By Walter Russell Mead
Younger Catholics are more “conservative” on many issues than their older counterparts, according to some data buried in a new NYT/CBS news poll. In absolute numbers the poll found
that the majority of US Catholics want the next Pope to change Church
teachings on hot button issues of gender and sexuality. But the really
interesting news turned up when the numbers were broken down by age.
As other blogs have
noticed, support for female priests is at 72 percent among Catholics
aged 45-64, but at 68 percent among those 18-44. Only 11 percent of
older respondents oppose birth control, but that number ticks up to 15
percent among the young. Support for eliminating the requirement for
priestly celibacy falls by a whopping 15 percent from the older to the
younger generation.
The complete survey results found here contain
some even more impressive cross-time comparisons. The last time this
poll was taken, in 1994, 34 percent of respondents said they believed
that in the Eucharist the bread and wine really become the body and
blood of Christ, while 63 percent said they thought the Eucharist was
merely symbolic. Respondents have become more orthodox in the past
twenty years. In the recent poll 40 percent now say they believe in the
real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while 58 percent checked off
the “symbolic” box.
This poll isn’t the last word on contemporary Catholic attitudes. It
had a small sample size (580 Catholics), and 30 percent of sample are
nominal Catholics, reporting that they never attend mass or attend it
only a few times a year. But if the generational breakdown holds in the
larger population, it points to some interesting times ahead for the
Catholic Church.
The reason younger respondents are more conservative than the Boomers is likely because the rise of the non-affiliated “nones”
has picked off the more “liberal” Catholics among Gen Y. Boomers
unhappy with the Church’s teachings often remain in the Church, but in
the next generation those with more liberal instincts tend to leave the
faith altogether.
In the coming decades, then, we’re likely to see a smaller, but more
fervent Catholic Church. The “cultural Catholic” will increasingly
become an endangered species. However, that smaller church will probably
grow: Religious people have more kids, and people are drawn to
communities that have strong beliefs.
http://tinyurl.com/cm8ezn6
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