American Catholics See the Church as Out of Touch

[Frodo]

It's interesting how American Catholics want the Church to continue to lead opposition to abortion and the death penalty despite the fact they have diametrically opposed views:

U.S. Catholics in Poll See a Church Out of Touch

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN
Published: March 5, 2013

Roman Catholics in the United States say that their church and bishops are out of touch, and that the next pope should lead the church in a more modern direction on issues like birth control and ordaining women and married men as priests, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Seven out of 10 say Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have done a poor job of handling sexual abuse, a significant rise from three years ago. A majority said that the issue had led them to question the Vatican’s authority. The sexual abuse of children by priests is the largest problem facing the church, Catholics in the poll said.

Three-fourths of those polled said they thought it was a good idea for Benedict to resign. Most wanted the next pope to be “someone younger, with new ideas.” A majority said they wanted the next pope to make the church’s teachings more liberal.

(...) The nationwide telephone poll was conducted on landlines and cellphones from Feb. 23 to 27, when many Catholics were still absorbing news of the first resignation of a pope in 600 years. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for the 580 Catholics, who were oversampled for purposes of analysis in the survey of 1,585 adults.

[DC Al Fine]

Were these mass attending Catholics or the Catholic population as a whole? If they were the latter, there is no surprise here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's the only thing from it I found particularly weird (or interesting):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Male 72% Favor
Female 60% Favor

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's the only thing from it I found particularly weird (or interesting):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Male 72% Favor
Female 60% Favor

IIRC, polls typically show that once adjusted for political factors (i.e., comparing only politicians with similar positions) that female voters tend to be less supportive of female pols than male voters are.  So if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, this result is probably steming from the same factors.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

That's not the point of clergy, BRTD.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

That's not the point of clergy, BRTD.

Added bonus. Although it does help them be more charismatic (in the non-theological sense of the term) which is a big must.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

That's not the point of clergy, BRTD.

Added bonus. Although it does help them be more charismatic (in the non-theological sense of the term) which is a big must.

I'm told it's helpful for attendance among groups of people whose psychology works very differently to mine and hence could indeed in that sense be said to be a bonus, but 'must' is, I think, pushing it. And in fairness, some male priests can be attractive to roughly half of the population, too.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

That's not the point of clergy, BRTD.

Added bonus. Although it does help them be more charismatic (in the non-theological sense of the term) which is a big must.

I'm told it's helpful for attendance among groups of people whose psychology works very differently to mine and hence could indeed in that sense be said to be a bonus, but 'must' is, I think, pushing it. And in fairness, some male priests can be attractive to roughly half of the population, too.

But we're discussing why males are more supportive of female priests. And male priests' average age is no doubt way higher than the average. But as noted, I don't think female Catholic priests in a hypothetical scenario of them being allowed would be the types either to discuss their fashion accessories and what stores they bought them at (all extremely overpriced stores in Uptown obviously) with other girls before the service and explain most of the ones they're wearing now were bought as a shopping binge done yesterday as a form of procrastination for sermon writing. Though if a female Episcopalian priest somewhere does this, I would love to see Nathan overhear it and witness his reaction!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well one advantage of female clergy is just about every woman who's ever preached at my church has been very good looking. (Considering who the target demographic is, I doubt this is entirely coincidental) However I know that's not likely to be the case with hypothetical female Catholic priests (it certainly isn't for most ordained women in mainline denoms), so I doubt that has much to do with it.

That's not the point of clergy, BRTD.

Added bonus. Although it does help them be more charismatic (in the non-theological sense of the term) which is a big must.

I'm told it's helpful for attendance among groups of people whose psychology works very differently to mine and hence could indeed in that sense be said to be a bonus, but 'must' is, I think, pushing it. And in fairness, some male priests can be attractive to roughly half of the population, too.

But we're discussing why males are more supportive of female priests. And male priests' average age is no doubt way higher than the average.

Do you really think prurience or shallowness in this regard is enough to account for a twelve-point spread in the opposite direction to what one would expect, though? I'd much rather not, personally.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well no of course not. Plus as noted in my edit, they'd likely be dressed quite a bit more blandly anyway.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well no of course not. Plus as noted in my edit, they'd likely be dressed quite a bit more blandly anyway.

'Bland' isn't the word I'd use for Roman Catholic choir vestments, but I get your meaning.

[7,052,770]

Here's the only thing from it I found particularly weird (or interesting):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Male 72% Favor
Female 60% Favor

That's what I would have suspected

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It might be a form of political correctness, conservative males are less likely to be willing to openly oppose women priests than conservative females. It might also be more of an absolute deal breaker for pro-women priest females than males, so more of them leave and aren't counted in the numbers anymore (though it is for me, I would never belong to any church that didn't ordain women under any circumstances. I've pointed this out to Harry before as one reason why I really don't like Catholicism.)

[2952-0-0]

I know a female Anglican minister who said the real reason many women prefer men as ministers is because they play favorites with female parishioners, while women are less likely to do so even if they're lesbian (in which case they shouldn't be too open about it).

It sucks to be the minister's wife, who's also expected to support the husband's ministry, though.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Catholic Church is a conservative (in the traditional, European sense) institution, while American Catholics are, in practice, subject to the pressures of the "secular" liberal (in many senses ) American/Western world, so this is not too surprising.

[DC Al Fine]

The Catholic Church is a conservative (in the traditional, European sense) institution, while American Catholics are, in practice, subject to the pressures of the "secular" liberal (in many senses ) American/Western world, so this is not too surprising.

This. The greater the separation from the wider society, the more in line with the Church one will be.

Never go to mass<Christmas/Easter Mass<Go sometimes<Go weekly<Go weekly+involved in other church things<Go to daily mass<Go to daily mass+ some in Latin.