Young Catholics not turning to sanctity of life and marriage as voting issues, poll finds

Washington DC, Oct 8, 2008 / 11:48 pm (CNA).- A new poll of Americans ages 18-34 has surveyed the faith, politics, and issue positions of young adults before the 2008 election. The poll claims about 60 percent of younger self-identified Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 44 percent reportedly support same-sex marriage, a number which rises to 64 percent when religious liberty protections are emphasized ...

Overall, 44 percent of Catholics said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 54 percent said it should not. About 61 percent of young Catholics reported it was not a very important voting issue, compared to 56 percent of Catholics 35 years and older.

As a whole, 30 percent of Catholics agreed that “gay couples should be allowed to marry,” rising to 47 percent when the question is framed by the insistence that “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples.” ...

Turning to the presidential election, the poll shows overall voters who attend religious services once or twice a month support Obama at a rate of 60 percent. The same group showed 49 percent support for John Kerry in 2004. Catholics aged 35 and older are split between McCain and Obama 46 percent to 44 percent, but Obama leads McCain among younger Catholics 55 to 40 percent ...

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14008

hopefully this translates into a more progressive future. I'm 26 and don't know any peers who hold social conservative views.

but I don't believe they're the present or the future of the RC Church. I'm 52 and a life-long Catholic and it's good to see the younger people have their heads on straight-gives me hope.

Many are getting turned off so after they get confirmed out they go never to return. The Church does not relate to them at all and are moving farther away each day.

is that when they marry and have children, they'll return as a way of giving moral structure to their children's lives.

Sometimes they're right and sometimes not. I hope this time they're wrong because losing parishoners by the throng instead of by the individual is the only way change has been forced on the hierarchy.

Face it, celibate old men in dresses have absolutely nothing to say about women's bodies and women's lives.

The "smaller holier Church", that is part of the good ole boys talking points. Blind followers are the preferred ones.

Of course as the youth get married and start their own families they may not return to the RCC. Many end up in other denominations. Latin and organ music is the best way to turn most off. They go to non-denominational and places where they think their different opinions matter. Some is more conservative sects like Baptists and some are more liberal Anglicans and ELCA Lutherans.

Todays Catholics do little or no socializing with other Catholics. This was not always the case as with the immigrant dominated church of past years. The dances, bazaars, sports organizations, etc., have all but disappeared.

The vast majority of Catholics go to Mass on Sunday, get up and go home and that is the extent of their contact with the church. The general condition is that Catholic Parishes have a small number of the parishioners who are involved in the day to day operations while the majority have little or no contact other than Sunday Mass.

This is in stark contrast to many Protestant Churches, especially the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals. Their member's social life often revolves solely around their church with one event after another. I believe that this has resulted in the group think phenomena that allowed them to become the "Useful Idiots" of Rovian politics.

Catholics have become strong individualists and as such have become far more reliant on their own conscience for determining what is right or wrong. It is my opinion that this took place with the Church's rejection of their own Papal Birth Control Commission's recommendations and refused to condone contraception. When Catholics chose to ignore the leadership demand for compliance the umbilical cord was severed for many, if not the majority, of Catholics. The lines at the confessionals dried up and the church lost a powerful tool for dominating conduct of their personal, and most importantly, their sexual conduct. I can never imagine that the Catholic Church will ever be able to regain the control that they once had of their membership. The unending cycle of guilt, confession and forgiveness was broken and most Catholics entered a brave new world of personal responsibility. Any attempt to return to the pre-Vatican II days of meek compliance would as futile as attempting to put the toothpaste back in the tube.