American Catholics Out of Step With Vatican on Social Issues

Posted on April 3, 2005

A recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll sheds some interesting light on the attitudes of American Catholics. 78% believe Catholics should be allowed to use birth control. 63% believe that priests should be allowed to marry. 59% would like church doctrine on stem cell research to be less strict. 55% believe women should be allowed to become priests. 49% believe Catholics should be able to divorce and re-marry without getting an annulment. But only 37% of Catholics believe that church doctrine on abortion should be less strict.

These poll numbers illustrate the challenges ahead for the next pope. American Catholics are an independent lot, and donations from American churches send a sizable amount of money to the Vatican. Many dioceses are without priests at all; they have to rely on a "circuit-riding" priest who handles several parishes. If priests could marry and women could become priests this would alleviate the priest shortage, argue many American Catholics. Some also believe it would raise the standards on the kind of people seeking the priesthood and would help greatly with the church's devastating sexual abuse scandals.

But given the fact that John Paul II personally chose 100 of the cardinals who will be locked in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, it seems unlikely that they will elect a liberal Catholic who thinks Vatican II was a good thing.