The FINANCIAL — One year into his pontificate, Pope Francis remains immensely popular among American Catholics and is widely seen as a force for positive change within the Roman Catholic Church.
The FINANCIAL — One year into his pontificate, Pope Francis remains immensely popular among American Catholics and is widely seen as a force for positive change within the Roman Catholic Church. More than eight-in-ten U.S. Catholics say they have a favorable view of the pontiff, including half who view him very favorably. The percentage of Catholics who view Francis “very favorably” now rivals the number who felt equally positive about Pope John Paul II in the 1980s and 1990s, though Francis’ overall favorability rating remains a few points shy of that of the long-serving Polish pope, according to Pew Research Center.
Seven-in-ten U.S. Catholics also now say Francis represents a major change in direction for the church, a sentiment shared by 56% of non-Catholics. And nearly everyone who says Francis represents a major change sees this as a change for the better.
But despite the pope’s popularity and the widespread perception that he is a change for the better, it is less clear whether there has been a so-called “Francis effect,” a discernible change in the way American Catholics approach their faith. There has been no measurable rise in the percentage of Americans who identify as Catholic. Nor has there been a statistically significant change in how often Catholics say they go to Mass. And the survey finds no evidence that large numbers of Catholics are going to confession or volunteering in their churches or communities more often.
But there are other indications of somewhat more intense religiosity among Catholics. About a quarter of Catholics (26%) say they have become “more excited” about their Catholic faith over the past year (outnumbering the one-in-ten who have become less excited). Four-in-ten Catholics say they have been praying more often in the past 12 months (compared with 8% who say they have been praying less often). And somewhat more Catholics say they have been reading the Bible and other religious texts more frequently (21%) than say they have been doing so less frequently (14%). None of these questions about religious practices were explicitly tied in the survey to Francis’ papacy; the questions dealing with attitudes toward Francis came elsewhere in the questionnaire.
The survey also finds growing numbers who expect that in the near future the Catholic Church will allow priests to get married; 51% think the church will make this change by the year 2050, up 12 percentage points from the days immediately following Francis’ election a year ago. But there has been less change in Catholics’ expectations about other church teachings. Roughly four-in-ten Catholics think that in the coming decades the church either definitely or probably will allow women to become priests, about the same number who held this expectation a year ago. And 56% of Catholics think the church will soon allow Catholics to use birth control, very similar to the 53% who said this last year, according to Pew Research Center.
However, support for these changes remains high among American Catholics. Nearly eight-in-ten say the church should allow Catholics to use birth control, while roughly seven-in-ten say the church should allow priests to get married and allow women to become priests.
By comparison, support for the church sanctioning same-sex marriages is lower. Half of U.S. Catholics say the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, while 43% say it should not. Roughly one-in-three – including 21% of those who do not think the church should accept same-sex marriages – say they expect the church will recognize such marriages by 2050.
These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, conducted Feb. 14-23 on landlines and cellphones among a national sample of 1,821 adults (including 351 Catholics). The survey also finds that eight-in-ten Catholics give Pope Francis excellent or good marks for spreading the Catholic faith and standing up for traditional moral values, and three-quarters say he has done an excellent or good job addressing the needs and concerns of the poor. But Francis gets lower marks for his handling of the sex abuse crisis, with 54% of Catholics giving him an excellent or good rating for his handling of the issue. One year ago, 70% of U.S. Catholics said that addressing the sex abuse scandal should be “a top priority” for the new pope, far more than said the same about standing up for traditional moral values, spreading the Catholic faith or other issues, according to Pew Research Center.
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