By the numbers: Most Catholics are being run by the culture

(Photos: Screenshot from PewResarch.org and CNS)

By the numbers: Most Catholics are being run by the culture | Dale Ahlquist | "The Dispatch" at CWR

The recent Pew poll about Catholics and family reveals that Chesterton was right when he said, “The next great heresy will be an attack on morality, especially sexual morality.”

In 1905, G.K. Chesterton wrote:

It is an error to suppose that statistics are merely untrue. They are also wicked. As used today, they serve the purpose of making masses of men feel helpless and cowardly . . . But I have another quarrel with statistics. I believe that even if they are technically correct they can be entirely misleading. When we hear what we are told are real scientific statistics, it is psychologically impossible not to think that they mean something. Generally they mean nothing. Sometimes they mean something that isn't true.

Apparently in anticipation of the Catholic World Meeting of Families this month and the Bishops Synod on the Family next month, the Pew Research Center has published the results of a survey of Catholics regarding their views on the family. The survey is interesting both for what it reveals and does not reveal.

First of all is the shocking statistic that 45% of the population is “either Catholic or connected to Catholicism.” What? If that's true, we should be running the country, winning every election, and orchestrating all cultural currents according to the wishes of the Pope. There is not another interest group that can even touch such numbers as ours. And yet the results of the survey suggest the opposite trend: most Catholics are being run by the culture. In fact, the headline of the study itself trumpets “Catholics Open to Non-traditional Families.” So, the first number to be dealt with is that 45% figure. It turns out that “connected to Catholicism” means people who have either left the Church, have a Catholic spouse or a Catholic parent, consider themselves “culturally Catholic” but do not attend church or practice the faith, or they attend Catholic churches but are not members. Take that group out and only 20% of the population actually identify themselves as Catholic. A dramatic difference. But the drama continues. If one out of five people is Catholic that is still a significant number.

But, of those who identify themselves as Catholic, 39% do not view homosexual behavior as sinful, 49% do not think that remarriage without an annulment is a sin, 54% do not regard cohabitation as a sin, and 66% do not believe that contraception is a sin. So, a large number of people who call themselves Catholic do not subscribe to Catholic teaching.

The obvious danger of these numbers, and the way they are presented, is that there are some who may try to use them to argue that Church teaching needs to be changed, in this case the teaching regarding divorce and remarriage, cohabitation and even same-sex unions. Since it appears that many if not most Catholics already seem to approve of these “non-traditional” arrangements, shouldn't the Church approve them, too?

But a closer look at the numbers reveals that while a significant portion of those who call themselves Catholics do not adhere to the Church's teaching on marriage and family, roughly the same group does not attend Mass regularly or go to confession regularly.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.