifies with Catholicism on a more than cultural level.) I'm sure they would still be distressing for priests, but, based on my work with the contraception data in the GSS in 2012, I suspect they would not be quite *as* distressing.
I would also like to know whether that 2010s spike in abortion support happened among pew-sitters, or just among lapsed/secular Catholics.
On things like abortion, there's a big difference between following God's way (as you understand it) and favouring a law requiring everyone to follow as strictly as you do.
That's true as a general principle, though in tricky with abortion.
Keep in mind your basically saying "murder isn't alright for me, but if its alright for you!"
I'm with you but less out of support for legal abortion and more as not seeing any realistic path to outlawing it. I put it in the same category as an abolitionist in 1776.
Ryan, this is fine to rehash--it does not seem like new news to me-- but I'm disappointed in how truncated your FOCUS is here. Do not these count as hot topics: the need for a global green new deal, or the need to have fair taxation of billionaires, or the need to focus on homelessness and access to healthcare, or unjust wars in Gaza and elsewhere? Pope Francis is especially clear on the climate parts linked to questions about militarism and economic inequality globally. I for one don't need new data about rank and file Catholics ignoring Vatican preaching about contraception, abortion, etc. Everyone knows that basic plot. But we CAN really use good data about who is following Francis's lead and who is not, both in the US and more widely. Can you give us any of this? thanks!
Pope Francis might be loud and active on a lot of issues, but that doesn't elevate any of them to the level of Catholic Doctrine, unless and until he makes a binding declaration "ex Cathedra". Explaining what that means would take a while. On the other hand, other than translations, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a document clearly stating what Catholics must or must not hold to be true and hasn't changed in decades (which might as well be a true constant in political timelines). That, and where polling exists, make these better questions to look at for this kind of post.
My gut tells me that there is a lot of well-done/thorough research "out there" on who, among the Pope's "counselors" is following his lead and who (publicly and privately) isn't.
But that's just my gut talking.
Data collection and mathematical sorting are relatively new, as are valid survey methods. Religious flashpoints are not. In my lifetime, though before Ryan’s, divorce was a Catholic Church taboo. Oral contraceptives and barrier contraceptives still are. The sanctity of life is more of a moving target, as the divide between pregnancy termination and the ending of the life of convicted murderers attests. Some might argue that Mother Teresa, despite her noble efforts, created unnecessary mortality by withholding condoms in the AIDS era despite her ability to make a reasonable prediction of what the premature mortality in Calcutta would be from the decision to follow the church’s policy. Even with abortion today, and the absoluteness of Vatican determinations on this, there aren’t papal representatives marching in India, China, and Japan where this procedure has already been accepted by the population and sponsored by the civil governments.
We have Protestantism at all because of its flashpoints centuries ago. Indulgences were unacceptable to parts of Central Europe, denying divorce the turning point in England. To some extent Henry VIII might have been the prototype of the Cafeteria Catholic had he not opted instead for the New Broom approach instead.
Some absolute pronouncements such as geocentrism or policies relating to doctrines of Jewish Deicide and what to do about it had enough negative consequences to mandate formal abandonment. And in a more theoretical sphere, there probably aren’t that many diehard defenders of Papal infallibility. There might even be modern surveys to quantify the prevalence of this belief.
What you really have, not just with the Vatican and SBC, are the formal tenets and a form of Folk Religion of what the followers actually do. So Catholic women take oral contraceptives and get divorced in the modern day. Nobody shuns them from communion. SBC physicians still treat those with AIDs or other venereal diseases in a professional way.
We Jews have our own flash points, mainly intermarriage in the last fifty years but also a decline in sabbath observance or dietary law adherence extending much further. The extent of authority that some umbrella agencies grant the local rabbi has been another. Shunning was tried in some sects on intermarriage with some undesirable outcomes to the organizations that went that route. Acceptance with prudent accommodation has prevailed.
We also have our own form of a la carte Judaism. Fifty years ago, the first volume of The Jewish Catalog, a manual on how to pick out the parts of Judaism that you find personally meaningful and bypass the Rabbi’s was published and remains widely read. For a masterful description of pushback by the traditionalists who sat on the Jewish Publication Society’s editorial committee, there is a wonderful recent essay in The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/07/the-jewish-catalog-50th-anniversary/674846/
What they found is what should have been discerned in Jesus’ day, when his ministry and followers originated from those who simply would not salute the dominant Temple authorities of that era.
A very informative read!!!! Much thanks!
I was saying earlier this week that theology/beliefs have been seriously overdetermined in our theorizing about religion.
Can you run the numbers on evangelicals holding the same positions? I would just be curious to see what the comparative numbers are.
It seems, when it comes to Catholics, we must look to what the Church states about conscience formation. Data points from surveys cannot account for what happens deep within an individual’s mind and heart.
Read carefully Paragraph 16 from Gaudium et Spes, Vatican Council II’s 1965 Constitution of the Church in the Modern World:
“16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.”
This statement contains a double-edged sword. Conscience is inviolable but it must be open to the truth. No easy undertaking! The Church’s teachings should be grounded in truth but that’s not always the case.
So, when Catholics disagree with their Church on certain ethical matters, it hardly makes them “cafeteria Catholics” - a simplistic, dismissive and self-serving term. It’s also not surprising that research data would reveal such disagreement.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html
https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_one/article_6/ii_the_formation_of_conscience.html
RE: Conscience is inviolable but it must be open to the truth. No easy undertaking!
That which is accepted "truth" can and quite often does change as we (mere) humans gain more knowledge/insight/understanding of our world. Galileo and the germ theory of disease come immediately to mind.
Thank you, Eileen, for your reply. Totally agree and let’s take the lead of John Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) in this who said: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
Yes...change often!!!!
There's always been dissent, sure. But that's not at all the same thing as dissent being the majority, the default position!
Mr. Burge, I am an ardent reader of your data analysis and observations. This .9% is a shocking number indeed. I assume, however, that this data is for all those who identify in any way as Catholic. Correct? If so, do you have data or can you point to where I may find data on this issue for those who are practicing Catholics as defined as attending Mass once or more times a week? I say this as the Catholic Church professes the Eucharistic Liturgy as the “source and summit” of its belief, if someone doesn’t go to church on a weekly basis, it is not surprising to find nearly zero agreement on issues of morality. (We saw this same divergence when folks were asked about the Eucharist as real presence or symbol.) My assumption is that there is a higher adherence to the Catholic Church’s teaching on these three moral issues among regular church goers than among those who simply identify as Catholic. Sadly, my guess is that the correlation number on agreeing with all three is not likely to exceed 1/3, but that certainly is a great deal higher than .9%. Indeed, I know priests who do not accept all three, diverging especially as regards the death penalty.
This graph is what you are asking about:
https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1786401974767743306?t=D8UE4GlpvFjL3g2Xy_byEQ&s=19
Okay, now I’m really depressed. 🤷♂️ Is there one particular issue among these (eg, capital punishment) that skews the numbers much lower than the others? The reality of course is that the vast majority of Catholics (church goers or not) either do not believe or simply do not know what the church teaches on a whole array of doctrinal or even dogmatic issues. I’m beginning to think that the phrase “cafeteria Catholic” is more subjective commentary about “others” and less objective observation about “self” as it styles itself to be. Thanks for responding.
I've heard of research for the general population in the US that differs from the results stated here. For example, it remains commonly said that the majority (over 50%) of Americans are against abortion. So I tried to find the sample sizes of the data you used. Following your links in this paragraph:
"at least three quarters of Roman Catholics favor a woman’s right to obtain an abortion if she became pregnant due to a sexual assault. Nearly the same share are supportive of abortion if the child has a serious birth defect."...
it links to the 2018 survey results not 2022. The # of participants is 2327, although viable it is still relatively small to be making a nationwide assessment of Catholics based upon this, particularly since the 2020 census estimates 60 MILLION Catholics in the USA. https://www.usreligioncensus.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/RRA%20Catholic%20presentation.pdf
Looking at the results you linked to, 46.7% (230 people) said they support abortion for child with defects, and 47.5% (237 people) said they support abortion for victims of rape. I cannot find where your claim of 3/4 (75%) is found. Again the links you've provided are the 2018 data not 2022.
It is extremely important that we reasonably present data. Errant representations of data, or accurate but sensationalized reporting of it, can effect a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank you for your efforts and I hope you will consider rethinking this assessment.
Hi "The Face of Grace Project"
I think you fundamentally misunderstand how polling works.
Yes, you are correct. There about 60 million Catholics in the United States. However, that's not entirely relevant to how polling works. If we collect a random sample of 1000 Catholics, that will very closely approximate the views of all Catholics. That's the foundational principle of polling.
If there were 6 million or 60 million - that random sample of 1000 would be sufficient to help us understand the views of all Catholics.
For instance - have you ever had a blood test conducted? If so, do you trust the results?
How much blood did the draw from you for this test? Half? A quarter? One tenth?
It actually a typical blood test requires about one tenth of one ounce of blood. The average human has 160 ounces of blood in their body.
So it's 1/1600 of the blood in your entire body in that little tube. Yet, we rely on that little sample to tell us about what is happening in your body.
The same principle applies in polling.
Major flaws in this. First of all, the Catholic Church supports the death penalty in some circumstances. In recent years, starting with pope John Paul II and now Francis, there's been an attempt to change that but it's more about politics than faith. Second, the "Catholics" who support abortion/euthanasia aren't really Catholics. They identify as Catholic but they don't go to Church. Finally, saying 0.9% of catholics oppose abortion/euthanasia/death penalty is incorrect logic because the same 25% or so of Catholics hold the church's stances on all those issues. Saying that the 30% of catholics who are completely pro life are just as likely to support euthanasia as the pro choice catholics is a foolish assumption.
This post is a total unscientific tour of the data. Everyone who has every studied Statistics for Social Sciences knows that any survey or poll about human behavior must be conducted under the most rigorous standards to reflect authentically the demographic about which data is being sought. Yet in absolutely none of the data presented from ARDA is there any reference at all concerning the manner in which the "data" was collected. Moreover, for any graph of the change of views to be truthful and accurate, the same methodology for collecting data would have to be used decade after decade. Yet the science of statistical analysis of human behavior has grown up tremendously in the last 5 decades, so that is totally impossible. -- In addition to all these errors in the ARDA presentation, the author of the above article does not articulate with precision the Catholic position on Abortion. The Church has never taught that abortion is always morally wrong, as all the manuals of moral theology admit rare cases to save the life of the mother as legitimate, so long as the killing of the child is not intended. Thus if the survey incorrectly presents the question, they will always get the wrong data.
"Any survey or poll about human behavior must be conducted under the most rigorous standards to reflect authentically the demographic about which data is being sought."
This data comes from the General Social Survey, which is widely considered by academics to be the absolute Gold Standard when it comes to polling in the United States.
Look at their clients and you will see that they are all organizations very antagonistic if not openly hateful of Catholics. But even if other think their data is "gold", I have already given you solid reasons why it cannot be worth more than lead.
My instinct/gut on this issue is to think that the "source that she trusted" was having a bad day....as do we all. I am a former teacher (i.e. "service oriented" as I suspect those in the clergy/clergy admin are) and too often I know I painted (whined about) my students with a TOO BROAD BRUSH.
I make this statement due to the fact that she left where she was to "check out evangelical churches," which, IMO, anyway, tend to be more conservative than many/most mainline churches.
Please DO correct me if I'm waaaaaaaaaaaay off base on this.
Or even if I'm a little off-base.
BTW, growing up I often went to the Methodist Church in my small, NE Oklahoma town. Loved the "liberation theology" being taught/lived at that church and the minister eventually rose quite high in the Methodist hierarchy . (Only learned what liberation theology was in my 30s.)
If you replaced the abortion question with the general prohibition on birth control, you could probably get down to 0.5 per cent.