What Do Self Identified Catholics Believe



A poll of Catholics shows the follow church leadership in an issue or two, but are far from unanimous in several important ways. The majority, for example, do not believe abortion is "evil."

Only 56% of Catholics believe in all or most of the denomination's tenets. One interpretation of this is that 46% do not believe in most of the denomination's teaching.

Only 18% believe in all the denomination's teaching. Only a slight majority, 51%, believe religion is important.

While this survey was of Catholics, I would guess other denominations would have similar percentages. From my experience, those in the pews have limited interest in what their denomination teaches and have no intention of learning more. People participate in church life for many reasons and only one of them is religion.

It is hard for me to understand why some parts of Christianity believe the faith would thrive if only preachers came down harder on sin and if there were more strict adherence to the faith. While some churches may do well with this practice the statistics above show us those in the pews do not take what they hear from the pulpit very seriously.

In the end, religion is a diversion from lives of work and other responsibilities. The difference between practicing religion and what we call entertainment is hard to differentiate.

Comments

  1. little helperFebruary 28, 2020 at 8:37 AM

    re. 'Only a slight majority, 51%, believe religion is important". I wonder what the percentage of members even know all the teachings and dogmas included in Trent, and later by the Magisterium, in reference to the last topic.
    In fact, I have asked several Catholics what the immaculate conception is, and many said they thought it was the conception of Mary with Jesus. Now, that would make sense, but it is the conception of Mary in her mother's womb, according to dogma.
    "Dogma", that which must be believed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. tsmMarch 1, 2020 at 1:34 PM

    you like to dismiss any survey that doesn't measure up to your supposedly rigid stands. so what about the one you site? what the population (n) surveyed? did the pollsters distinguish between Catholics who sit in the pews on Sunday and the nominal Catholics who seldom if ever sit in the pews? did they distinguish between so-called conservative Catholics and so-called liberal Catholics? BTW. and so on. 56 and 46 percent adds to 102 percent.

    ReplyDelete

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