Editorial
Poll shows need for evangelization
There are some Catholic women in the U.S. who need to be evangelized.
Of course, we believe we could say the same about a number of Catholic men, but the results of the most comprehensive survey of U.S. Catholic women recently conducted gathered Catholic women’s—not men’s—opinions on a wide variety of issues.
Jesuit-published America magazine and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University in Washington have published some of the results in several articles in the Jan. 22 issue of America. CARA’s researchers polled 1,508 self-identified Catholic women online.
So why do these women need to be evangelized? And wouldn’t a survey geared toward men get similar results?
The survey found that only 24 percent of those women attend Mass weekly or more often (4 percent more often). Fifty-three percent attend Mass only a few times a year or never.
On the other hand, it is important to note that the millennials (born in 1982 or later) are less likely to attend Mass weekly than older Catholic women, and they are followed closely by the post-Vatican II respondents (17 percent and 18 percent respectively); it’s 53 percent for those born before 1943. And more married Catholic women attend Mass weekly (but only 29 percent) than those who are divorced or separated (19 percent), have never married (16 percent), or are living with a partner (6 percent).
Despite those low figures for Mass attendance, it’s significant that, even if they don’t practice their religion much, only 18 percent of the women surveyed said that they have seriously considered leaving the Church, and only 6 percent said that they did “for a time.” However, other surveys indicate that higher numbers are leaving the Church. And we shouldn’t be surprised if men are leaving in higher numbers, too.
When questioned about whether priests do a good job of including women in various aspects of parish life, the results show that those who go to Mass most often and, therefore, may be more aware of what’s happening in parishes, tended to say “yes” while those who don’t go to Mass tended to say “no.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, when asked if they thought that the Church should allow women 35 and older to be ordained as permanent deacons, only 7 percent of these women said “no.” Some, however, indicated that they wanted to know more about that before answering, and 12 percent said they didn’t know.
The survey found that 59 percent of the U.S. Catholic women polled are Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 38 percent who are Republicans or lean Republican. The others are undecided. Seventy-four percent of them intend to vote in 2018. If that rate proves true nationwide, that would be 18.7 million Catholic women voters.
When they vote, though, only 12 percent say they will use Catholic social teaching to help them decide how to vote, although that increases to 25 percent for those who go to Mass weekly. Only 9 percent said that statements by the U.S. bishops or their pastor will help them decide for whom to vote. However, 19 percent said that they find Pope Francis’ statements helpful.
Although they don’t say the statements help them vote, two-thirds of them said that the Church’s teachings on care for the environment are important to them, and 60 percent said the same about the teachings on abortion. When it comes to voting decisions, though, it depends on whether they are Republicans or Democrats, with Republicans more concerned about the abortion issue and Democrats more concerned with the environment.
It’s similar with a question about the importance of certain factors to the women’s sense of what it means to be a Catholic. Fifty-two percent of the Democrats said “helping the poor” was very important while 34 percent of the Republicans responded the same way. Similarly, 38 percent of the Republicans said “protecting life” was very important while 28 percent of the Democrats answered that way.
It would seem that the Catholic Church has work to do to get its message across to some Catholic women. But to be fair, we believe some men are in need of more catechesis, too.
Though this poll focused on women, it is just the latest evidence that more needs to be done to evangelize everyone, and to continue to explore why people are not living out parts of their faith.
What recent statistics reveal is it’s no wonder that secularism is winning the battle here in the United States.
—John F. Fink