CV NEWS FEED // After Pew Research Center this month published statistics about Catholics’ views on issues such as gay marriage and contraception, an article in Newsweek magazine highlighted one trend in the data: Catholics of the “Baby Boomer” generation tend to have more liberal views than younger, Millennial Catholics.
“While millennials are generally seen as a more liberal bunch than their baby boomer elders, the opposite is true in the Catholic community, according to a new Pew Research report,” Newsweek reporter Suzanne Blake wrote on April 17.
“Catholics aged 50 and older were more likely than their younger counterparts to say their church should allow female priests and contraception,” Blake highlighted. “The group was also more likely to say priests should be allowed to marry than Catholics aged 18 to 49.”
Pew’s findings are based on a survey conducted in February of over 2,000 self-identifying Catholics.
The generations’ views coincided on the topic of Pope Francis, as 75% of United States Catholics said they view Pope Francis “favorably.”
When the survey asked the participants about issues such as gay “marriage,” contraception, and female priests, the generational gaps were more apparent.
“When it came to the birth control question, 85 percent of Catholic boomers supported this, compared to just 80 percent of 18- to 49-year-olds,” Blake highlighted. “And when it came to priests getting married, the difference was even more stark: 73 percent of the older group agreed with this, compared to just 65 percent of younger Catholics.”
On the topic of women priests, 61% of the younger group expressed their support, compared to the 66% of the older group that did the same.
Blake pointed out that with the topic of gay “marriage,” the views began to coincide more closely. Of the younger group, 56% expressed their support, compared to 53% of the older group.
The survey’s findings reflect that a large percentage of self-identifying Catholics’ views conflict with the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church teaches that using contraception is a grave sin. The Church also does not recognize gay “marriage,” teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman. Finally, the Church holds that only men can become priests.
Earlier this month, Pew also published a report highlighting statistics about U.S. Catholics’ Mass attendance, and their views on abortion and politics, among other data.
As CatholicVote previously reported, “Following the article’s publication, a Catholic priest on X (formerly known as Twitter) pointed out that the surveys include large numbers of self-identifying Catholics who do not regularly practice the Faith. Polling Catholics who regularly attend Mass may have yielded different results.”
The priest, Fr. Matthew Schnieder, posted on X that future polling should “focus more on Catholics who regularly go to Mass and practice the Catholic Faith,” CatholicVote noted.
Fr. Schnieder wrote on April 13, “Given that Catholicism is a ‘sticky’ identity where people who have neither practiced nor believed for decades still identify, I think we should focus more on polls of active Catholics more than self-identifying Catholics.”
